The Beatles The Long and Winding Road Norway Orig’70 Apple 1st Press 7" 45 RPM

$

400

EXTREMELY RARE 1st NORWEGIAN PRESSING WITH A UNIQUE PICTURE SLEEVE

THE BEATLES ~ THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD / FOR YOU BLUE (1970)

1st ISSUE PRESSED IN SWEDEN WITH THE A1 / B1 MATRIX NUMBERS

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

~ Before placing a bid, please make sure to attentively read our updated international shipping policy ~          

Extremely rare original Norwegian 7” 45 RPM issue with two Beatles singles, “The Long and Winding Road” and “For You Blue”. Unique Norway only picture sleeve with the orange banners containing the “Beatles” band name and song titles along with the Apple logo and 7E 006-04514 M catalog number. The main composition of the design is a black and white photo of the band from the “Hey Jude” photo session. The back side of the sleeve contains the “Hit Skudd” (Hit Shot) listing the hit singles released at the time. The picture sleeve is made from the raw matte paper stock. I’ll try to briefly describe the story of the “The Long and Winding Road” single and at the end of it you’ll understand why we’ve done it. The single was composed by Paul McCartney and was released in March, 1970, one month after The Beatles split. When preparing to record the track, Phil Spector thinking that the single has poor arrangement, added a more aggressive guitar solo and mixed the orchestral sections higher. This circumstance angered McCartney so much that when he took his case to  London's High Court for the Beatles’ disbandment, it was one of the six reasons. The main reason why I’ve mentioned London High Court is because at our current auction you can find the listing that has a direct relation to these circumstances. This is the original 1971 teletype sent to the US media, after which this news was published in all of the central American tabloids, including The New York Times. In fact, this unique item is a museum piece and being in your collection it will be unparalleled. This teletype is the first official documentary confirmation of this event. Now, let’s go back to this rare Norwegian issue. Even though this issue is Norwegian and its picture sleeve was printed in Norway (“EMI Norsk A/S – Frysjaveien 33. – Oslo 8”), the vinyl itself was pressed in Sweden and has the Apple Records labels containing the Swedish catalog number “4E 006-04514 M”. This is quite common for Norwegian issues. The matrix numbers of this copy contain the “1” prefix on both sides which leaves no doubts that this is the 1st pressing: Side 1 (The Long and Winding Road) – 04514M-A-1 H / Side 2 (For You Blue): 04514M-B-1 H. In many countries, this single has been reissued many times but in Norway this issue of 1970 is the only one and extremely rare.

★

The original picture sleeve is in Near Mint condition. It's very clean and doesn't have splits and ring wear which is commonly found on this issue's picture sleeves. I grade the glossy record as Excellent Minus for Side 1 and strong Very Good Plus for Side 2. It only has a few very light non-feelable hairlines along with some very light scuffs from the paper picture sleeve. The clean labels are in Near Mint Minus condition. The vinyl sounds great, only having some very light static which most likely could get reduced or go away if the record is professionally cleaned using a VPI cleaning machine.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

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FOR INTERNATIONAL BIDDERS' CONSIDERATION

Due to the high risks involved when it comes international shipping, we’ve recently stopped sending our items with USPS First-Class Mail International and now use only USPS Priority Mail International Express. However, if your order exceeds the amount of $5000, we’ll have to ship the package with FedEx as oppose to USPS.

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