I’ve got a feeling that these are set to become quite valuable Beatles collectors items.

Target stores in the USA recently sold an exclusive and official limited edition of four Beatles 45 rpm singles. Each record was packaged along with a Beatles t-shirt in a box. The four vinyl singles are newly-pressed and digitally remastered using the same mastertapes as the 2009 re-issues. This makes these four singles (along with the Record Store Day “Paperback Writer” single released last year) the only vinyl available so far from the recent Abbey Road Studios remasters of the Beatles back-catalogue.

They are “Can’t Buy Me Love/You Can’t Do That“:

“Help!/I’m Down“:

“Hello Goodbye/I Am The Walrus“:

And “Let It Be/You Know My Name Look Up The Number“:

According to sources only 10,000 copies of each single were pressed by Capitol Records – very small numbers by Beatles standards. And only ever sold in Target stores in the United States:

All the vinyl singles have Capitol Records labels, except for “Let It Be” which is on the Apple Records label – just as it would have been back in 1970 when it first came out. The singles look like the original issues except that Sony/ATV is listed as the music publisher. The picture sleeves are in a thicker cardboard than the paper ones that were originally were issued. The contents of each box, deatiling the cover, the labels, and the enclosed t-shirt design are pictured on the rear of each package:

You can see from the packaging that these releases are linked closely to the recent re-issue  of the Beatles “1” CD, which has been released in digitally remastered form. Hence the familiar red and yellow theme and the prominent “1” logos on each box.

What do you think? Valuable collectors item of the future?

See also Steve Marinucci’s Beatles Examiner and the Beatles Target Ltd Release Singles Part 2.