Snake America 77
Snake is a bi-weekly email newsletter covering after-market goods on eBay. This week: Beatles "White Album" Mono copy number 0000001. Subscribe.
Julien's Live: White Album 0000001, $20,000: Ringo Starr has the first and therefore rarest copy of the White Album and is selling it. This is an important record(1). Ringo says in the auction that the record was kept in a bank vault the past 35 years. He doesn't say which bank. I asked him why he's selling his stuff--some drumsets, one of which he used between 1963 and 1964, a watch he got as a gift from Keith Moon, a 2000 Benz, etc.--but no response. I wonder if he needs money, or just wants it. DangerousMinds.net, the website, reported in July 2013 that White Album number a0000001 was on sale from one David Mincks. A Google search reveals Minck to maybe be this LinkedIn account, a principal at Kelley Mincks, whose age links up with a guy who bought an album in 1989. His job title, principal at a company with his name on it, also checks out. Mincks said in 2013 he bought the album from a dealer, Clifford J. Yamasaki of Let It Be Records. The record came out November 22, 1968. Where did Yamasaki get it? The "a" means it's a promo copy. a0000001 and the other low-numbered promo copies were given to Beatles members and Capitol Records execs(2). A review of the store, on Judah St. in San Francisco, is described in a review from 2003 as follows: "This is a very unusal [sic] record store. It never appears to be open and from the outside it just looks like a messay [sic] closet with junky [sic] faded posters on the walls. I don't think they do much business. Cons: closed, messy, junky." There's also a store called Let It Be in Minnesota that buys and sells Beatles records on eBay. LinkedIn says that the Judah Street address is now a law practice, with 1-10 employees, and links to the record store, but the number linked to Yamasaki's address was disconnected. A site with Hangar 18 in the URL reveals Yamasaki to be a rock poster seller appearing at the 2012 Fall Classic, the Festival of Rock Posters, presented by The Rock Poster Society. He doesn't have a website. Neither the guy from Minnesota nor Mincks has answered my email.
According to an internet discussion group on a Beatles forum the first stereo album was actually the White Album in stereo ... I bet it wasn't. The abovementioned is the mono version. I read one time about the first dozen numbered Beatles White Albums' provenance ... The number on Ringo's trumps Ringo, though. The Beatles numbered all their first--press White Albums. The lower the number, the more valuable the album. Who has the lowest number? There's a guy in the city, Rutherford Chang, who buys numbered White Albums in all conditions and displayed them in a Soho gallery and now on an Instagram, where his lowest numbered copy is 6806. He told me the lowest number he has is a0003067, which is a Pilipino pressing. From The New York Times in 2013:
He said that the most he has paid for a copy is $20, although he was recently offered copy No. 100. “I was afraid even to ask the price,” he said.
Chang made this mashup LP of 100 of the different White Albums he owns layered over each other, like Grayfolded, which he sold at WFMU record fair. Not sure how that got pressed, but he says they're sold out. There are many good message-board discussions concerning how much money a low-numbered Mono LP can sell for. Here is a representative one taken from Discogs.com, the vinyl catalog site and marketplace:
'hello, I have just bought today for 7 euro The Beatles White album no* 2115 from someone who sold all his vinyl!! What's the value from this masterpiece? Cheers, James,' is the first post. Someone responds, 'Are you kidding? Do you know how many editions there are?,' and James then says,'yes I know there are 3 million copies(+ reissues etc.) but, this one is very low numbered.' And another person responds, 'it's not that low number IMO.' Someone else responds, 'number 2704 went for £1600 18 months ago so it'll get you a nice holiday 8).' The thread continues at length ... the conclusion is that the lower a White Album the better, with those under 10,000 worth a premium(3). Bigger numbers look cooler than smaller numbers and zeroes look cooler than numbers. So the most zeroes... Do the earlier records sound better? There's a store in San Francisco, Better Records, that I think I mentioned here before. The store sells early-version classic rock records for premiums--$1,500 for a $20 Who record that the owner says sounds better. I'm not sure about any of that.
Julien's Live says that there's no way to know whether Beatles record 0000001 is the first album pressed but that the jacket is the first one pressed, since they were done in order. It really doesn't matter. I think it's just a good conversation piece. I went to Staten Island on Yom Kippur once to pick up some records for Joint Custody. After getting the records the seller took us into his vault where he showed us his early-numbered Metallica and Kiss picture disc records. None were number 1, but he had a few in single digits. "Kill Em All" and "Ride the Lightning" at 7 and 8, if I remember right. He also had the Motley Crue record where they had the puffy hair on the back. He lived with his mom and had a brand new F-450 in the garage, with a quite new S-class Benz in the driveway. He told James from Joint Custody that he plays poker with the Wu-Tang Clan members that live in the neighborhood, when they're around. His place was right near the little Yankee Stadium on the water. Will the abovementioned Beatles record find itself in a Staten Island basement, or will it go somewhere lame?
Thanks for reading.
Snake
Last Snake: Scoob Lover suit, Nike lunchbag (still for sale; still for sale)
Snake Before That: Nike track pants, Shenandoah valley pottery book (still for sale; still for sale)
(1) I haven't heard it.
(2) Capitol was Megadeth's record label.
(3) Another on Discogs says, "I have this Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works Volume II, clocked as #00002 nobody that I've spoken to, including here on discogs, seems to believe it has any additional value because it has a low number. And Aphex is almost Beatles of 90s IDM/Ambient." - The best Discogs.com discussions are better than the records they address. Also, this pricing stuff is for Mono (sold auctions). I bet good stereo copies and CDs--which are also numbered--go for money.