How'd you acquire your Beatles "Yesterday... And Today" Butcher Cover?

The recent thread about a First-State butcher had me thinking about when I got mine.

I have two - a second state and a third state.

The third state I bought when I finally decided to count up that huge water jug of pennies that I had been saving. Two-hundred bucks and I bought a nice third state from a dealer in Goldmine magazine. Some seam splits, but a really nice, mono, front cover that looks great framed. It was in 1992 I believe.

For the second state one, around 2003 I went into a small collectibles shop while me and my family were on vacation. My wife took the kids to play on a nearby swing set and I browsed the 50 or so records they had in there. There was a beautiful paste-over, mono, with Ringo's "V" clearly showing. Price? Twenty bucks. I couldn't buy it fast enough! My wife sees me with the bag under my arm and says - "did you find a Butcher?" (She knows my habits.) When I said "yes!" she couldn't believe it - and for 20 bucks too!!

What's your story?

Dave

 

The only one I ever found was a second state at a thrift store. I purchased it for a princely sum of fifty cents (plus tax).

 

I peeled my original cover off and there it was. IIRC I put a wet towel over the record to get it to peel off, but I can't remember the exact procedure. This was the first week the album came out. Of course I bought all the Beatles right when they came out.

 

Wow. Cool story Steve. Do you still have the copy?

I have two of them. A Stereo and Mono second state. Got them off of EBAY a few years back.

 

I bought Yesterday and Today late in the summer of 1966 and by that time the album was being sold with the new covers only. I actually tried to peel back the cover of the copy I owned and there was no butcher cover under it.

 

I wonder if your dad knew at the time how important something like this was going to be to you ?

If you asked me what did my parents got me for my 16th birthday or something..no way do I remember. There were times like you mention here though where my dad went the extra mile on something seemingly insignificant at the time .

My parents got me tickets for me and my cousin to see the Beatles, and my P's and my aunt and uncle drove us there, went to dinner, and then picked us up after the show. I will take this memory to my grave.

No Butcher Cover though. Pop couldn't help me with that I guess.

P. S. Wanna sell one of them ?
P.P.S. I can remember seeing butcher covers in good shape going for 300 bucks or so in the late seventies.That seemed like a lot of money at the time. If I had only known...

 

My cover came off intact with a slight tear, but I hosed the rest of the jacket. For some reason I stuck my cover on a Sandy Nelson 'Beat That Drum' album.

I had it framed about 10 years ago and you'd never know it was stuck on the Sandy Nelson cover. I do have the orginal slab of vinyl though.

 

2nd state mono for $50 in a record store in Santa Cruz, CA in February '97. No LP, just the cover.

It has some water damage on the back cover, but its still a butcher cover!!

 

No great story here, but thanks to Amoeba I have a 3rd state mono

 

1972, I saw a first-state cover in the record rack of a friend, she would not trade for a new copy, even though she wasn't a big Beatles fan. I found one several years later in a second-hand store for $1.00.

 

I was hanging around the Tower after work late one afternoon, just as someone in promotion was throwing a couple of full boxes in the Dumpster.

A big fan of how Capitol adapted Beatles albums for the U.S. market, I hastily liberated them to my Gremlin -- little realizing that one day collectors would pay ridiculous money for them.

One of these days I'm gonna let 'em all go at once and seriously depress the market.

















gotcha?

 

I hope you can answer all your PMs by the end of the day.

 

The day after Beatlefest '96, cheapo bin at the late great Second Hand Tunes Oak Park (IL) store. $1.99 for a second-state copy with the bottom left corner peeled up about an inch (but not torn) and clearly exposing the other cover.

I'd almost spent $100 the night before on the worst peel job I've ever seen, just to finally have one.

And I'd bet good money I'd passed on other ones in the past before I knew enough to simply line it up next to another Capitol jacket. I don't know how many times I thought I saw the V, but it was enough to probably throw me off the trail a couple of times.

 

Around 1988 or so I was buying my music as cds. I had a cool girlfriend at that time that was a little older than me by five years or so. She had an lp collection at her house of about 30 records or so. april Wine, James Gang that kind of stuff.

She showed me her hang out which was a place called "Blue Gravy" records. The place looked like the names sounds. A groovy little spot on a dirt road not too far from the tracks.

Gary( the owner) sold me his for 75 bucks and some home grown tomatoes( we use to sit around eating ham sandwiches and big fresh tomatoes and onion..mmmm..mmm).Good times when all you needed was some ham a jalepeno pepper and a few friends to listen to music with. Alwyas some character coming through those doors trading or bringing in a "juicy batch of lps" as Gary use to say.

I thought it was a fortune at the time I bought the Butcher Cover and couldnt believe I spent that kind of money.

Its a peeled near perfect stereo copy. Which is rarer IIRC.I still have it framed in a really nice black frame with acid free backing and that nice UV protected glass.

My girlfriend now hates it though and its the only piece she will not let me put up.She hates the baby theme.

Hey, I got away with the Flying Eyeball Hendrix poster so I cant complain.




Screw it. Im off today. I am putting my butcher cover up.


Side note:

If you have a second state ( unpeeled) DO NOT PEEL IT. Everyone is peeling them and one day the unpeeled ones will be rare.

btw I dont think these things are that rare as far as the butcher cover itself.

 

Amazing Todd....... Tell us more about those.

 

A leprechaun riding on the back of a unicorn gave me mine under a glittering rainbow.


...wait, that actually may have been a dream.

 

and your home address !

 

When I was in law school in Cincinnati in the mid-70s, one Sunday, I drove to Covington, Kentucky with my roommate Louie for something or another. After we had done whatever we had come to do, on the way back to where the car was parked, I noticed a small storefront record store called Gates Records and went in just to see what they had. The place didn't seem to much foot traffic, because they had a lot of rare stuff I had heard of but had never seen, like the original Cold Spring Harbor on Family Productions and a grey market LP called "The Beatles & the Rolling Stones at Their Rarest," which I snatched up for 4 bucks each. (The Beatles/Stones record has a sticker from the store, which is why I can state its name, over 30 years down the road.) While I was salivating at the racks, Louie was chatting up the young girl who was running the store who seemed to take a shine to him. We started talking about the amazing stuff they had and she offered to go into the back of the store and get something she said we would like. She emerged with a Capitol Records shipping box of about 20 sealed first state Y&Ts. She offered to sell me as many as I wanted for $150 each, but I had to decline. $150 was a lot of money in those days.
To paraphrase Marty DiBergi, don't try to find it- I understand that Gates Records is long gone.

 

I have a second state and third state mono.

I bought the third state from in 1979 or 1980 from a friend who would buy Beatles collectables and then get bored with them. I paid $75.00, which was a fortune at the time to me, but I didn't know if I'd ever have the opportunity again and I wasn't going to let him change his mind.

My wife bought the paste over for our fifth anniversary in 1999. One of those last-a-lifetime memories. We really couldn't afford it at the time-I think it cost $275.00 from an antique store in Bozeman- but I was thrilled. The upper and lower corners of the pasteover have separated with time exposing the original cover. It also has the original shrinkwrap intact.

They sit neatly between Rubber Soul and Revolver on a very high shelf.

I also have a great wife!

 

50 cents at a yard sale for a second state mono.
Split seams and some writing on the back but at least I have one

 

Back in the late 70's a friend and I each purchased sealed 1st state Butchers in Mono. They were verified by a couple dealers in the Los Angeles area. The story we were told is that this person use to be a Capital Executive in '66 and he took (stole) a box of first state butchers, knowing that they'd appreciate in value. The seller we spoke with lived in Detroit.

I didn't know until recently that there was this guy named Livingstone who I believe worked at Capital in a high ranking position. I've wondered if he was the person who we purchased these from. We each paid with a cashiers check or money order. I don't recall what the persons name was...

Man, I loved that thing!

 

Don't actually own one myself, but the best story I've ever heard about one follows. I was told it years ago by the individual involved. I'm working from memory, so a few details may be off, but I think I got at least the core facts of the story right.

Sometime in the 1970s, a certain relatively well-known Beatles collector/researcher stumbled across a first-state cover in a public library collection in a major eastern city. Apparently, the library had purchased YESTERDAY & TODAY immediately when it came out and thus had ended up with a Butcher cover.

At the time, this collector didn't yet have a Butcher, so he was determined to acquire that one. It was going to take some work, though. The problem was that you couldn't check out and take home the albums in the library's collection. Instead, you had to listen to them on the premises on equipment the library had for just that purpose.

But what would happen if you broke a record? The collector inquired and was told that the library's policy was that you had to pay the replacement cost, which wasn't very high if the album was still in print. So said researcher hatched the idea to take the album for listening, break the actual disc, pay to replace the album, then walk out with the cover to the broken record (the library wouldn't need it, right?).

So he goes into the library one day, gets the album, takes it to the listening area and proceeds to try to break the disc. Of course, Capitol pressings in those days were pretty substantial, so it didn't just immediately crack in half like he'd hoped. After much huffing and puffing, he finally manages to snap the thing -- into about a gazillion pieces! So he gathers them up, with the cover, and takes them to the collection librarian. He explains that he dropped the disc on its edge and it shattered. Thankfully, the librarian believes him and advises that he'll have to pay the replacement cost. Since it's still in print, the cost is some standard amount in the $5 to $10 range. He pays the charge, then inquires if he can have the old cover, explaining that he doesn't have the album himself and maybe he can pick up a used disc for it somewhere, so it won't be a complete loss for him. "Sure," the librarian says, and he figures he's home free.

Then, without warning, the librarian slides open a drawer and removes a rubber stamp. SHE THEN PROCEEDS TO SMACK THE STAMP ON THE FRONT OF THE ALBUM COVER AGAIN AND AGAIN! The collector nearly has a heart attack!

The stamp said something like "Discard," and it was the library's policy to stamp items being tossed out of its collection so there'd be no confusion as to whether it still belonged to the libary or not. Thus died a first-state cover in nice condition!

 

Great story!! It could be that the librarian was just as crafty as said collector.
I don't know if Capitol has kept the old stampers for ""Y" & T": I'd like to see them press 100,000 or more replica copies (using the same sleeve construction method of the '60s Capitol albums and the same labels et cetera) of the butcher cover ""Y" & T" and issue that in conjunction with a Volume 3 CD box-set. They'd be sure to sell out.