Antiques Roadshow on The Beatles' "Yesterday and Today"

Interesting read....

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/roadshow/series/highlights/2004/chicago/follow1_2.html

 

Interesting, but it has a couple of mistakes:

The Beatles did not take the Yesterday and Today cover shot and submit it as a protest against Capitol "butchering" their work. That's one of those "Beatles Urban Myths" and is well documented — not only here, but all over the Web.

The woman who brought in the album claims she bought it at a Sears store in Chicago the day it was released with the butcher cover. However, the album was never for sale with the butcher cover. Shipments were returned before it ever hit the shelves. This, too, is widely documented.

This is a good place to start:
http://www.eskimo.com/~bpentium/butcher.html

 

A few did make it out for sale. I know, I bought one. A good friend of mine worked at a record store and he was in the habit of pulling one copy of all the new releases as soon as he got them in and calling me. I unfortunately sold mine in 1968 long before it became so valuable. Sold all my Capitol releases and bought multiple copies of the Parlophone releases which I still have. So yes SOME did make it into retail cycle.

 

Uh, I think ol' Mudbone will disagree with that statement.

 

I thought tons of them made it out to some parts of the westcoast. Isn't Seattle the hotbed of Butcher covers?

 

Estimates range from 1000 to 3000.

 

Didn't Steve say he bought one the day it came out?


I know a guy on the west coast who did.


Evan

 

Weren't release dates kind of flexible back then? It wasn't like you could count on all the new releases coming out on the same day and being in the stores on Tuesday morning.

Bruce Spizer seems to think that Wallach's Music City in Hollywood had them on the shelves for a day, because Wallach was a co-founder of Capitol, and got his stocks from the label earlier than everybody else.
http://www.eskimo.com/~bpentium/whynot.html

 

DELETED - Next time I'll wake up BEFORE I write something.....

GM

 

If albums were shipped to retailers, there is absolutely no way to prove that some retailers/shop ownersdid not sell a few before returning. I've bought stuff before the release date at certain shops.

 

Hi Gary ... I'm confused ... are you talking about a first state or second state? ...

 

I think to clarify here, pasteover Butcher covers did indeed make it to the stores nationwide.

What I believe we're talking about here (and as it's indicated that the person on "Antiques Roadshow" purchased) are Butcher Covers that were never pasted over with the "trunk cover" slicks, or "First State" Butcher Covers. In other words, copies that were bought straight from the racks with the Butcher Cover showing, NOT the trunk cover.

 

By the 1,000s is my guess ... I have picked up 2 Second State covers (one mono ... one stereo) at estate sales here in Dallas over the last couple of years ... and know of several others that have turned up here during the same period ... they also seemed to turn up on eBay on a regular basis ...

 

Exactly. Some retailers kept a few. And yes...talking first state no paste over.

 

I'm confused too......pay no attention to what I posted above and have just now deleted.

GM

 

I know hind-sight is 20/20, but can you imagine having the chance to morf back to 1966 and buy every copy on the shelf in say L.A., or NYC, or Seattle?

 

If you had the money ... LPs retailed for $3.98 (mono) and $4.98 (stereo) in those days ... that's $20+ in today's dollars ... most teenagers wouldn't have the money to buy more than one or two LPs a week ... if they were lucky ...

 

No one wants to comment on "Screaming guitars...and thundering drum solos"?

 

They're talking about the title track, right?

 

In the 1960s, there wasn't the technology like there is now (e-mail, fax etc.) to alert people to pull the product prior to street date. I am also guessing that street dates weren't as solid back then as they are now. Add to the fact that no chains were big enough to mass-pull product off the shelves and make a difference.

Keep in mind, that the Beatles were already a hot item at this point. Many store owners probably pulled the record, but never returned them thinking they might be collector's items. Perfect modern day example of this is the Dream Theater live CD that coinicidentally came out on 9/11 and featured a silhouetted of the Manhattan skyline with the World Trade Center smack dab in the middle. The band, out of respect, had the record officially pulled, but I am sure many independent stores (I know of at least one or two), kept all their product knowing it would be a collector's item.

 

Hi Evan,
Actually, I do recall Steve's post on this. What he bought was the LP with the butcher cover. The Trunk cover had already been pasted over it, like the one I bought.

His story was about him steaming the Trunk cover off because some girl across the street that he liked had done the same thing. Something to that effect!! It was a funny post of Steve's that why I seem to recall it.

 

I wasn't paying close attention to what the woman on the Antiques Roadshow claimed to have. I'm guessing it is a third-state (paste-over that was peeled off) version of Y&T. That would also explain the low estimate she received.

That said, it is generally understood that few ... if any ...first-state covers ever made it to store shelves. Had they been sold there would be thousands more of them on the collectors market today. But there aren't, and that's why they command such a high price. And as far as I know, a first-state cover SHRINK-WRAPPED with a store price sticker has NEVER appeared, leading me to believe the pundits who claim that these albums never made it to the shelves.

But, if some of you actually bought one I say "good for you" and I hope you kept it. Also, I don't think very many people were "collector minded" back in 1966. That is a much later phenomenon.

 

My father had a first state copy he bought when they were new (probably mono). The record is long gone (left at a girlfriend's house, along with many other records, original black & yellow Parlophones, etc. ). Anyway, the story goes that he got the record from an independent store in Hackensack, New Jersey. His uncle (a musician) was friends with the owner of the record store. Sometimes they would go to the store together, the day he got the Butcher Cover being one of them. The owner would sometimes bring things he thought would be of interest to my father or uncle to their attention, I believe at least sometimes keeping them aside. This day he showed my father the Butcher Cover Yesterday and Today - I'm almost certain this was before the official release day, and he bought it. Not much later on (possibly the next time they went to the store), the owner asked my father if he would be willing to return the Butcher Cover, I believe offering to trade it for the revised version and possibly some other items. My father said no! It's too bad he left it where he did - I would have loved to have owned my father's copy of this. When he and this girl broke up (they were engaged), he just didn't want to go back to get the stuff he left there. I know he regrets it now though.

Then there's the story of him selling his Marantz 9's, his Tandberg reel-to-reel...

 

i like the story about the capitol record exec who had a box of mint butcher covers which were never opened - amazing !!

is this true? i read it somewhere, but cant remember where!

i have seen absolutely munted copies of Y&T for sale at over $1500 AU...rediculous!

 

Yes It's true. IIRC it was former Capitol president Richard Livingston and at least some of those were sold on Ebay through Perry Cox (perrydcox). The story was probably in one of Bruce Spizer's books. They were the real deal... Along with U.S. white album #00000005.