Nearly 1,300 Rare Beatles Records Go on Sale Through Discogs
A record shop in Germany is selling nearly 1,300 rare Beatles records, and the first batch goes on sale through the online marketplace Discogs from 30 October at 8:00 a.m. ET (Eastern Time), according to Billboard.
The shop is Black Plastic Records, an independent store in Dortmund. It bought the collection from the estate of the collector who built it, after his death. He spent decades tracking down original pressings, rare singles and special editions from different countries. The full collection runs to nearly 1,500 records, and around 1,300 of them are being offered for sale.
Discogs is a website where collectors buy and sell vinyl, CDs and other music formats from sellers around the world. For the first 10 days, the Beatles records will be sold only through Discogs. After that, they can also be browsed and collected in person at the Dortmund shop.
Some of the highlights are early and unusual copies. One is a rare 1963 promotional pressing of Please Please Me, the band's debut album. Promotional pressings are copies made for radio stations and music industry use, not for shop shelves. Billboard reports that about 250 of these copies were produced for British radio stations, which makes this one a scarce find.
The sale also includes an original 1963 U.K. mono first pressing of Please Please Me. A mono pressing carries a single sound channel, the version the band's first album was originally released in. It has the black-and-gold Parlophone label, the design used by the band's original British label in that period.
Collectors will also find a rare 1968 pressing of The Beatles (The White Album), again with the Parlophone label. Billboard lists a 1970 U.K. box set of Let It Be among the items, complete with its original slipcase, an interior tray and a book of photographs. A slipcase is the outer sleeve that holds a box set together.
For fans who have never bought a collectible record, the appeal of an original pressing is the story in the grooves. Each copy shows which factory run, label design and country it came from. Two copies of the same album can look identical on the front and sound different in the mix, which is why collectors often pay more for earlier versions.
The sale is an unusual route for a private collection to reach the public. Instead of a single auction house, the records are split across a marketplace and a shop, with the first drop arriving on a fixed date. Buyers who want to be ready should check the Discogs listings from the start time in Eastern Time, which is 1:00 p.m. in Central European Time.
