Tag Archives: German

Mystery of a “Mystery Tour” Original EP Solved

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Originally I was annoyed with the eBay seller, and also annoyed with myself for not checking properly before bidding….

You see, I’d been the successful bidder on what I thought was an original, 1967 German pressing of The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour. That’s the way it was advertised by the seller. It was a double EP on the Odeon label and in very good condition for its age. Got it for a really good price, too:magical_ger_ep_h1_large magical_ger_ep_h4_large

Then the record arrives in the post. We open it up and pop open the gatefold cover. There, at the bottom right, it clearly says: “MADE & PRINTED IN GERMANY”. All good so far:mmt-germay

Then we get the records out. They’re in mint condition and on the red Odeon label:mmt-france-label

But hang on, the small print on the label says “MADE IN FRANCE”! mmt-france-closeup

What’s going on here? Has this eBay seller done a swifty and tried to pass off a “Frankenstein-ed” copy of Magical Mystery Tour? Have they conveniently mixed a cover from one country, and the two vinyls from another?

Thankfully, no.

A little bit of “after-the-fact” internet research reveals that all is well. This is indeed how this edition was originally released. In France, Odeon manufactured the vinyl locally, but they imported all the covers from Germany. This is easily proved by a visit to the Discogs database here, and here where members have similar copies to the one we have.

There is also an excellent explanation (and photos) on The Beatles Record Collection site, where it is revealed that there are even more variations in the way the French issued the Magical Mystery Tour EP set.

So, we indeed do have a correct and original French (not German) pressing of this disc after all. Phew!

(As usual, click on images above to see larger versions)

Ringo’s ‘Beaucoups of Blues’ – German Pressing

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Another visit to Audiomania, the eclectic second-hand record store not far from our local area, and another Ringo Starr record find….

Audiomania is a quirky shop located in a run-down, semi-industrial area. It only opens two days a week (Thursdays and Saturdays), and then for only four hours at a time. One side of the premises contains blue crates full of good quality vinyl (pop, rock, and blues, as well as lots of jazz and reggae). On the other side they sell used hi-fi, restored motor cycles….and artworks made out of old motorcycle and hi fi parts.

Like we said, it’s an unusual place:Audiomania

After a thorough trawl here last Saturday we ended up with two items.

The first find was a nice clean German pressing of Ringo Starr’s 1970 solo release Beaucoups of Blues. This one is on the Hörzu/Apple label, making it quite interesting:beaucoups doublebeaucoups_shze_label aBeaucoups of Blues_LP_label_b

Starting in the 1960s Hörzu (principally a radio and TV listing magazine) began producing and releasing records as a subsidiary of the Electrola company. Electrola had the rights to release EMI product (including the Beatles) in Germany.

Like we said in the previous post, we seem to moving from not having much Ringo as a solo artist on vinyl to now having quite a few of his releases.

Vinyl is the specialty of Audiomania, but while at the store we found a couple of small crates with some CDs. In there we turned up an original 1986 UK copy of Paul McCartney’s Press to Play: Press to PlayPress to Play label

This is the disc without the bonus tracks (which were added for the 1993 re-issues called The Paul McCartney Collection). The lovely lady who runs the store gave this one to us for free!