[78-L] brilliant offer!

[Michael Biel]

Michael Shoshani wrote:
> On Sun, 2010-03-28 at 15:05 -0400, Michael Biel wrote:
>
>   
>> The IDIOT!  It is the BLACK vinyl copies that are rare, not the blue 
>> ones!!!!  But this four-part set is rather unique!
>>     
>
> Seconded. The normal run of the mill Moody Blue album was pressed in
> blue vinyl. That was a play on the name, as it were. It stayed blue even
> after Elvis died.
>   

Actually, it *returned* to blue after he died.  Originally only the 
first half millian or so were to be blue.  They started pressing them in 
black a couple of weeks *before* he died.  I was in Chicago's Sound Good 
store the morning after he died when my good friend Rich Markow, then 
assistant manager of the store, received a Victor shipment he had 
ordered a few days earlier.  When he opened the box of Moody Blue, there 
were no stickers on the shrink wrap, and sure enough, the records which 
had been pressed before he died (pressing dates are on the punchcard on 
factory boxes) were black.  Rumors started circulating that Victor had 
pressed black in mourning, but that was not true.  Because collectors -- 
like me -- wanted blue ccpies they restarted pressing them in blue.  If 
I had known that they weren't going to stay in black like the original 
plan was, I would have gotten a couple of black copies right then.  Rich 
was all out of blue copies, and every other Elvis record before that 
shipment came in.  It took me decades to find a black copy, and then I 
found it for five bucks at a flea market where a dealer was having a 
half price sale on Elvis and Beatles.  I'd have paid the original ten.  
It was mint, and might have cost me $6 at Rich's store. 
 
> I can only imagine what an album of his called Moldy Green might have
> looked like...  MS
>   

No need to imagine.  Just look at one of the David Bowie Peter and the 
Wolfs.  Except for a few rare copies -- which also took me years to find 
-- they are green.  But they are on Red Seal, so you have a combination 
of the green vinyl and the dark red label which is hideous.  I got the 
black copy for almost nothing from an oy-vey dealer who insisted in his 
description the green copies were rare when there were 20 green copies 
up for sale at the same time!!  Ironically it is not *really* black.  It 
is a very high grade vinyl which is slightly transluscent and glows a 
dark yellowish brown when held up to the light.  The black Elvis is 
really black, as is a narrated DJ promo of the Bowie I also got for 
cheap on O-no.  . 

>> A new grade - "S.D." for "slightly discombooberated. Is that SD+ or SD-??  Cary Ginell

SD+  The record was drawn-and-quartered very neatly,and the label is hardly damaged.  YOU try breaking a re3cord in half without tearing the label.  

But this brings up another point.  We need a rating system like this for the DEALERS!!!!!


Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com