The Beatles Holy Grail First State Butcher Cover Stereo Yesterday & Today

$

27,900

Well here it is... The Original 1966 The Beatles Yesterday & Today Butcher Cover First State First Press Stereo - slabbed and graded at 7.0 (= VG+ due to probable record storage though cover  has original shrink under the plastic slab. 
Stereo copies are much rarer than mono copies- experts say 10 to 1 - due to the fact that in 1966 most record players still could not play Stereo records. This changed the following year and by 1968 when the White Album came out only mono copies were made in the UK - all US pressings were in stereo by then.
However, in 1966, stereo copies were much scarcer.
This is a Scranton stereo press.
The Beatles First State Butcher Cover is one of the rarest and most collectible records of all time with several sales recorded over six figures including a mono copy (not sealed or belonging to one of The Beatles or Assocoiates) in the last year! 
 The cover was pulled before release due to the feedback from advance copy recipients and were ordered to be destroyed by Capital records until the pressing plants pressed back as they had no time to remake them before the release date so the Butcher cover was replaced with a paste over trunk cover commonly referred to as a Second State. Very few First State copies survived. The Jacksonville pressing plant DID destroy all their copies and dug a hole and buried them near the Chicago river! Only the plant manager escaped with a few of these. 
The other plants, Los Angeles and Scranton pasted the new cover over but a very few slipped out into the public. Most that survived were taken by plant managers, record company executives or The Beatles and their insiders.
The record quickly sold out and word got out fast that there may be a "Butcher cover underneath their paste over". Those that had the paste "trunk" cover over the Butcher cover are referred to as Second State. 
Many original Second State presses were destroyed by consumers trying to peel the paste cover off. 
A few found that steaming these with a tea kettle produced an adequate result. These copies are known as Third State covers and are less rare and valuable than First or Second State copies, generally. However, Good Third State peeled copies can command a hefty sum but the Holy Grail is the pure First State which is what you see here. 

• As this is one of the rarest records of all time often selling in the six figure range with very few sales recorded in recent years in the condition of this record, this is priced to sell fast to a lucky collector! 
  
• I have been collecting The Beatles memorabilia for over 40 years and will be selling my entire collection over the course of the next year through various forums, including but not limited to eBay due to downsizing. I am currently in the process of cataloging my entire collection which is vast and a bit of a feat! Saying that, I may take this listing down at any time with a private sale so if you are of serious interest, please message me.