Blue Note Minutiae

[mikeslps]

Hi all,

I am selling some rare Jazz LPs for a friend. I have been in the used record business for 15 years so I am NOT a newbie. However, I have one that is a bit perplexing. Is there any way I can tell what pressing of Horace Silver's "Further Explorations" is contained within the factory sealed cover? There is no address at the bottom of the back cover. It is quite heavy when compared to some Liberty pressings I have lying about. I am fairly certain that it will be a 63rd St. original, but could it also be a NY, USA? It is a HIGH FIDELITY mono pressing of 1589. If any users here own NEW York, USA and/or 63rd St. pressings, I'd love to hear what address if any is on the bottom of the back cover.

I am not entertaining offers for this, so please don't ask. Hopefully we can all get a little education on this rarity. Thanks in advance. In return for everyone's help, I will be offering up some CDs for the Pay-it forward thread. Thanks again to all for their assistance and happy listening.

[sidewinder]

I have a copy of this which might match your description. It is in a heavy vinyl mono with '47W63rd' but no deep groove, RVG but no ear on the vinyl and with 'High Fidelity' on the back cover on the top left, no address on the bottom, laminated front. I think it's a very early Liberty from 1966. Sound quality is absolutely superb by the way - better than one would ever expect from the Liberty era (but some of these reissues can be very good indeed). I believe the story was that after the sale to Liberty, there was a big stock of old labels and they used them up with the 'new' non-Plastylite vinyl.

Somewhere in the rack I have a (presumably original) 47W63rd deep groove mono with ear but it's currently elusive. Sorry !

Edited December 7, 2007 by sidewinder

[brownie]

My copy of 'Further Explorations' seems to be from the same batch as mikeslps.

It's heavy vinyl.

Both sides have deepgrooves, 63rd St. label adress and RVG stamp

No adress at the bottom of the back liner notes.

[michel1969]

Some Blue Note do not have originally any adress on back : 1589 Silver, Rollins 1581, Blakey 4015, 4016 among some others.

Like many Horace, it was a good seller, so its been reissued various dates. You can find many labels of this one....

[mikeslps]

Some Blue Note do not have originally any adress on back : 1589 Silver, Rollins 1581, Blakey 4015, 4016 among some others.

Like many Horace, it was a good seller, so its been reissued various dates. You can find many labels of this one....

I know it's been re-issued a bunch of times. I'm just wondering if the later pressings had addresses on the back cover. I wish I still had my record collection so I could check a bunch of records. If anyone has any of the Blue Notes from the high 1500s to the low to mid 4000's I'd love to know if later pressings from the NY, USA label variation still had no address on the back cover or if they re-laid out the cover and added the address.

I know I can't be certain which pressing is inside a sealed cover......just trying to learn a little and do some detective work. Can anyone "weigh" in on the subject of wether or not a W 63rd St. pressing weighs differently than a New York, USA. I'm sure it weighs more than a Liberty pressing. I know this is getting geeky, but that seems to be a big part of collecting. Thanks again to everyone for weighing in the subject.

[porcy62]

My copy has no address, 'High Fidelity' on the back cover on the top left, thick cardboard. Labels: one side DG (side 2), 63rd St. label address, RVG stamp and "ear" on both sides. Heavy vinyl. About the weight, I presume that an early plastilyte "ear" NY reissue is more or less the same of a late 63rd St. Just guessing. I have the feeling that the early Lexington's were heavier, but since I quitted to sell dope MANY, MANY, MANY, years ago I sold my precison balance, I am sorry that I couldn't check it out.

Edited December 8, 2007 by porcy62

[WD45]

Re: sealed LPs -- in the shop where I used to work, the boss wouldn't shell out major $ for sealed LPs because of the potential fraud factor. Shrinkwrapping isn't so hard to duplicate. We had a machine in the back of the store! [it wasn't used for LPs, but for used CDs. They stopped using it when everyone wanted to check the condition or listen to them.]

[porcy62]

Re: sealed LPs -- in the shop where I used to work, the boss wouldn't shell out major $ for sealed LPs because of the potential fraud factor. Shrinkwrapping isn't so hard to duplicate. We had a machine in the back of the store! [it wasn't used for LPs, but for used CDs. They stopped using it when everyone wanted to check the condition or listen to them.]

I agree, I bought few expensive sealed records, and I had to ship one or two back because they were worn, unplayed, but worn.

[michel1969]

According to larry Cohn, Blue Note were NOT sold new sealed prior to liberty era. Sealed copies of pre 66 titles are often older pressings sealed later to be sold to discount shop.... I don't think sealed Blue Note attract premium prices, especially because of the good reasons stated above by the honourable Porcy.

Edited December 8, 2007 by Michel

[six string]

To throw in my two cents worth (because that's all it's worth), I would open the record and look at it. Otherwise everything is speculation and there's too much room for fraud. You also may devalue what you have without knowing what it is. As a record collector, I would rather buy a known entity than a maybe. If it's truly new and never been played, it will still bring a lot of $$$ in an auction. If it's not new and it's less than pristine, you will look bad and you will have a headache on your hands that you don't need.

[porcy62]

According to larry Cohn, Blue Note were NOT sold new sealed prior to liberty era. Sealed copies of pre 66 titles are often older pressings sealed later to be sold to discount shop.... I don't think sealed Blue Note attract premium prices, especially because of the good reasons stated above by the honourable Porcy.

Thanks Michel,

BUT I won an eBay auction for a sealed Shorter's 'JUJU' that ended up with an unplayed mint NY 'ear' mono pressing, though I have to say that my bid wasn't conditioned too much by the word "sealed", rather then by the fact that I really wanted a mono pressing of the record, one of my fave BN Shorter's session. So Cohn may be right and I was only lucky that a spare mint 'ear' NY pressing was sealed by Liberty when they toked over.

On the other hand I shipped back a sealed, and unplayed copy, of a Velvet Underground's record that was evidently a mispressed vinyl destinated to trash and recovered somewhere by the seller. A nice seller BTW, I got a fully refund for it.

The joy and the pain of collecting vinyl.

Edited December 8, 2007 by porcy62

[mikeslps]

I will create a short video of me opening to verify the pressing so that anyone who puts a premium on a SEALED copy can be sure that it was , until recently, sealed. Thanks again for all the input.

[porcy62]

I will create a short video of me opening to verify the pressing so that anyone who puts a premium on a SEALED copy can be sure that it was , until recently, sealed. Thanks again for all the input.

Hey, we were trying to answer at your question, all the guys checked out their copy of Silver and wroted down informations, and add some suggestions coming from personal experience, no need to be rude. Nobody here said you're trying to fraud anybody. Or I misunderstood the tone of your post

Edited December 8, 2007 by porcy62

[mikeslps]

I will create a short video of me opening to verify the pressing so that anyone who puts a premium on a SEALED copy can be sure that it was , until recently, sealed. Thanks again for all the input.

Hey, we were trying to answer at your question, all the guys checked out their copy of Silver and wroted down informations, and add some suggestions coming from personal experience, no need to be rude. Nobody here said you're trying to fraud anybody. Or I misunderstood the tone of your post

WOW,

I think you're not reading me right or I'm not expressing myself right. It seems that there are too many possibilites and the only way to be sure is to open it. I just re-read my post and see that it could be read sarcastically, but that was NOT the way it was intended. I just now that I ALWAYS pay extra for shrinkwrap and I would definitely pay extra for a sealed copy for myself if I knew it was an original (and also knew that it wasn't a reseal). But that seems to be too many ifs and buts. I think it is probably best to lay the cards out on the table. But for collector geekiness sake, I'd love for the next owner to know that regardless of what pressing it is.......it was sealed until some time in late 2007 or early 2008. I sure hope it is an unplayed Deep Groove 1st pressing.

[porcy62]

I will create a short video of me opening to verify the pressing so that anyone who puts a premium on a SEALED copy can be sure that it was , until recently, sealed. Thanks again for all the input.

Hey, we were trying to answer at your question, all the guys checked out their copy of Silver and wroted down informations, and add some suggestions coming from personal experience, no need to be rude. Nobody here said you're trying to fraud anybody. Or I misunderstood the tone of your post

WOW,

I think you're not reading me right or I'm not expressing myself right. It seems that there are too many possibilites and the only way to be sure is to open it. I just re-read my post and see that it could be read sarcastically, but that was NOT the way it was intended. I just now that I ALWAYS pay extra for shrinkwrap and I would definitely pay extra for a sealed copy for myself if I knew it was an original (and also knew that it wasn't a reseal). But that seems to be too many ifs and buts. I think it is probably best to lay the cards out on the table. But for collector geekiness sake, I'd love for the next owner to know that regardless of what pressing it is.......it was sealed until some time in late 2007 or early 2008. I sure hope it is an unplayed Deep Groove 1st pressing.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I am italian, so it's not so easy for me to get the tone of your post. No problems

[andybleaden]

I thought that was the case with the sealed records only coming in with Liberty Records but maybe I am wrong. You may be asked by a buyer to open it I guess. I used to think sealed meant unplayed until once when I got a 'reseal' that was clearly played ( not that much but played all the same.

Years later I came across a store that had a sealer and I had to move and resealed all my records while decorating /plastering etc to keep em dust free...unsealed em afterwards when I played em but some were sold as resealed but slit open to show.