GROUNDHOGS Thank Christ for the Bomb RARER ORIG UK BLUE LIBERTY 1970 Nr EX LP.

	£		73
	$		96

ONEADAYRECORDS – Simply Delivering Quality Music to the World in Quality, Safe Packing.

IT’S GREAT TO BE BACK – I HOPE ALL MY FRIENDS, CUSTOMERS – REGULAR & NEW – HAVE REMAINED SAFE IN THIS MOST CHALLENGING TIME.

Postage: UK £4.75 (£1 per extra record). Europe (including Russia) £12.50 (£2 per extra record). Rest of World (including ALL parts of the USA) £16.50 (£3 per extra record). All boxes signed for in quality, safe packaging – I NEVER use mailing envelopes that offer virtually no protection at all, and records WILL arrive damaged in them at some time as most record buyers will already know. Here, you get what you pay for – SAFE PACKING in BOXES using 7mm DOUBLE-WALL STIFFENERS including full side protection and bubble wrap, the records removed from the covers of course. All this very safe packing means I lose money on every box I post, but safe delivery is, and will always be paramount. You WILL see the difference when my packet arrives. Also, I will pay for insurance on any record that sells for over £100 at NO extra cost – that is UK and abroad. Also I aim to post the very same day after payment is received if possible. PLEASE NOTE: I will NOT send any item, no matter what its value without a Royal Mail or courier tracking number. ALL my items must be signed and trackable to comply with Ebay delivery rules. Please do NOT ask me to make any exceptions to this rule as no country offers 100% reliable service without it.

Posting to Russia: Yes, I do post to Russia. But delivery can take longer from the UK. So please be patient. I will submit a tracking number to the winning bidder, and when the packet arrives there it can be followed online using the Russian post website.

ALSO: I now apply the Ebay ‘2-day’ rule for non-payment to keep things moving – cash-flow is important for any small business.

ANY ITEM or ITEMS TO BE PAID WITHIN A MAXIMUM OF 6 DAYS or they will be cancelled – NO EXCEPTIONS.

FINALLY: Late payers, non-payers and ‘0’ bidders will now be blocked or cancelled at my discretion, as will any bidder who cancels a bid. Please only bid on my items if you want them.

Artist or Band: THE GROUNDHOGS

Album Title: Thank Christ for the Bomb

Producer(s): Tony (T.S.) McPhee

TRACK LIST:

Side 1: Strange Town; Darkness is No Friend; Soldier; Thank Christ for the Bomb.

Side 2: Ship on the Ocean; Garden; Status People; Rich Man, Poor Man; Eccentric Man.

Label/Format: Liberty – genuine first issue format on the prized blue format. Quickly repressed for the new black versions on which this album is more commonly seen. These have matt gently textured surfaces.

Label Conditions: Both very clean, fresh and attractive with moderate, but fine and quite faint spindle marks and no wear around the hole area. The record plays clean and impressively.

Catalogue Number: LBS 83295

Mode / Speed: Stereo / 33.3 rpm.

Warps or Lateral Movement: Assume all records I offer have no significant warping or lateral movement to cause sound or tracking issues. All should play fine even on budget turntables.

Weight of this Record: 135 grams.

Country of Manufacture: England

Rarity: Blue first issues are scarce.

Original Year of Release: 1970

Matrix Nos: LBS 83295 A 1 1 2 1 & LBS 83295 B 1 1 1 2 (pressed by Philips and machine punched)

Musicians: Tony McPhee – guitars, vocals; Peter Cruickshank – bass; Ken Pustelnik – drums.

Brief Info: Brilliant third album by the rock band Groundhogs. Now more rock than blues, this is a semi-conceptual album and one of the finest they ever made. Briefly charting only and never easy to find cleaner copies on the original blue label. This a fine copy, played a few times but plays impressively clean. The uncompromising wear-prone cover also way above average, this more often seen in tatters.

Cover Grade and Format: NEAR EXCELLENT: an unlaminated gatefold format with matt, surfaces, the outer faces are textured, the inside smooth. Printed and made in England by the E. J. Day Group, includes the date-coded Philips style polylined inner sleeve.

Cover Front: A cover rarely worthy of a second look for condition these days, the quite pale yellow textured surfaces wear very badly unless more carefully stored. Most of any visible wear on this splendid front is light only here-and-there on the edges. I have seen few with less, especially with a first issue inside. Still clean with fine fresh colour – yellow being highly prone to fading which this has avoided – the texturing without rubbing or sticker issues. The outer quite soft card seldom fares this well and looks nice as-seen.

Cover Back: Largely the same with just the odd tiny surface chip and a small stain on the right edge near the top, possibly from an internal adhesive smear that has darkened? The lack of ugly ring wear is a massive plus on this one.

Cover Inner Gatefold: Splendly attractive with little to fault, again as-seen.

Top Edges: Quite straight and folded flush, light to moderate rubbing, patchy on the back.

Bottom Edges: Moderate consistent rubbing, both fully intact, and this has hardly encroached on to the main surfaces. Soft textured card will rarely avoid rubbing on storage edges.

Right Edge(s), and Type: Mostly sharp with any thickening little and light. Record enters on the edge, the front is closed and machine cut.

Spine and Text: Solid, straight with minimal compression and folded square, so the edges meet up very closely together and parallel. The text has a little patchy rubbing as seen, but still easily and strongly legible and well centred. The spine ends have rubbed and the surface is white.

Corners: Moderate tip rubbing, but this mostly visible on the edges with little on the actual main faces. Good to fine shape generally retained, but softer card makes these very vulnerable.

Cover Summary: Another of rock’s more wear-prone covers and few will avoid often heavy all-round wer and damage. With most confined to the storage edges and corners, this has fared generally well and remains attractive with the main areas impressive. One that should please many collectors. Details seen on my large high resolution photographs.

The Inner Sleeve: NEAR EXCELLENT: with only moderately mild ageing of the white paper and darkening of the seam area adhesive. Two neat untorn window circles and the polylining fresh and quite clear. All edges naturally intact with no repairs. This Philips style inner is date-coded 1070 (October 1970).

Vinyl Condition/Visual Grading: NEAR EXCELLENT: a very visual copy that is clean with equally fine shine and very solidly pressed. A copy with light and fine surface marks as seen under bright light. No penetrating stylus scratches, viewed in average room light little registers. Visually a nice looking near 50-year-old record that should please many collectors.

Album Played For Grading: Yes. [I play ALL records I offer before submitting to Ebay, also the record is played in its entirety unless clearly stated otherwise. I do NOT play snippets or joining grooves to check for sound quality and quietness – I play from the beginning to end via clinically revealing equipment, all listed further down.]

Sound Quality and Audio Grading: This brilliant first press album plays even above it’s high visual grading with little to fault. Offering strong, distortion-free sound, all frequencies are sharp and clear – sound quality is very high with a wide dynamic range and very detailed sound. Any surface sounds are minimal indeed and this is a very clean pressing with no tracking issues* or inherent pressing noises. Few available first issues will outperform this I feel sure. Both channels are clean and sharp, I am certain this record has been played quite modestly and has been quite well stored and handled, almost certainly in a non-smoking environment. Nothing of any real note spoilt my pleasure when play-grading this fine record. It could prove difficult to find significantly better and can be strongly recommended.

* As played-graded on a high-end Linn LP12 Sondek turntable with Ittok Mk II arm and Ortofon Quintet Black moving coil cartridge tracking at 2 grams. Records are a ‘contact’ format, and few will avoid the odd minor sound blemish.

I am one of the most established sellers on Ebay, trading since 2001 and offering the finest records I can find. I pride myself on offering a variety of genres to keep my site as interesting as possible. I will rarely offer any record that falls below a true Excellent grading, unless its of a certain rarity which will justify offering a lesser grade. I try, to the best of my ability to describe as accurately and as honesty all elements of the items I offer for sale. You may notice I only submit records quite sparingly on Ebay as I Play-Grade every record I offer in their entirety – also on higher-end equipment – not just bits to guess a grade – visuals alone do not always tell a true story. I will try to mention any defects or flaws no matter how small that I notice to be fair as possible to any interested collector – I am very fussy and my buyers have the right to be too. Every record I offer, whether it be a common or rare item deserves the same respect as far as I am concerned and will be treated the same – just because an item is rare does not always mean it’s good. I get just as much pleasure offering a relatively common record in near mint condition as the real rare items. All the pictures I use for your guidance are the item being offered with no digital enhancements. Room light factors can make things vary sometimes, that is hard to control, especially in winter. I hope the item below is to your liking – any questions can be emailed and I will do my best to answer you. I am enthusiastic, and have a fair degree of knowledge about many genres and I promise quality items. Please assume all records I offer have NO jumps, sticks, major warps or writing on covers or labels unless clearly stated to the contrary. Thanks for your interest and Good luck – MIKE.

Deck: Linn LP12/Hercules/Cirkus with Ittok Mk II arm and Ortofon Quintet Black moving coil cartridge (tracks at 2 grams). Amps: Naim Supernait 2 with Project USB phono stage and Tellerium Black interconnects. Speakers: B&W 805 Nautilus (bi-wired with Tellurium Black terminated cable) with REL subwoofer. All records I offer on Ebay are cleaned on a professional Nessie vacuum machine before play-grading for the cleanest and best possible sound and will include a brand new lined inner and protective cover too. Pictures taken with a Nikon D7500 DSLR Camera.

PACKING – THIS IS WHAT YOU GET.

What You Get: To confirm to the strict Ebay rules on shipping, I must now send ALL my packets ‘Signed-For’ with NO exceptions. Both buyers and sellers want their packets to have a safer journey and this is not a bad thing.

PLEASE NOTE: I now exercise my right to open a dispute after the Ebay rule of TWO days if no payment is received. I will then cancel the dispute to end the bid, again after the mandatory FOUR days and then offer the item to the runner-up or relist. The non-payer will also be blocked from my Ebay site as will any suspicious bids or bid bid retractions. Small businesses need prompt payment to trade and these strict rules WILL be applied.

SHIPPING COSTS & CONDITIONS – THESE comply with EBAY’S RULES - PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:

Posting & Packing: UK & CHANNEL ISLANDS all now sent via Recorded Delivery:

1 LP (FIRST-CLASS Recorded Delivery with Standard Royal Mail Insurance) [Signed For] = £4.75

1 LP (Special Delivery with Standard £500 Maximum Insurance) [Signed For, Next Day] = £7.50. (this includes insurance of £500). Add £1 per extra LP.

Posting & Packing: EUROPE & SCANDINAVIA. (Airmail Only):

1 LP (Small Packet ‘Signed For’ with Standard Royal Mail Insurance [£50 maximum]) = £12.50 (enhanced Royal Mail insurance is an optional extra £3). Add £2 per extra LP.

Posting & Packing: ALL OVERSEAS (non-European) e.g. USA (ANY PART OF); South America; New Zealand; Australia; Canada; Japan and other Far East; (Airmail Only: I NEVER use Surface Mail):

1 LP (Small Packet ‘Signed For’ with Standard Royal Mail Insurance [£50 maximum]) = £16.50 (£17.50 for double sets). Add £3 per extra LP. (enhanced Royal Mail insurance is an optional extra £3)

Payment Conditions:

I prefer PayPal or cheque from UK winning bidders. I only accept PayPal from overseas bidders or direct payment into my bank account.

Potential Bidders: I will cancel any bids I feel are time-wasters. A maximum 2 days for communication and 7 days for payment to arrive – if not I will relist the item or offer to the runner-up.

My Guarantee: If any winning bidder is not satisfied with their purchase I will offer a complete refund if the item is returned in the same condition is was sent e.g. as per the listing pictures.

SOME GENERAL GUIDES TO WEAR AND CONDITIONS TO HELP YOU DECIDE

My Use of Description Terminology: Surface Marks = Superficial, usually light marks, hairlines or light scuffs that rarely sound. Scratch = a needle mark that goes below the record’s surface, some will sound, some will not, my play-grade will inform. Original = a record that has been pressed with the first label design which does NOT necessarily mean a very first pressed record. First Pressing = A record that I believe or know to be a genuine very first pressed record. I do not claim to always know for sure, and that’s why I state the stamper and matrix numbers if at all possible, for those who claim to know what they all mean, the information is there for the collector to decide. I prefer to use terms like ‘Early Copy’ rather than ‘First Pressing’ if I am not totally sure. Surface Sound = Mild, light sound, usually light crackle or similar. Distortion = Break up of the actual sound caused by groove wear or damage from a chipped stylus – the most undesirable form of unwanted sound, vintage mono records were the most prone to this happening but not exclusively so. The symptoms of distortion are high frequency clipping, moderate constant crackle or an echo type sound quality. Violin, piano and vocals are most prone to groove-wear distortion. Feathering = Fraying or softening of the entry edge of a cover. Covers with feathered entrance edges are more likely to have had the actual record inserted and removed more than a non-feathered, sharp-edged cover which are always far more attractive. Set Off, a printer’s term for dark ink leaving mild residue on pale or white ink when rested upon. e.g. when a gatefold cover has black ink closed against white, this can leave some black residue on the pale area – this is mostly unavoidable or course.