BEATLES Our First Four 4 x 7" APPLE BOX SET Jackie Lomax BLACK DYKE MILLS BAND

$

5,700

This is the HOLY GRAIL of Beatles and Apple collectibles!!!

Here you have the original UK release of the legendary promo-only "Our First Four" box-set complete with its thin paper/cardboard box, all four folders and all four records.

This box-set was released in 1968 to commemorate the launch of the APPLE label. It was manufactured in an extremely limited amount of copies and was sent out to friends, select journalists, DJs etc.

The "Our First Four" box set is impossible to find, most were quickly discarded and very few have survived the intervening 45 years. It hardly ever turns up for sale, in any condition!

The four 7" singles included were the first four Apple issues (hence the title!) and they are:

"Hey Jude" by The Beatles (R 5722)
"Those Were The Days" by Mary Hopkin (APPLE 2)
"Sour Milk Sea" by Jackie Lomax (APPLE 3)
"Thingumybob" by The Black Dyke Mills Band (APPLE 4)

Each of the records have push-out centres and the overprint "Sold in U.K. subject to resale price conditions, see price lists" on the record centres. This identifies them to be very first issues.

BOX CONDITION:
The 9,5" x 13" (24 cm x 33 cm) sized black, thin cardboard/paper box is in roughly VG condition. It is constructed from the same type of fragile card/paper as the "Let It Be" box set inner-tray. It was not designed or "built to last". This example has however survived the past 45 years in respectable condition and is fully intact. It has got some minor tears in the corners. There are a couple of tears at the "flap" on the back where you open the box. The upper 6-7 centimetres at the top of the box has got some creases and a slight bend "upwards" from having been stored badly over the years. All of these imperfections can be seen in the full size pictures below. Overall the box is in nice condition and holds together fine.

FOLDER CONDITIONS:
The four folders, printed on colourful card/paper, are in lovely EX condition. Due to the "bend" at the upper part of the the outside box (mentioned above), there is also a slight bend at the upper part of the folders. It has however not caused any creases to the folders, just a slight slow bend. The folders are in superb condition with sharp, pointed corners and NO tears, NO writing and NO seam splits. Check out the full size pictures below.

RECORD CONDITIONS:
All four 7" singles are the originals which came with the set - none have been replaced. Each of the 7" singles are mounted in a PVC plastic pocket which is attached to their repsective folder. The records are very hard to remove from the PVC pockets and I have not attempted to. I did however manage to turn the records slightly whilst still inside of their plastic pockets, and as is "common" with the records found in these sets, the vinyl where the thumb mark is is blacker than the rest, indicating that the long-term storage of the records inside the PVC plastic sleeves has caused discolouration and a "cloudy" look to the vinyl. I can not say anything else about the condition of the 7" singles apart from this, I can not guarantee that they will play without any noise. According to the previous owner of this box set, the records have never been played or even taken out of the PVC pockets. NOTE! that the labels on the Mary Hopkin and Jackie Lomax 7" singles has got some sticker residue/marks that seems to stem from having had "FACTORY SAMPLE - NOT FOR SALE" stickers removed. These kind of stickers were used to denote promo/demo copies by Apple at this time (to see what I mean, check here and here for examples of other copies of these two 45's WITH those stickers still attached).

SHIPPING:
The shipping cost automatically generated by eBay is NOT correct. This is an extremely rare item and it will be shipped via registered and insured airmail. The cost of this will be $75. The buyer/winner of this auction will pay that cost. Wait until you recieve an invoice from me before you make the payment. This item will be packaged very securely so that there is no chance of it being damaged during transport.

PAYMENT:
Full payment shall be recieved within 10 days.
Payment is accepted via PayPal.

Thanks for looking and good luck bidding!

Don't forget to check out my other auctions this week.

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