One very unique and rare Beatles item is up for grabs at the moment – but you’d better be quick and have your wallet ready…

It is a fine, sealed, mint example of the legendary “Butcher Cover” – which is the generic name given by collectors for the original cover of the Beatles US release called “The Beatles Yesterday and Today”.

No need to go into great detail here because most Beatles collectors know the story – but Capitol had to quickly withdraw the cover which was considered offensive at the time by most American consumers. It was a shot of the band smiling at the cameras while holding cuts of butchered meat and baby dolls….not a good combo:

Original "Butcher Cover" in good shape

Because they detected public outcry and took the record off the shelves so fast this particular cover has become one of the most sought after and rare items. Finding one in good condition is rare. Capitol Records initially pasted over thousands of existing withdrawn pressings with a new, safer picture that looked like this:

The Capitol paste-over and the image used for all later releases

Well, one original, un-pasted-over copy – still sealed in it’s shrink-wrap – has come up for auction on Ebay here.

To give you some context of what copies of this item in good condition can sell for have a look at this YouTube item from the US version of Antiques Roadshow.

Thanks to Web Wire for pointing to this item. Also to ivegotneatstuff.com for some more detail and the YouTube link.