Pink Floyd - The Wall (Vinyl, First UK pressing, VG)

	£		45
	$		60

General background -

This is one from my personal collection. I started buying records back in the '60s, probably bought most of my stuff in the late '60s and '70s. I carried on buying vinyl through into the '90s, but by that point it was more out of habit than desire - I always though of myself as "a vinyl guy" and although I was buying CDs by then, I grabbed any vinyl albums by artists I liked or was interested in. In a lot of these later cases they mostly never even got played. By that point I wasn't actually using my record deck/hi-fi much - if I bothered to play anything it tended to be via the PC and its own attached mini-system. When I last moved house around 2001 my hi-fi system got ignored and has only very recently come back in to use.
But when I did buy albums, I always took great care of them. I have plenty of albums that I bought over 50 years ago that could pass for new - unmarked and perfectly clean players. I've always handled, played, and stored my records carefully. Typically they've been stored properly in thick protective sleeves in purpose built cabinets, and I've always used good quality systems to play them on - in the past things like Pioneer or AR decks, and since the '80s a Roksan Xerxes/RB/OC9 combination.
After dragging my vinyl around for some 50-60 years, I've decided to finally retire most of it. I shall keep some old favourites, but other than that it will go. I've always felt that listening to vinyl should be a dedicated thing, and there are few occasions now when I feel like just sitting and giving a record the attention it deserves. Having a bit of digital music burbling away in the background while I'm doing something else is more the norm for me now.

This record -
This is a very good copy of what is possibly their biggest moment. Can't say I was ever really sold on the whole thing, "Comfortably Numb" aside, so it didn't get a lot of play. This has all the correct markings for a first pressing - band members are not listed on the inside cover. It only says "Words and Music - Roger Waters. Except..." and "Produced By David Gilmour, Bob Ezrin, Roger Waters". Re-pressings added band member credits and had other minor alterations. No bar code on the back cover. The Wall is cream coloured, not true white. The bricks on the front cover are not aligned right to the bottom of the cover on the outside or inside. There are two 1st pressing sleeve variants, this copy has a single sheet of wrap-around cardboard with the seam across the inner top edge of the cover. (info courtesy of Discogs). Matrix numbers are SHSP 4111 A-2U TML-X, SHSP 4111 B-3U TML-C, SHSP 4112 A-3U TML-X AND SHSP 4112 B-3U TML-XX.
I must have played it a few times, but the look and sound of it is pretty good generally. However, there is an unusual "wave form" visual pattern effect on the vinyl on side 1, and a strip of the outer rim that almost looks "unvarnished". I checked the playback for this listing and although it looks a bit strange, it doesn't affect the playing and is not audible apart from a couple of faint pops on the run-in groove. Once the opening track starts (and it's a track with a quiet intro so you're aware of any backgound noise) you're not aware of any effect from this pattern. The other three sides don't have this sort of patterning and are all free of surface noise. I tried to get a photo of this pattern but it's difficult to capture (or at least, it is for me) - what I could get is in the last picture with this listing.

Original inner sleeves present and unmarked, but records themselves in anti-static lined inners.
Gatefold sleeve clean and undamaged. Loose transparent plastic sticker/lable included, but tucked loose into the front sleeve with disk one.
The album itself is not exactly rare, but this is a nice original copy.