STRAWBS Bursting at the Seams RARER Orig UK 73 EX++ LP

	£		28
	$		37

ONEADAYRECORDS – Simply Delivering Quality Music to the World.

Postage: UK £4.25. Europe (including Russia) £12. Rest of World £16. ALL signed for in quality, safe packaging – I NEVER use mailing envelopes.

NOTE: I now apply the Ebay ‘4-day’ rule for non-payment. I try to keep my P&P prices as low as possible after the very significant Royal Mail price increases and will never compromise on solid, safe packing.

Artist or Band: STRAWBS

Album Title: Bursting at the Seams.

Producer(s): Strawbs.

TRACK LIST:

Side 1: Flying; Lady Fuschia; Stormy Down; Down by the Sea; The River.

Side 2: Part of the Union; Tears and Pavan; Tears; Pavan; The Winter and the Summer; Lay Down; Thank You.

Label/Format: A&M – original mustard colour format (Please see my label scan).

Label Conditions: Both very clean, fresh and attractive with only light, quite fine and faint spindle marks and no wear around the hole area.

Cat Number: 68144.

Mode / Speed: Stereo / 33.3 rpm.

Warps: Assume all records I offer have no warping of any significance and all tracking is easy and effortless and should play on all turntables and even ‘budget’ decks.

Weight of this Record: 147 grams. A very solid and typical weight for A&M with this early label format.

Country of Manufacture: England.

Rarity: Moderately scarce, especially this clean.

Original Year of Release: 1973

Matrix Nos: AMLH 68144 A 2 / AMLH 68144 B 2

Mothers / Stampers: BC 3 / CN 1

Musicians: Dave Cousins – lead vocals, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo; Dave Lambert – lead vocals, backing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar; Blue Weaver – organ, piano, mellotron; John Ford – lead vocals, backing vocals, bass guitar; Richard Hudson – backing vocals, drums, sitar.

Brief Info: Album number six, and their most commercially successful, possibly due to the surprise hit single ‘Part of the Union’, this album hit the dizzy heights of number two in the UK charts. Richly deserved success for a quite magnificent album, no music lover could not enjoy this – a massive stepping-stone to check out their other vintage classics. Strawbs always played a wonderful and very distinct style of folk-rock and this is certainly up there with their best. This copy in impressive condition: the cover is always difficult and does not wear well, this has far less wear than the majority I have seen. Both record and inner sleeve are in terrific condition. One most collectors should enjoy.

Cover Grade and Format: NEAR EXCELLENT: a single unlaminated format. Printed and made in England by MacNeill. Includes the lyric inner sleeve.

Cover Front & Back: Apart from being a difficult predominately black cover, the reason this fails to wear well is the way it has been manufactured. The other main colour on this sleeve is silver-grey. This is the base-colour of the card and the rest is printed on top. Thus the overprint colour is less robust. If it chips, scratches or rubs, the silver base colour shows through rather than simply marking or showing card. This is evident to a low degree on small parts of the back of this example. A smallish rub near the top of the back and a few small chips show as silver. Clearly, the black ink is so thin and delicate, any minor abrashion will rub this away to reveal the silver base-coat. But glad to say, any evidence of ‘silver’ chipping is small, quite few and light, and the front has practically avoided any with just gentle hints near the edges. Both sides have a few light marks, small corner rubs and a few very fine edge and corner creases. A major plus on such a cover, is the lack of ring wear which would be a disaster for obvious reasons. And even with a few minor blemishes or traces of gentle storage wear, this can almost be deemed exceptional given all the facts.

Top Edge: Any rub traces are very few, light and small.

Bottom Edge: Light patchy, light rubbing.

Right Edge(s), and Type: Clean, sharp with little wear, any thickening or burring very mild and small as seen viewed end-on. Record enters on this edge that is guaranteed untrimmed.

Spine and Text: Solid, quite straight with minimal compression. Stating the obvious: this spine, along with all other edges, is very fragile indeed and very rub intolerant. So finding one so little rubbed with practically all text present and unrubbed (small rubbing to the last two digits of the catalogue apart), is very unsual. Most of the black surface still intact with just a little rubbing near the ends, and very fine traces on the actual fold. This will not prove easy to find much better.

Corners: All have moderate tip rubs and the odd small tip crease. Fine shape is retained.

Cover Summary: A strong all-round example of this immensely fragile 1970’s cover, one that will prove difficult to find much better. Few will show a great deal less of the black surface ink rubbing and chipping and this attractive item should please many collectors, but not the highly discerning.

The Inner Sleeve: EXCELLENT(++): an unlined thin card lyric inner printed both sides. This is in superb condition with minimal traces of any rim impression, no creasing, barely any marks and all edges unsplit with no repairs. This is an inner that is also highly prone to ring wear of which this has avoided to any noteworthy degree.

Vinyl Condition/Visual Grading: EXCELLENT(++): or better. This superb record is as close to my full Mint(-) as they get without me grading as such. A very fine visual copy that is very clean, shiny, intense black and quite heavily pressed. A copy with minimal plays on all the evidence with any surface trace marks tiny, few, ultra light and faint as seen critically under bright angled light. In fact finding any at all proved quite difficult and these surfaces are in age-defying condition. Visually a super record that should please most-all 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 B&W speakers that include the legendary tweeter from their awesome Nautilus range that reveals every blemish or minuscule sound present on any record.]

Sound Quality and Audio Grading: This very impressive record plays up to it’s high visual grading with practically nothing to fault. 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 barely even registered and no pops or clicks were noted and this is an exceptional clean pressing. A very small, shallow pressing ‘bump’ was even ignored as well and few copies will outperform this early pressing significantly I feel sure. Both channels are clean and sharp, I am certain this record has been played very lightly and has been generally well stored and carefully handled, almost certainly in a non-smoking environment. Nothing spoilt my pleasure when play-grading this wonderful record which remains one of my favourite Strawbs albums. This record will prove very difficult to find significantly better and can be strongly recommended.

Now one of the most established sellers on Ebay and still offering the finest and most accurately described and graded 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 as I can all items I offer for sale with all the relevant information I can think of to help any potential bidder and collector. You may notice I only submit records sparingly on Ebay - on average ONEADAY, a couple more at weekends if time permits, hence the name - time rarely allows for more as I Play-Grade virtually every record I offer in their entirety, not just bits to guess a grade - visuals alone do not always tell a true or full story. I will 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 its good. I get just as much pleasure offering a relatively common record in stunning near mint condition as the real rare items. All the pictures I use for your guidance are taken with a digital camera or scanned - they are NOT improved, cleaned-up or made better looking than they are with camera trickery or enhancing with digital programmes. What you see is what you get and scanned labels will give a more accurate representation of the genuine colour than flash photography where light is variable. I cannot guarantee total accuracy for colours however but most will be very close. If any picture I take looks more flattering than the actual item for any reason, I will clearly state the fact in the advert and vice-versa. I hope the item below is to your liking - any questions can be emailed and I will do my very best to answer you. I am enthusiastic, and have a fair degree of knowledge about many genres and I promise quality items - bid with confidence - excellence comes as standard and so does Near Mint regularly. Please assume all records I offer have NO jumps, sticks, 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 Rondo Red moving coil cartridge (tracks at 2 grams). Amps: Naim Nait 5i with Project USB phono stage and Chord interconnects. Speakers: B&W 704 Floorstanding 3-way Monitors (bi-wired with Terrarium Black terminated cable). All records I offer on Ebay are cleaned on a professional VPI-17 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 D5000 SLR Digital 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.

I now offer the fastest possible posting, often the very next day after payment is received or within two to three days maximum (unless on holiday). I only use FIRST-CLASS Mail. The record’s cover will be placed within a BRAND NEW soft protective sleeve and the actual record will be professionally cleaned on my new VPI-17 Pro vacuum system to give ultimate clean grooves and playing surfaces and the best possible looks and ultimate sound quality. You will NOT get tired, dull looking, dust infested records inside worn and foggy covers with tatty inners from this seller and that’s a promise and guarantee. All records are posted in professional boxes (NOT Mailers, these do not offer any real protection). The record(s) are REMOVED from their main cover to avoid edge splits and placed within a brand new polylined inner. The record’s original inner will be included if available. The boxes are then reinforced with at least TWO, ULTRA THICK stiffeners for maximum extra protection – these are FOUR TIMES thicker than commercial stiffeners and are custom-made for oneadayrecords. Really rare and expensive albums will even be Double Boxed if deemed necessary and possible. When larger boxes are used, the thick record and stiffener ‘sandwich’ is then thickly embedded into bubble-wrap to bulk out the record inside the box to centre the item inside to reduce the risk of damage still further. Printed address labels are used for clarity as well as a sender label. Customers requests or special needs for P&P will be respected if at all possible but ‘Signed-For’ posting is NOT an option anymore. I do not profit on posting and the cost of this lavish packing is NOT even charged for, I offer probably the best-value and safest shipping possible for ultimate confidence. The boxes and ultra thick double-wall stiffeners and bubble wrap make a near impregnable fortress for safe shipping and this is used inland and overseas for ALL my records, not just the rare and expensive. I will invoice any winning bidder as soon as possible after the auction ends. My ‘loss’ or ‘damage rate’ is less than one in two thousand+ based on over 8,000+ items sold in over 10 years of Ebay trading and I consider that pretty exceptional. The only damage rate acceptable for this seller is ZERO and I think my packets will offer just that. It would take a vicious postman or postal service to damage these for sure. Even one of these stiffeners cannot be bent by hand, so what chance 2 inside a box? Oneadayrecords is a MAILER-FREE ZONE. I discount of course for multiple purchases with a maximum of FIVE records per box (one double can sometimes be included subject to total weight). All postage costs are below and at the top of the listing.

NOTE: First Time Bidders: Please ask me first.

PLEASE NOTE: I now exercise my right to open a dispute after the Ebay rule of FOUR days if no payment is received. I will then cancel the dispute to end the, 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 and they take the Ebay consequences (a strike or removal from the system). 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] = £4.25

1 LP (Special Delivery with Standard £500 Maximum Insurance) [Signed For, Next Day] = £8. (this includes insurance of £500). Add £2 per extra LP.

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

1 LP (Small Packet ‘Signed For’ with Standard Royal Mail Insurance [£50 maximum]) = £12 (enhanced Royal Mail insurance is an optional extra £3). Add £3 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 (£17 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 can 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 3 days for communication and 7 days for payment to arrive - if not I will relist the item or offer to the runner-up. Fast deals get great feedback from me. Any questions - please ask and thanks for looking.

My Guarantee: If any winning bidder is not satisfied with their purchase I will offer a complete refund. I will not refund if any defect detail is clearly stated on the advert and missed by the buyer, so read the item description carefully. If any overseas collector does not understand anything in my listing, please email and ask me to help. Thank You.

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, actually 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.

The Argument for Vinyl Original sound and mix (mono mixes are rarely available on CD), high quality sound on clean copies (played on a hi-end dedicated analogue system – breathtaking sound!), beautiful, large format covers, artwork, inserts and even full size posters etc; huge investment potential, and the pleasure of owning ‘the real thing’.