Hi. Just happened to see and buy this on eBay. My surprise is Side 1 has no Anna in the 3rd spot, but instead has Please Please Me and From Me To You!! No one mentions it but From me to you was on no other Beatles LP in the 60s (not counting Frank Ifield / Beatles VJ LP conglomeration). How did this get made. It’s not a stolen mother or pressing. No other VJ album has the seven track format. And why not a 7th song on Side 2 (Thank You Girl)!! So it’s not a counterfeit redo of any other album cover or vinyl. It’s a new version of a similar album from the 60s. But it’s not really a redo of any other VJ LP. It’s got unique album sleeve and vinyl and labels!! It’s so very cool to have any Beatles LP that plays FROM ME TO YOU!!! Beatle Lew.
Bought my copy of this from (get this) a wallpaper shop! Along with a Marble vinyl copy of Sgt Pepper, which I assumed was a Canadian issue but obviously is not..
One thing to remember about these Beatles Vee-Jay counterfeits is this:
Vee-Jay lost their rights to press/release Beatles records in late '64, therefore the earliest bootleg/counterfeits of these are almost as old as the originals. They've been around a long time.
Easy rule of thumb: On all authentic Vee-Jay LPs (regardless of label style), both the LP title & artist are printed ABOVE the spindle hole...
Bootleg/counterfeits of both this & Introducing The Beatles proper were widely available in department stores in the US in the '70s, shrink-wrapped & all. I bought one of each back then (they didn't sound bad at all) & kept them until I was lucky enough to track down original '64 Vee-Jay pressings.
Only on bootlegs The Beatles printed below the hole.
On the back cover photo paler, and Ringo and Paul generally covered with a mesh.
Cover is not expanded(Gatefold)
The legitimate release was titled Songs, Pictures AND STORIES Of The Fabulous Beatles and had a different track listing and an annotated gatefold sleeve (hence the omission of the 'Stories' part of the title on the bootleg).
I thought that any time the Introducing part and the artist name part were separated by the hole then that was a bootleg, but I could be misremembering.
With a nod to Make1968, have added missing composer credits, as gleaned from the labels of this entry. And R.C., It could be that album, but knowing how Americans like to second-guess the Brits and change a British LP's contents, I'm not so sure.
It looks legitimate to me. Perhaps when VJ issued the stereo version they thought it appropriate to revamp the front cover for both stereo and mono versions. Labels on bootlegs look like they're photocopied from the original and applied to the disc in a slap-dash fashion. The labels here are professionally finished.