The Marvelettes - The Marvelous Marvelettes,

	£		240
	$		318

The Item For Sale Is:

Artist:              The Marvelettes

Title:               The Marvellous Marvelettes

Release info: Tamla Motown (TML 1100b) 1964 Original UK Mono Issue

Condition (Sleeve 1st) : EX/M-

Track List: As Long As I Know He’s Mine

   Strange I Know

   Love Letters

   I Forgot About You

   Which Way Did He Go

   Silly Boy

   It’s Gonna Take A Lot Of Doing

   My Daddy Knows Best

   Good Luck Charm

   A Little Bit Of Sympathy, A Little Bit of Love

   A Need For Love

   Why Must You Go

The first UK album from the excellent Marvelettes, I know when I was putting my Motown collection together this was one of the toughest titles to track down (seem to remember having a lot of problems with their EP too) and to this day is very hard to find and as for copies in this sort of condition well, if you’re very lucky you might see one every couple of years.

This came from the collection of a music reviewer for a local paper who received records every week played them once or twice for review purposes and then boxed them away in custom made wooden boxes where they stayed until a few weeks ago when they made their way to me.

Condition:

Sleeve: Fantastic! This has been in an unopened record box for over forty years and it just looks immaculate. It’s a typical EMI/Garrod And Lofthouse sixties sleeve made of thinish card laminated on the front only with flipbacked flaps on the rear, also on the rear is the “Patents Pending” notation which some people put such store in. The front just looks great, it’s incredibly clean with no writing anywhere, sadly this is the one title from this collection which has some damage to a sleeve although you’d be hard pushed to notice it on the photos, about a third of the way up on the open edge (level with the right hand girls shoulder) there is a tear coming in from the open edge for about an inch (2.5 cm), this has been discreetly repaired from the inside with some clear tape and at arms length in a PVC sleeve (which I’ll supply) you won’t notice it’s there, I’ve taken a photo with a finger next to the tear so that you can see the location and length of the tear which is directly below my finger on the picture and goes into the body of the sleeve for the length of my finger, as you’ll see it’s difficult to spot the tear, the other small fault with the front is that there’s a small abrasion to the lamination near the bottom left corner, as if someone has run their fingernail down the lamination and just scratched it slightly, a lot of people wouldn’t bother mentioning this and again at arms length you won’t notice it. There’s also the usual line down the open edge where the lamination has shrunk over the years but unlike on similar sleeves this isn’t a dirty line instead the card is still bright and colourful. Incredibly the rear is in even better shape, look at the photo, this is unlaminated white card over 40 years old and it’s still white! Not yellowed with age at all and with no faults at all I can mention, there is the usual line down the edges of the flaps where the lamination has shrunk but even that is clean and white. Both top and bottom seams are totally unworn. All 4 corners are still sharp and well defined. The spine is also in pristine shape, still thick and wide with all of the writing clearly readable.

Both labels are perfect, very clean with no writing, tears or stickers and devoid of spindle wear. The stamper codes in the run off grooves are A-1 and B-1.

Record: The disc is just perfect, as pristine as you could possibly hope for. This has been played once by me and that was the first time it’s been out of it’s sleeve for over 40 years, prior to that it was played maybe twice by the previous owner, certainly it’s been played less than half a dozen times in it’s lifetime so unless you have the fortune to stumble across a genuinely unplayed copy then this is as good as it gets. Held under a harsh lamp there are no visible marks at all (none!) and when played well it’s simply perfect, there is no surface noise at all, it’s totally silent between tracks and the sound just leaps out of the speakers with no distortion at all. How I wish all of my records were in this sort of shape. It’s a long time since I heard this album and to hear it again from such a beautiful copy is a joy and a privilege and I did think long and hard about keeping it but I already have a really nice copy in my own collection so there‘s no real point in having two which I guess is lucky for you because I simply cannot believe that you will find a significantly better copy than this easily.

The terms of trade (postage etc) are on the about me page - it’s your responsibility to read these so please do so before bidding as they are non-negotiable.

If you do decide to bid for this item I wish you luck and if not, well, thanks for looking and remember to look at my other items for sale you may find something more to your taste there.