Simon & Garfunkel BOOKENDS Orig.1968 1/1 w/POSTER+HYPE STICKER inSHRINK NM/NM LP

$

26

Hundreds of Psych, 60's and Classic Rock vinyl LPs over next few weeks.
Many 1st Pressings, Promos, Rarities and Imports included. 
Most are EX+ to NM+ condition.

Both AUCTIONS and a few Fixed-Price BUY IT NOW listings and  in this series
Each listing features several full edge-to-edge, High Resolution Photos.

All opening bids in the auction series begin at only 98¢
Being the middle of summer, I know that many of these will sell way too low, as so many bidders are away now.
So everybody here has a good shot at taking some of these beauties home! GOOD LUCK ALL!!

Shipping Worldwide -at EXACT POSTAGE Only cost
Combined Shipping Discounts

This auction is for:
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SIMON & GARFUNKEL
BOOKENDS

.COLUMBIA Records KCS 9529
Original 1968 issue • Stereo LP
1st PRESSING • Huge POSTER Included
Rare POSTER HYPE STICKER on Shrink Wrap

VINYL is NM
Full gloss, thick solid vinyl is spotless MINT on SIDE 1. Faintest sleeve wisps visible on SIDE 2, under magnification in hard bright light. LP plays Like New throughout. RED "360 SOUND" double-arrow labels are immaculate both sides.
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COVER is NM
Still in the complete, snug Shrink Wrap -with large TITLES / HYPE sticker at top, front. No creases, dings, marks or soil. All edges straight, all corners sharp.

STRICT CONSERVATIVE GOLDMINE GRADING
NM / EX(VG++) / VG+ / VG

6-PANEL 22" x 36" POSTER is NM?
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MATRIX NUMBERS
?Side One: XSM 118887 - 1D
?Side Two: XSM 118888 - 1D
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S&G Masterpiece with "Mrs. Robinson", "At The Zoo", "Fakin It", "America" and "Hazy Shade of Winter"
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COMPLETE PACKAGE includes:
Pristine POSTER
Completely intact COVER STICKER*
Clean Original INNER SLEEVE

*hard to see from the photo, because there is absolutely NO accumulated grime or impacted dust around edges of this clear sticker - it is 2" high and 11 5/8" wide, stretching across otherwise blank background of front, top of cover. ALL of the gold copy (including the Columbia logo at left) is on this sticker - the only words printed in actual front cover-art are "BOOKENDS/SIMON & GARFUNKEL", in white, at bottom edge.

This sticker is rarely found now, as it only came with first issue copies and was on the outer shrink wrap,
usually discarded after purchase.
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It would be very hard to find a cleaner, complete 1st issue!
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Disc inside separate poly inner sleeve to protect both the original inner & the vinyl.
Album kept in a protective, poly outer-sleeve.
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Simon & Garfunkel quietly slipped Bookends, their fourth album, into the bins with a whisper in March 1968.

They present a multi-layered song cycle observing the confusion of those seeking an elusive American Dream, wistfully reflecting on innocence lost forever to the cold winds of change. BOOKENDS opens with an acoustic guitar stating a theme, slowly and plaintively. It erupts into the musical dissonance that introduces "Save the Life of My Child". Its uneasy rock & roll frames highly metaphorical and ironic lyrics and a nursery rhyme bridge.

"America" is cautionary, darkly hopeful folk-rock with a lilting soprano saxophone in its refrain as a small pipe organ paints acoustic guitars, framed by the ghostly traces of classic American Songbook pop structures. Two people travel the landscape by bus searching for the song's subject, eventually discovering that everyone else on the freeway is too. Its sophisticated harmonic invention is trumped by its message; "America" becomes an ellipsis, a cipher, a hauntingly unanswerable question.

"Overs", a study about the end of a relationship, contains ingenious use of sound: lighting a cigarette and inhaling and exhaling its smoke underscore the story told by the melody and lyrics. In a two-minute field recording of the voices of old people collected from nursing homes by Garfunkel, disembodied voices reveal entire lifetimes in a few seconds.

"Old Friends" carries the message deeper. Simon's image of two old men sitting on a park bench sharing memories and their fears of the changes surrounding them is indelible. A horn section threatens to interrupt their reverie, reflecting the chaos they perceive, but is warded off as the gentle melody returns and fades into the album's opening theme.

In "Fakin' It", Simon reveals the falsity inherent in modern life -- it's better to appear to have it together than reflect the struggle of not being able to: "This feeling of fakin' it/I still haven't shaken it/I know I'm fakin' it/I'm not really makin' it."

The album's final three tracks, "Mrs. Robinson" (the iconic theme song from the film The Graduate), "A Hazy Shade of Winter" and the album's concluding track, "At the Zoo", offer a tremblingly bleak vision of the future rooted in the lives of everyday people who "fake it," living an illusory dream publicly while trembling with confusion and fear in private (no matter one's generation), subverting the Madison Avenue notion of the "generation gap" simply and honestly.

Bookends' problematic, disillusioned themes, presented in wry humor, striking arrangements, and augmented orchestral instrumentation, portray the sounds of people in an American life that they no longer understand, or understands them. Simon & Garfunkel never overstate; instead they observe, almost journalistically, enormous life and cultural questions in the process of them being asked. Bookends is stunning in its vision of a bewildered America in search of itself.

Please see my other auctions for more
Collectible, Vintage 1960's / Classic Rock LPs
including more SIMON & GARFUNKEL
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COMBINED purchases / shipping Available on items won within 7 days.
If you are purchasing MORE THAN ONE ITEM from my list, please don't pay before your last item (within 7-day period) ends -so that I can combine your LPs on the INVOICE and charge you the reduced shipping accordingly. If you are DONE purchasing, you may eMail me at that time and ask for your INVOICE right away -for quickest shipment.

My LP packing is considered to be among the very best on eBay!
All records packed with vinyl (inside inner sleeve) behind cover - and shipped in strong LP mailer boxes with bubble-wrap around all sides - sandwiched between stiff corrugated flats for best protection in the mail.
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Payment to be received within 7 days of auction end

INTERNATIONAL BUYERS NOTE:
I charge EXACT POSTAGE only, Worldwide.
*This album, with solid Vinyl and Large Poster weigh slightly more than average LP

All packages above 4 Lbs (5-6 or more LPs) can NOT ship by the low 1ST CLASS International rate.
Those must go by higher (but faster) PRIORITY or EXPRESS INTERNATIONAL RATES.
These are US Postal System rules, not mine.
I will ALWAYS offer you choices
 -the LOWEST rate that US Postal system allows - plus the FASTER, but higher rate.
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*PLEASE do not ask me to mark the item as a 'GIFT' for customs. Unfortunately, I cannot.
The postal clerks know better; I ship LPs constantly (over 30 years) and cannot fool them.