How To Identify Original Beatles Pressings Part 1 - The Parlophone Label

Some pointers to help you distinguish an original from reissue !

Just to be exact the 'Sold in UK' text was added in February of 1964 and removed in June 1969.

The only other main difference is that the first 2 mono and stereo pressings of Please Please Me were on the gold and black label.

[baronvonnachos]

This is really, really useful. Thank you.

[ronmartin]

Yes, the Pye font printers are the initial pressings for AHDN
Make sure to ID the print as being the same as the one example that was shown in the video.The stick print font Philips copies are secondary, even if the "recording first" info and NOT the circled "P" is listed on your copy.Beatles For Sale onwards, thru the Apple titles were Philips font exclusives.

[ronmartin]

Now, even through Philips was the exclusive Lp contractor, copies of Help!, Rubber Soul, and Revolver were also farmed out to Decca/Oriole, as is the Help example Jamie showed.That was a Decca/Oriole font print label copy he was showing.I consider the Philips font copies as the standards, and the Deccas as farmouts.

[ronmartin]

Basically, PPM and With were label printed by and for the inhouse Hayes(flagship)plantfor generally all copies, even though, telling by the label ring indents, farmouts to Decca and HMV were pressed because of the obvious demand.A Hard Days Night was farmed out to Our, hence the same print font you would see on the Kinks, Searchers, Sandie Shaw, Pet Clark, Rockin'Berries and others on the label, and Pickadilly, too.AHDN was to be exclusive with Oye, but the later runs were done by stick font printer Phillips, and the titles thru Let It Be were contracted exclusively to Phillips.

[ronmartin]

I'm from, believe it or not, from Pennsylvania, and knew all this info before Bruce Spizer's Parlophones book, as well.Ive zillions of various label UK 45's, Ep's and Lps from various UK based groups.Each label had their own label font charistics for easier label ID.Transfer that ID knowledge to the Beatles records by comparing the label fonts against the standard font characteristics of HMV, Deccas/Oriole, Pye/Piccadilly, Phillips, and, finally,the EMI affiliate labels, Parlophones, Columbia, Stateside, and Tamla/Motown.That simple!!

[ronmartin]

My buddy in North Jersey had sold me his entire 40 bin run of mostly Beatles, and multiple copies of them, so I'm familiar with the printing errors as well.Norweigian spelling error on certain Rubber Soul copies, etc.

[ronmartin]

This phone of mine is a pain-it types in other words instead of the ones I intended".Our" should have been Pye for AHDN.

[MultiMills]

I don't agree on the comment you make about the With the Beatles album and the RECORDING FIRST PUBLISHED 1963 was from 1964 onwards.

[awotnot]

I'm just pricing up my Beatles stuff so my son knows what's what. I'm going by matrix numbers. But what I can't find out is what "KT and MKT Tax Code" means. I can't find out if it's supposed to on the labels or the cover. What does it look like?