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Two Virgins Mono Sleeve
Topic Started: Apr 1 2016, 08:47 AM (1,810 Views)
muffmasterh
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namralos,Apr 3 2016
11:01 PM
It interests me that the printer seems to have reverted to the earlier "mono" design AFTER printing a run of the correct "text on back" sleeves. Maybe when the demand for the LP did emerge, they were unable to locate the corrected cover design.

was there not only supposed to be 5000 of these pressed in the UK ? however i do admit i do think such a number is very conservative.
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muffmasterh
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ps, just had a thought, what if these " non laminateds " were printed in Europe to house imported UK vinyls ? the fact that they are turning up on the continent may be an indication of this ?
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servi
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namralos,Apr 3 2016
11:01 PM
It interests me that the printer seems to have reverted to the earlier "mono" design AFTER printing a run of the correct "text on back" sleeves. Maybe when the demand for the LP did emerge, they were unable to locate the corrected cover design.

Indeed interesting. Some possibilities:
- EMI did not have the stereo artwork, as it may have been prepared by Technink ? Both A is for Apple and Eight arms to hold you argue that the mono version was made by EMI and the stereo of course by Track.
- Both sleeve versions were used for the stereo LP. Some stereo copies came with the laminated "mono" design, we know that. There is too few mono copies to be sure that this artwork was meant solely for the mono release. It makes no sense anyway as the sleeve does not say mono or stereo.
- no one bothered and someone took out the "mono" artwork by accident.
- someone noticed the US artwork and took the "mono" design as it matches the US version.

I doubt as well that there are 5000 copies. Stampers go to at least 14, so conservatively estimated that is 30,000 copies at least. Maybe some were exported to Europe, that is very plausible. Good observation muffmaster. We would need to see foreign Apple catalogues to see if the LP was available. Holland was the only country to release the LP in Europe, on the Apple Negram label.
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TheFlesh
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NICE ONE!! I've seen these Mono sleeves sell for ridiculous money...I missed out on one myself and was very angry...it wasn't advertised as Mono and sold cheap...most of the copies that I have seen sell near $1,000 and have been paired with a Stereo disc...this is HIGH on my WANT LIST....WELL DONE!!! :D
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servi
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Thanks. The mono sleeves that sell for that kind of money are the near mint and mint ones (like Parlogram's copy). Thec difference between near mint and lesser quality copies is huge in terms of value.
I paid 130 euros for this one, but it was a gamble because the pictures were blurry and there was a chance that this was fake (in fact I have only been convinced since the comments in this thread). The disc is EX at least, except for a strange mark on one side which doesn't go away when cleaning it.
We should call this the second stereo sleeve. The laminated one is the true mono. But if you want to make money then they are both mono ;)
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namralos
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The US copies are "halfway in between" the mono and stereo copies. They have
the McCartney quote and the title on the front cover and the Apple Records (etc.) information, the date, and "Made in Merrie England" on the back cover.

It could be that EMI printed up a batch of covers for the final run, but EMI's printers normally laminated. As for Technink, they had ceased to exist by the start of January, 1971.
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/4...nt/453/data.pdf
According to the October 2, 1970, issue of the Gazette the company was inactive at that time. As far as I can tell, Technink only EVER printed the cover to Two Virgins.

Was Technink a German company operating in the UK? (Technink is German for "technology," is it not?)
Was Technink set up by people at EMI or Apple for the express purpose of printing Two Virgins?

A GA (= 13) stamper could mean that there are as many as 13 x 5000 = 65000 copies in circulation. If some stampers were useless, that would reduce the number, of course.
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muffmasterh
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namralos,Apr 4 2016
10:15 PM
The US copies are "halfway in between" the mono and stereo copies. They have
the McCartney quote and the title on the front cover and the Apple Records (etc.) information, the date, and "Made in Merrie England" on the back cover.

It could be that EMI printed up a batch of covers for the final run, but EMI's printers normally laminated. As for Technink, they had ceased to exist by the start of January, 1971.
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/4...nt/453/data.pdf
According to the October 2, 1970, issue of the Gazette the company was inactive at that time. As far as I can tell, Technink only EVER printed the cover to Two Virgins.

Was Technink a German company operating in the UK? (Technink is German for "technology," is it not?)
Was Technink set up by people at EMI or Apple for the express purpose of printing Two Virgins?

A GA (= 13) stamper could mean that there are as many as 13 x 5000 = 65000 copies in circulation. If some stampers were useless, that would reduce the number, of course.

yes and i have always thought the number of 5000 on the high side just as the oft used 300 per stamper on the very low side, i suspect the truth as ever may be somewhere in between.

As this album was distributed by track maybe they had something to do with Tecknik being contracted, although as we know EMI still pressed the discs and did so even though they knew track would be distributing ( because the labels with the track logo would have to had been printed prior to the records being pressed as part of the process ), all in all a very odd affair.
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Garfield
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namralos,Apr 4 2016
10:15 PM
The US copies are "halfway in between" the mono and stereo copies. They have
the McCartney quote and the title on the front cover and the Apple Records (etc.) information, the date, and "Made in Merrie England" on the back cover.

It could be that EMI printed up a batch of covers for the final run, but EMI's printers normally laminated. As for Technink, they had ceased to exist by the start of January, 1971.
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/4...nt/453/data.pdf
According to the October 2, 1970, issue of the Gazette the company was inactive at that time. As far as I can tell, Technink only EVER printed the cover to Two Virgins.

Was Technink a German company operating in the UK? (Technink is German for "technology," is it not?)
Was Technink set up by people at EMI or Apple for the express purpose of printing Two Virgins?

A GA (= 13) stamper could mean that there are as many as 13 x 5000 = 65000 copies in circulation. If some stampers were useless, that would reduce the number, of course.

TECHNINK isn't a german word, in german it is spelled Technik.
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namralos
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My mistake, Garfield.
I saw quite a few pages like this:
http://haendler.autoscout24.de/kfz-technink-hansinger
http://www.tus-schleiden.de/album/Ju%20Jut...2011/index.html

I thought maybe it meant "technology" or (more broadly) "equipment."
https://www.dsi.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/...otostrecke.html

As to the number 5000, the guy who worked at Hayes said that they could press up to 10000 copies per stamper and that 5000 was an average. If a stamper broke, of course, it would be tossed.
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muffmasterh
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namralos,Apr 5 2016
11:53 AM
My mistake, Garfield.
I saw quite a few pages like this:
http://haendler.autoscout24.de/kfz-technink-hansinger
http://www.tus-schleiden.de/album/Ju%20Jut...2011/index.html

I thought maybe it meant "technology" or (more broadly) "equipment."
https://www.dsi.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/...otostrecke.html

As to the number 5000, the guy who worked at Hayes said that they could press up to 10000 copies per stamper and that 5000 was an average. If a stamper broke, of course, it would be tossed.

the only reason i have a problem with the 5000 average is that does that not give an very overhigh figure of discs pressed against actual sales ?.

This however could be explained if stampers were often fractured in the process before they even pressed a disc so a lot of stampers effectively simply never existed as far as pressings were concerned....
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servi
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IMO 5000 per stamper may not be too unrealistic, although I think that is the maximum. The average is probably lower. A record like PMC7067 for example had approx. 400 stampers in total in the UK (the highest stampers for side 1 start with M). So about 2 million copies if all stampers produced 5000 records. Of course some pressed less. Also some stampers may have been sent abroad.(although these may have been left out of the GRAMOPHLTD numbering system). How many copies did the mono Pepper sell from 1967 to early seventies ? Preorder already was a few hundred thousand I believe….
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Garfield
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namralos,Apr 5 2016
11:53 AM
My mistake, Garfield.
I saw quite a few pages like this:
http://haendler.autoscout24.de/kfz-technink-hansinger
http://www.tus-schleiden.de/album/Ju%20Jut...2011/index.html

I thought maybe it meant "technology" or (more broadly) "equipment."
https://www.dsi.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/...otostrecke.html

As to the number 5000, the guy who worked at Hayes said that they could press up to 10000 copies per stamper and that 5000 was an average. If a stamper broke, of course, it would be tossed.

Yes, Technik means technology.

the technink may be a spelling mistake, you can find several on the net.
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muffmasterh
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servi,Apr 5 2016
12:25 PM
IMO 5000 per stamper may not be too unrealistic, although I think that is the maximum. The average is probably lower. A record like PMC7067 for example had approx. 400 stampers in total in the UK (the highest stampers for side 1 start with M). So about 2 million copies if all stampers produced 5000 records. Of course some pressed less. Also some stampers may have been sent abroad.(although these may have been left out of the GRAMOPHLTD numbering system). How many copies did the mono Pepper sell from 1967 to early seventies ? Preorder already was a few hundred thousand I believe….

yes and we are only talking mono i presume, so did pepper sell 2 million mono copies from 1967-1970 ? i personally doubt it.....I am not even sure there were 2 million sold even if you include the stereo ?

do we know what the highest stereo stamper is , as stereo sales 67-70 would be a lot less than the mono....

Album sales only really started going mega in the 70's ( i think they overtook singles sales around 68 ) as album prices did not raise in line with wage inflation and so by 73 or so became much more relatively affordable
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servi
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Highest stamper I found was around 450. According to several sources it sold 250k copies in the first week, but a million was reached in 1973. So if you estimate somewhat more than the half was mono (let's say 600k) you would have 1300 copies on average per stamper. Could be higher for singles, that's where the 5000 may come from.

See below side 1 vs side 2 stamper plotted (mono version xex637-1 and 638-1).

Posted Image

If you do the estimation for Two Virgins : 15 stampers gives approximately 20-30,000 copies, some exported maybe some confiscated who knows...
Most forums on the internet mention around 1000 copies per stamper for an LP nowadays.
Has anyone ever handled a TV mono copy, or seen stampers and matrix numbers on a mono copy ?
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muffmasterh
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servi,Apr 5 2016
05:15 PM
Highest stamper I found was around 450. According to several sources it sold 250k copies in the first week, but a million was reached in 1973. So if you estimate somewhat more than the half was mono (let's say 600k) you would have 1300 copies on average per stamper. Could be higher for singles, that's where the 5000 may come from.

See below side 1 vs side 2 stamper plotted (mono version xex637-1 and 638-1).

Posted Image

If you do the estimation for Two Virgins : 15 stampers gives approximately 20-30,000 copies, some exported maybe some confiscated who knows...
Most forums on the internet mention around 1000 copies per stamper for an LP nowadays.
Has anyone ever handled a TV mono copy, or seen stampers and matrix numbers on a mono copy ?

NO never seen a mono 2 virgins

great research Servi, i am much more comfortable with a figure of around 1500...
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