First, we will look at Robert Johnson’s King of the Delta Blues…a 1963 Mono issue of this classic compilation. It has the 2-eye Columbia labels that are specific to the 63 release.
The cover of this one is solid, but does show a little normal shelf wear and age. There is some light ring wear on both front and back, the back cover top shows some age spotting/dirt. All liner notes are fully readable. The top edge has a small spot (about an inch) of poor factory gluing – it is not split, but it is noted. Spine is bumped, but solid.
Columbia inner (original?) and labels are wonderfully clean. On the wax, I did see a few very light storage related marks that I didn’t see the first time I graded it, but they are not too deep or too many…I did play test the whole record today, and there are random pops throughout – some were more pronounced than others, none got in the way for me. (The originals were recorded onto acetates in 37-38, so it’s never going to be pristine!) I didn’t hear anything that was consistent in the repeated revolutions – if there were any like that, they were not prolonged enough for me to notice.
So, overall I still consider this one to be in pretty nice shape, especially for a rare 50-year-old record. It does have some random surface pops that are NOT going to clean out – though it did benefit from me cleaning it. There are light scuffs on it from storage on each side – they don’t look like they come from play. I would still rate it as a VG+, but it is pushing on VG status because of the random pops. I enjoyed playing the record again – I have it on CD as well, but prefer the warmth of this mono record to the playback of the compact disc.
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And here, we are looking at Neil Young’s On the Beach, the 1974 Pitman Pressing.
This copy is a cutout, as you can see by the corner cut, bottom right. The cover is otherwise clean with normal wear. It has a little bit of ring wear that you can see on both sides, but it is light. The spine and edges are all solid.
The inner is the factory original, with special pictures on eachside. The edges of the inner are not split, indicating it did not go in and out of it too often. The labels are pristine, though they each have “MJB” in small, black felt tip pen. On side 2, I saw a small mark in the label that looked like a continuance from the mark I saw in the vinyl.
As for the wax, I did not see anything to report except at the end of side two, on Ambulance Blues. I spun that to hear it and make sure it doesn’t skip, which I will confirm. However, there is a repetitive click that comes from it, and I couldn’t clean it off. It becomes most pronounced at the end of the song, but it is fairly persistent throughout the song. This was the only thing I saw in the vinyl, but it will be there…would bet it is close to NM otherwise.
Click any image to see it larger. Recorded play tests on request.
