SIMON & GARFUNKEL BOOKENDS INSANELY RARE LP ORIG'68 TEST PRESSING SHRINK +POSTER

$

612

WE CURRENTLY HAVE   MORE THAN 1,000  LISTED ITEMS

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·       SIMON AND GARFUNKEL - BOOKENDS – ORIGINAL 1968 COLUMBIA RECORDS STEREO LP KCS-9529

·       ORIGINAL U.S. PRESSING

·        INSANELY RARE ORIGINAL 1968 COLUMBIA TEST PRESSING – PROBABLY THE ONLY COPY THAT WILL EVER BE OFFERED ON EBAY

·       INCLUDES LARGE ORIGINAL POSTER OF THE DUO IN BEAUTIFUL CONDITION

·       PLAIN, GENERIC WHITE COLUMBIA, PITMAN, NJ PRESSING PLANT TEST PRESSING LABEL WITH ONLY COLUMBIA'S FACILITY'S NAME, AND HANDRWRITTEN LABEL,  WITH MISSPELLED ALBUM TITLE AND ARTIST NAME !!! - THE NAME OF THE DUO WAS MISSPELLED AS "SIMON AND GARFUNKLE" (SIC), WHILE THE ALBUM TITLE WAS MISSPELLED AS "BOOK ENDS" (???)

·       We should note that this album – like all test pressings – originally came in a plain white, generic cardboard cover  . To provide a complete album to the winning bidder (both original cover AND the test pressing of the record), we will ship this test pressing with the original stock cover of this album (taken from our personal collection). This way, the winner gets to have the best of  both worlds: the beautiful TEST PRESSING as well as a stunning original cover, in shrink wrap, with stickers, and original cover enclosed.

·       THIS IS THE ORIGINAL, AUTHENTIC, FIRST U.S. TEST PRESSING; THIS IS NOT A REISSUE, AN IMPORT, OR A COUNTERFEIT PRESSING.

·       ORIGINAL, THICK CARDBOARD COVER (AMERICAN STYLE)

·       COVER IS STILL IN ITS ORIGINAL SHRINK (CELLOPHANE) WRAP WITH TWO (2) NIFTY STICKERS STILL AFFIXED TO THE WRAP

·       CLEAN, WEAR-FREE LABELS

·       THICK, HEAVY VINYL PRESSING

·       MATRIX NUMBER IN TRAIL-OFF VINYL (DEAD WAX) ENDS WITH "-1G/-1H".  ON SOME LABELS, THIS  INDICATES THE VERY FIRST, ORIGINAL PRESSING

(►PLEASE SEE THE IMAGE OF THE COVER, LABEL OR BOTH, SHOWN BELOW)

(Note: this is a REAL image of the ACTUAL item you are bidding on. This is NOT a "recycled" image from our previous auction. What you see is what you’ll get.  GUARANTEED!)

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In March of 1968, Robert Kennedy was still alive and offering a vision for a way out to the America that had deeply entrenched itself in the Vietnam War. The inner-city rebellions in 1967 had shaken the youth culture's image of their own summer of love in that year. The beginning of America's crippling identity crisis had begun to shudder through the culture that would erupt with the death of Kennedy later that spring and the tragedy of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago later that summer. Before it was all over, Martin Luther King, Jr. had also lost his life. In pop culture, rock was exploding everywhere in Western culture. The impact of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band and the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds -- both made in 1966 -- and the appearance of Jimi Hendrix on the pop scene in 1967 had ushered in a new way of making records, a way that not only referred to and portrayed everyday life but was part of its acceptance for what it was before attempting to transcend it. Earlier that spring, Simon and Garfunkel had slipped their fourth album into the bins with a whisper, the confoundingly literary, profoundly poetic and stunningly beautiful Bookends. As a pair, the two were seemingly equal collaborators with producer and engineer Roy Halee on a highly textured, multi-layered song cycle that offered observations on everything from urban crises that were symptomatic of larger issues, the prospect of old age and death, the loss and dislocation of those who desperately wanted to inherit an American Dream but not the one offered to them, surreal yet wistful reflections on youthful innocence lost forever to the cold winds of change.

Bookends is a literary album that contains the most minimal of openings with the theme, an acoustic guitar stating itself slowly and plaintively before erupting into the wash of synthesizers and dissonance that is "Save the Life of My Child." The uneasy rock & roll that carries the song through its disaster and the revelation of "Oh my grace, I've got no hiding place," which is the mere hint of what is to come in this wide open terrain of the previously familiar but completely unknown. The classic "America" is next, a folk song with a lilting soprano saxophone in the refrain and a small pipe organ painting the acoustic guitars in the more poignant verses. The song relies on pop structures to carry its message of hope and disillusionment as two people travel the American landscape searching for it until it dawns on them that everyone else on the freeway is doing the same thing. Its sweetness and sophisticated melodic invention are toppled by the message of the song and it becomes an ellipsis, a cipher, turned back on itself into disappearance, wondering what question to ask next. The sound of a lit cigarette is the opening of "Overs," a balladic study in the emptiness at the end of the relationship. The sound of inhaling and exhaling of the smoke tells the entire story. Also woven into the mix is a two-minute field recording of the voices of old people made by Garfunkel, collected from nursing homes and centers for the aged. The disembodied voices are chilling and heartbreakingly beautiful in their different observations, entire lifetimes summed up in a few seconds. This interlude leads into "Old Friends," which carries the message deeper as the image of two old men sitting on a park bench in languid statements of life lived ordinarily but poetically share not only their memories but also the commonality of their fear. A horn section threatens to interrupt the reverie, carrying the chaos they feel, their lack of control over current events, but is warded off as denial and the gentleness of the melody returns and fades into the album's opening theme, suggesting that we preserve our memories. As "Fakin' It" kicks to the fore, we feel the separation inherent in Simon's generational view of the unconscious separation of heart and mind. The tune is as full of hooks as a fishing boat and Halee swipes a bit from the Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" and eases orchestral layers into the mix, subtly of course, but ever-present and recognizable nonetheless. With "Fakin' It," the depth of the album's meditation presents itself in earnest. Synth lines and handclaps give way to snare drums and acoustic guitars, and the first appearance of loss shows itself for what it is, the passing of life, moment by moment, memory by memory so quickly, that pretending is somehow preferable to the reality of everyday life. When the horn section and strings bring the crescendos and the lyric asserts, "This feeling of fakin' it/I still haven't shaken it/I know I'm fakin' it/I'm not really makin' it." Even Leonard Cohen's dark prophecies never stated the case so plainly -- in a folk-rock tune. The identity crisis inherent in the jazzy "Punky's Dilemma" melds the loss of innocence and childhood with the cynicism of present-day living. The final four tracks of the original album, "Mrs. Robinson," the theme song for the film The Graduate, "A Hazy Shade of Winter," and the album's final track, the George-influenced "At the Zoo," offer as tremblingly bleak a vision for the future as any thing done by the Velvet Underground, but rooted in the lives of everyday people, not in the decadent underground personages of New York's Factory studio. But the album is also a warning that to pay attention is to take as much control of one's fate as possible. That S&G never overstate the case here, never preach to the converted but instead almost journalistically observe the questions in the process of their being asked is a monumental achievement. That they did so in three- and four-minute pop songs is almost inconceivable for the time.

 (EXCERPT FROM AN ONLINE REVIEW BY THOM JUREK, ALL MUSIC GUIDE  /ALLMUSIC.COM/)

For its extraordinary contribution to the modern music, superb production, craftsmanship, fine musicianship, revolutionary significance and influence it exerted on numerous generations of musicians, writers and general public, or for some other innate quality, this album was voted one of top-200 albums of all time in one of the largest poll of critics, music reviewers, professionals and producers ever organized: the poll, which was conducted by Paul Gambaccini, legendary BBC Radio A&R man, surveyed more than 50 top music professionals (including Roy Carr, Jonathan Cott, Robert Christgau, Cameron Crowe, Chet Flippo, Ben Fong-Torres, Charlie Gillett, Greil Marcus, Murray the K., Lenny Kaye, Bruce Morrow (a/k/a "Cousin Brucie"), Tim Rice (of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "Evita" fame), Lisa Robinson, Robert Shelton (who wrote liner notes for Bob Dylan's first album), Ed Ward, Joel Whitburn, Pete Wingfield, etc.). For more details, see: "Critics Choice: Top-200 albums" compiled by Paul Gambaccini, Omnibus Press, Library of Congress Catalog No.7855565 (or ►click here  for the complete album listing).

For additional historical or discography information on this album, including track listing ►click here

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We proudly present one of the RAREST and MOST IMPORTANT Rock artifacts we have ever offered on eBay. What we have here is an unheard-of TEST PRESSING of this classic Simon & Garfunkel album – easily one of three greatest and most fully realized  albums the Duo ever recorded (and the personal favorite of just about every S&G fan across the globe).

This album comes from a personal collection of a high-ranking Columbia executive who lovingly collected each and every complementary copy he`d received from the label (whether stock, promo or, in this case, test pressing).

TO SEE IF WE HAVE OTHER LISTED ITEMS BY THIS GROUP OR ARTIST ►  CLICK HERE

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·                               CONDITION:

·                               RECORD

 (IMPORTANT NOTE: unless otherwise noted, ALL records are graded visually, and NOT play-graded!; we  grade records under the strong, diffuse room light or discrete sunlight)

(a)          WE GRADE THE VINYL AS STRONG VG++. A few light abrasions  ARE VISIBLE, but they appear fairly  insignificant relative to the overall condition of the vinyl, and are only moderately visually distracting. For most part, the vinyl looks impeccable, without any MAJOR visual flaws or imperfections. Much of the original luster is intact, and the vinyl shines and sparkles almost like new.

(b)          The album comes with the original poster still intact, AND IN BEAUTIFUL CONDITION.

(c)           The record comes in the original stock inner sleeve.

(d)          The record is pressed on a beautiful, thick, inflexible vinyl, which was usually used for the first or very early pressings. Usually, the sound on such thick vinyl pressings is full-bodied, vivid, and even dramatic. Do not expect to obtain such a majestic analog sound from a digital recording!

(e)           Of course, this is a full-bodied ANALOG recording, and not an inferior, digital recording!!!

·       COVER

COVER IS STRONG NEAR MINT,  STILL IN ITS ORIGINAL ►SHRINK WRAP

The following flaws or imperfections are noted on the cover:

-         Cover has JUST A HINT of ring wear (nothing significant); On the scale from 1 to 10 (1 being the least, and  10 being the most severe), we assess the severity of ring wear as 1  (front side) and 2 (back side).

-         Minor shelf wear noted on the opening side (nothing significant)

-         Cover has two corners slightly worn (nothing significant)

NO OTHER IMPERFECTIONS ON THE COVER:

-        No split seams

-        No cut-out (drill) holes.

-        No cut-out corners

-        No saw-marks or indents

-        No dirt/dust rubbing stains (friction marks caused by rubbing against other covers)

-        No wrinkles or creases

-        No yellowing from aging

-        No writing

-        No stamps

-        No peel-off marks

-        No stains

-        No mold or mildew spots

-        No stickers or labels

-        No water damage

-        No razor marks, scratches, pressure marks, lines, streaks, or  cuts.

-        No warping

-        No wax, glue, paint or liquid drops on the cover

-        No glue traces or wax residue.

-        No bar codes

-        No RIAA stamps or stickers. 

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POSTAGE & SHIPPING:

We offer THREE postage rates for both Domestic and International Mail: Media Mail, Priority Mail and Express Mail for domestic, and First Class, Priority International Mail, and Express International Mail for international orders. INTERNATIONAL CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOMMEND that you pay for USPS International Priority Mail OR International Express mail when making a payment in order to obtain tracking information, which is NOT available for First Class International shipments.

INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE rates vary from country to country. For SPECIFIC international and domestic postage rates ►click here. While you can be rest assured that ►our packaging is careful, sturdy and impact-proof, please note that damage, loss or theft in transit is always possible, and in the case of some countries even PROBABLE. To discuss this potential problem and ensure flawless delivery, please contact us thru eBay BEFORE placing a bid.

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OUR REFUND POLICY :

WE OFFER UNCONDITIONAL MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE WITHIN 14 DAYS FROM THE RECEIPT OF THE MERCHANDISE, NO QUESTIONS ASKED (THE BUYER PAYS FOR THE RETURN POSTAGE); Still sealed items MUST be returned sealed in order to be eligible for a refund Some restrictions apply. Please read our complete refund policy before placing a bid. ►Click here  for the full text of our policy

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