Caring for your Beatles in Mono box

OK, so you've pre-ordered the Beatles in Mono, and it's scheduled to arrive any day now. What do you do once you get it? Here are some pointers for those not accustomed to dealing with Japanese made LP sleeve CD's.

The Beatles remasters (both stereo and mono) are beautiful; it's clear that great care was taken in their design and manufacture, and they should be handled accordingly. So . . . you've got the sealed Mono box in your hands.

1. Wash your hands. Do you really want fingerprints on the glossy black pages of the booklet? I didn't think so.

2. If you want to keep the shrink wrap on the box, take a razor (or use your nails if they are sharp enough) and cut the shrink wrap along the left, right and bottom edge of the box opening. Take your time, be patient and don't cut the box!! Now, you have a nice little flap that you can lift up and pull out the inner box holding all of the CD's.

3. Do you really want to read Ken Howlett's comments, and look at the pictures in the booklet? OK. Did your palms start to sweat when you saw the discs? Well, wash your hands again and carefully read the booklet. Finished? Great. Put it back in the box and don't take it out again.

4. All of the individual albums come in those nice resealable outer sleeves. So, for 6 of the titles, (PPM, WTB, AHDN, Help, Rubber Soul, Revolver) that came in single pocket jackets, the artwork should never touch human hands. Just open the resealable sleeve, and slide the disc out in its plastic inner sleeve. 3 of the titles are gatefolds (SPLHCB, MMT and Mono Masters). If you want to look at the artwork, go ahead and take them out and look at em - nice, huh? Once you've finished, put them back in the resealable outer sleeve, and in the future, just take out the disc in the inner sleeve. The White Album and Beatles for Sale are tricky because the White album is a top loader and BFS is a pocket gatefold - my suggestion would be to keep these discs in their inner sleeves, but outside the jackets, so that you don't have to be handling the jackets all the time.

5. When handling those resealable sleeves, be careful. There is glue on the back of the sleeve, and if you place it on any paper surface (such as the pages of the booklet), you can tear the paper.

6. Are you a music server guy? Do you burn everything? Great! You never need to touch the discs again. Put them back in the jackets, seal the sleeve and never touch the artwork or discs again.

7. Do you spin the actual physical discs? That's OK. If you are incredibly organized, keep them separate from the artwork. If you are not that organized, keeping the discs separate from the artwork is very risky - remember, if you lose one disk, you won't be able to replace it. So keep the discs in the jackets,. Just remove them from the sleeves without handling the artwork. Those resealable sleeves last a long time!

8. After listening, always put the disc back in the sleeve and put the sleeve back in the box. LP Sleeve CD's are flat and thin - they can get lost among papers, in the pages of a book, etc.

9. Keep the box out of direct sunlight - that ink looks pretty good, but why risk it - ten years from now, you want that apple to be as green as it is today.

10. For heaven's sake, don't lend anyone any of the disks. Is a friend looking for the mono Pepper? Burn him a copy!!

 

Did 2. Seemed very practicable keeping the box clean whilst allowing easy access to the contents.

 

Did 1 and 3.

Box sets now smell of soap.

 

Some great suggestions! I have done most of them, and I am thinking of housing the discs in different cases. The mono box is the best Beatles project that EMI has ever released, hands down!

Enjoy it everyone! You are in for a treat!!!

 

On the other hand, I will use those cardboard covers as nifty drink coasters. I plan to stuff all of the discs into my auto changer, and leave the book in the bathroom so everyone can have a little light reading.

 

11. Wear protective suit:

 

You opened your Mono Box?!

 

I disagree. Step one, take a shower.

 

Buy two.

 

I actually have some disposable surgical gloves that I pilfered from a clinic for such purposes! I don't think it's an especially anal thing to do - I'm an oily kind of guy and always risk leaving fingerprints all over sleeves and pages, so I've used them to read books with matte pages (esp dark pages) or handle rare/expensive items I don't want to muck up with smudges. But they're a pain to get on and off, so might need some nice thin silk gloves now...

 

Plan on doing everything except for #7. I cant imagine keeping the discs and artwork separated, that is just plain wrong.

 

Man, why did you buy the box if you intend to do NOTHING with it...? Those covers need to be touched and greasy and smudged and torn. They need to LIVE!

 

Good suggestions.
11. Make up backup copies using MOFI Gold CDRs for playback at home and in the car

 

A cold one.

 

This suggests three options: buy three sets. One to actually handle and play, one to keep sealed in a climate-controlled environment and simply revel in the presence of, and a third to have on hand in seperate storage in case something happens to one of the other two.

 

I would strongly suggest something similar to the manner in which the Mona Lisa is encased.

 

Me, last night, about to open my Mono box:

 

Yeah, I'm all for keeping things in good shape but I'm not curating a museum!

 

Are you guys going to put the Cds in the plastic sleeve and in the paper sleeve, then in the cardboard or just plastic then cardboard?

Also, anyone please have a link to where one can get those plastic sleeves for my stereo box.

Much thanks! Enjoy!

 

I have another suggestion...vacuum seal the box set.

 

I have got them from this seller in the past.
http://music.shop.ebay.co.uk/Access...pg=&_ssn=soundsourcecds&_trksid=p3911.c0.m282
They are just like the ones which were on by Bowie mini vinyl replicas from Japan.

 

I'm old enough to remember the marketing the CDs were virtually INDESTRUCTIBLE!

(Just like they're saying Blu-ray is now, not so ironically.)

I just went lossless to my iPod, which should be enough to keep these looking good.

 

But I really liked the music...

True confessions time:

I opened mine yesterday.

I took four of them outside and into the car with me and (sit down) played them in my car stereo, with the four artworks sitting on the car floor, at one point I almost kneeded them... I played three in the car and have thee more are out loose, running free, now, I did not wash my hands, and I went to the beach and returned after a swim, sandy and salty, and played another one using my bare hands to load it and... oh the horror, when I think of what I have done... I rubbed my thumbs across the red MONO Sgt. Peppers original inner sleeve...

Forgive me father for I have sinned, Ten Let It Be Marys in MONO for you son...