Fantastic gesture on Ringo's part, and a record which was, to all intents and purposes, impossible to obtain. Someone out there with money to burn will be a very happy man/woman. (Probably man, actually.)
Dunno, in theory George, John and Paul were not 'materialistic' so any idea that #1 was special wouldn't appeal to them. Ringo knew he was destined to read for TV etc the adventures of a fictional locomotive numbered 1, and so considered it appropriate for him to have.
Turning rebellion into money since 1962 Member since Nov 2009 6566 Points Moderator
There was a discussion on similar matrix/stamper numbers on another site and they used as an example this picture
to show that when putting albums together, even ones numbered like the white album, what you actually get in the way of the order of vinyl being pressed could be very very random.
I would have imagined that there were several pressing all working at once - a couple of 1000 pressings then moved to the packing department who would have started from the top of the pile (with higher numbers) and not the bottom of the pile.