Led Zeppelin Houses of the Holy UK 1st Ludwig A2B2 OBI WIDE Spine Excellent RARE
£
57
$
76
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Description
LED ZEPPELIN
HOUSES OF THE HOLY
Original First First Press
One of Few Rare Wide Spine Gatefold Sleeves
K50014 A/2 B/2 Sterling
Obi Strip
This is a very rare 'Wide Spine' copy of this superb LP!
I would say it is Excellent condition, with totally shiny, clean vinyl, that shows very little, unless held under a harsh light, and only then it is paper rub and occasional whisp. The inner sleeve is totally intact, and textured, clean, still white with only mild age spots, and without any splits.
The wonderful, rare 'Wide Spine just a trace of shelf wear and corner wear, but the spine is totally there and strong. This also has the Obi Strip, which has the correct simple black text on the rear, is glued and only just showing some signs of yellowing, but is not damaged. And, of course, no bar code, as with later reproductions.
The 'Wide Spine' is an oddity, and there really are so very few that still exist, rather like The Beatles Sgt Pepper, which also had a short-lived Wide Spine, which is equally highly collectable, too. The rumours are the same, that both groups managements chose the narrow spine, for ease of packing, transport and manufacturing cost, and little was thought about the first batch, but, of course, today they are collectable and they went out with the other First Press accoutrements.
This is A2/B2 and were pressed first, and it has the First Press matrices in the run-off area of the vinyl, and they are:
Side One - K50014 A2, STERLING RL, B 1 B
Side Two - K50014 B2, STERLING RL, D. 7
STERLING, refers to the record being mastered at Sterling in New York.
RL: Robert Ludwig, mastering engineer. The 'C' would be the Mother, and D and 1 the Stampers.
What also sets this out as a genuine First Press and many also get this so wrong on Ebay, is that there are
no markings of any kind on the front, back or inner sleeve, nor the spine. Atlantic Records, much against Jimmy Page and Robert Plant's wishes, issued an ‘Obi’ style strip to identify the band and album title. In reality Page & Plant were a nightmare for the retail side, as there had to be some way of visual labelling! However, it was dropped for subsequent pressings, probably more due to cost of printing, sticking and manually having to put onto hundreds of thousands of records!
Inner sleeves are textured heavy card and carry a credit to the printer: MacNeill Press Limited. An Atlantic Records Distributed By WEA, credit, and Superhype. Along with Jimmy Page as sole Producer.
Label notes:
Copyright statement within orange segment.
No ‘WEA’ logo after copyright statement.
Made in UK on labels. Superhype Publishing, which was dropped in later presses, and Produced by Jimmy Page.
All subsequent presses had the copyright statement encroaching into the green segment, 'W' logo after statement.
The gatefold sleeve is mat, and full orange!
So in summary:
Labels: Excellent
Sleeve: Excellent
Inner sleeve: Very Good ++
OBI strip : Excellent
Visual : Very Good +
Audio : Excellent
So there we have it! An uber rare record and fully complete. These don't come up often!
Record will be sent bombproof outside of sleeve and with spare inner sleeve.
1st class postage and no messing about refund if not happy with purchase. (I know what it's like when buying records!)
Happy Bidding!
price rating
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