PINK FLOYD: 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' MONO 1ST G+

	£		42
	$		56

PINK FLOYD - THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

COLUMBIA MONO SX 6157 - with "File Under Pop" on flipback. Overall in Good + condition. Read on...

Side One Matrix: XAX 3419 - 2  (3 o'clock) P    (9 o'clock) 1

Side Two Matrix: XAX 3420 - 1  (3 o'clock) G P (9 o'clock) 1

We all know the sheer genius of the Floyd's debut album from 1967, so I won't have to re-iterate it here! It is one of the most desirable Floyd collectables, and for someone who does not own a copy of this LP, this is the perfect opportunity. It is not in brilliant condition, but sounds rather good considering, and without doubt, will please the buyer as a passable copy of such a fine album. This is technically almost a first Mono pressing of the album, and sounds lovely. On to the details...

THE SLEEVE: Front. This grades, to my eyes, as being in Very Good ++ condition, with crisp corners, and only some fairly heavy creasing to the top right. The other 3 remain rather wonderfully untouched. There are some opening creases, but overall the front cover looks very impressive, and deeply colourful. A joy to look at.

THE SLEEVE: Spine and edges. There are NO splits or lifts anywhere around the sleeve. The spine has one crease that visibly divides 'The' from 'Pink Floyd', but this does not detract from the overall solidarity of the Ernest J. Day sleeve.

THE SLEEVE: Back. Now, this is where the problem lies with this copy. Again, I would grade it Very Good ++ condition, WERE IT NOT FOR some muppet's attempt at improving Syd Barrett's silhouette drawing!! Whoever previously owned this copy has filled in some of the title lettering, added some musical notes and stars to the sleeve, and given some of the hands speech marks (Hey! Over there, Stop, and Pow) with black biro. Oh dear!! The photo shows these blemishes. In spite of this extra artwork, which I will leave to you to decide whether it enhances or detracts from the package, the rest of the rear sleeve is rather nice. A very solid flipback with the "File under Pop" in the top right corner.

THE LABELS: The labels have some spindle wear, which account for the record's condition, but look glorious, and I would grade as being in excellent condition. The KT tax code is stamped on Side Two.

NOTE: They are also the much rarer label typeface, looking far more sophisticated than the majority of the copies i've seen over the years. See photo.

MATRIX Nos: As listed above, these are the earliest Mono numbers, and of special note are the mother stamping codes P and GP (taken from GRAMOPHONE), making these reasonable earlier Mothers.

VINYL: Visibly this looks in G+ condition with many surface marks and many light scratches on both sides. There are NO finger felt heavy marks. You expect quite a noisy listen. However....

PLAY GRADED: All of my vinyl sold on eBay is play tested on my Quad/Tannoy set up, Project 1Xpression turntable, with 1.6g stylus tracking weight (very light) for an Ortofon VMS 3E. This album plays without doubt, at VG, and I was genuinely surprised when I played this, particularly when visibly it looks rather well used. Side One has the edge over Side Two, which has more surface noise. There were no sticks or skips, and it sounded great.

ALTHOUGH PLEASE NOTE (hence this re-listing): I have played this on my other turntable (Thorens TD 160 with Ortofon OM 10 stylus and 1g tracking weight) and have found 5 skips in 'Interstellar Overdrive' and 2 on 'The Gnome'. The rest of it plays soundly without a problem. In spite of this, it doesn't detract from the strength of the MONO groove and the power of these pressings, BUT it is upto to you, the buyer, and your turntable set up as to whether you wish to risk the record playing well without skips, as it does on my Project 1 turntable, or with skips, as it does on my Thorens. THE DIFFERENCE WILL DEPEND ON YOUR SET UP!

INNER: This comes with the correct Black and White LP advertising inner sleeve in Very Good condition with very small splits.

IN CONCLUSION: This is nowhere near a perfect copy of this rare album. However, it is, apart from the writing on the back cover, a mostly presentable Good ++ condition copy of this LP. This will not disappoint the first time buyer of this Floyd album who is after a copy to fill the hole in their collection as a stop gap. If anyone has any questions for me, then please feel free to e-mail me and I will respond as quickly as possible.

THE BLURB BIT: Postage within the UK is £3.00 standard, £7.00 special delivery. I accept bidders the world over, but not from any countries that other ebayers have had problems with. Postage, by Surface Mail abroad is set at £8.00. The album will be solidly packaged and dispatched when Payment has been received. I have maintained a love of collecting records for 15 years now and feel that my judgements on conditions are HONEST and FAIR. I go by the UK RRPG standards and general eBay grading policy. If anyone disagrees with me on this then PLEASE CONTACT me before leaving feedback. There are no problems, only solutions.

Good luck!