Hi guys, 1975 is the earliest possible date for these particular New Zealand labels. I just looked at the RCA Victor New Zealand page in 45cat, and the label was distributed by Pye right up to the end of 1974, with the RCA Limited Australia and New Zealand text making its first appearance in 1975, coinciding with the company's incorporation there. As stated before, 1963 would be right for the first appearance of this LP and this catalogue number, as borne out by the older logo on the cover.
So washed-out orange rather than over-saturated tan. I just had a look at a couple of Elvis labels from original release 1971 and 1972 and they have the same layout, font etc. so your original thought of 1971 may well be correct. I don't know how to be more precise maybe there's an RCA Australia expert out there somewhere.
1976 for tan RCA labels according me and my copy of CHANGESONEBOWIE I believe had the first of edition of this once with the orange labels but later the same year this reissue appeared with the tan labels. I could be wrong, I'm just going by memory, but I'm pretty sure that's the case. It does give us a definite 1976 on the tan RCA label though.
Thanks PhilMH - the colour of this label also looks a bit different i.e more heavily saturated but I put that down to the scanning. Do you agree that the main entry date of this should be 1963?
Hi guys, mid-70s (probably 76/77) is about right for the tan labels as far as I recall, but I think the only one I have from that period is THE SUN SESSIONS, as I was buying mostly imports then. The Sydney & Auckland I think is just boilerplate, indicating that RCA Limited had the rights for both countries, and I'm fairly sure they had separate pressings, most likely a legacy of RCA having different NZ distributors (e.g. Pye) before 1975, the year of its incorporation in that country - the fonts on this seem different to the few Australian pressings that I've seen. I think they still had separate pressings until at least the mid 80's, but I'm a bit hazy on the situation after that.
Hi Whassup I am still trying to determine when RCA Australia/N.Z started using the tan labels. I have a quite large Elvis collection and at that time (1974 to 1988) kept a detailed account of date/place of purchase and price paid (always new, I never bought any second-hand) - I guess I had a lot more spare time back then. I have entered the Sun Sessions album that I bought 5th June '76 which still had orange labels and Elvis (sometimes called the Fool album) I bought on 3rd December '77 had the tan labels so I'm guessing they switched in '76 or '77 but it may not be as cut and dried as that. Anyway the main date for this entry should actually be 1963 as this is when the cat# LSP 2765 (mono LPM 2765) was first released this allows anyone with an original copy to enter their images on this same page. The issue date of the subsequent release can be added to comments and/or in the item description when uploading images. This also may be a dual citizen as on the record label it mentions manufactured by RCA Sydney and Auckland - but that's another story. Sorry for the long winded comment - I hope it's in some way helpful.