I have a Beatles record; is it worth anything?

“I have a Beatles record. Is it worth anything?”

If you’ve ever worked in a music store that deals in previously owned vinyl, you’ve had this conversation. About a million times. Someone’s just bundled a senior off to a nursing home or — at the very least — rooted around the lounge room and found the stash of records that haven’t seen the light of day since CDs put them out of favour at the turn of the 1990s, and stumbled onto an old ‘collection’.

‘Collection’ is in inverted commas because the titles included in the stack of vinyl (and it will more often than not be a stack, piled horizontally, with warps and moisture stains to prove it) will include some Des O’Connor or Harry Secombe on the Summit label, a TV advertised collection by some celebrity from the box such as Don Lane or Tony Barber, maybe one of those country albums by John Laws with a truck on the cover and, if they were open-minded, one of the Naked Vicar albums.

There’ll always be at least one Beatles album. It might be A Hard Day’s Night — but it will most likely be the ‘blue’ one, not the ‘red’ soundtrack album. If it’s Magical Mystery Tour, it will be the one with the animal suits and the stars on the cover (sadly bereft of bonus booklet), not the highly collectible World Record Club edition with the fab four in psychedelic street wear. More likely it will be the Essential Beatles, a locally-devised compilation sold with a television campaign; or it will be The Number Ones, the Aussie version of which is a bit nicer since it stretched to three bonus tracks (compared to the UK and US editions) by including an EP in the package. (We’ve discussed this last item a little while back.)

At this point, the person on the phone thinks they can pay off a mortgage, or at least put their relative in a home and go on holiday overseas without having pictsell the house. Best not to lead them on. Let them know: there are a lot of variables that contribute to the value of a Beatles record. Is it a first pressing? An early pressing? A coloured vinyl or picture disc pressing? Does the cover have visible flaps at the back? Are there three, or two? Does the record itself have a Parlophone label? Is it printed in silver on a black background? Or in black, on an orange background? Is it in mono or stereo? Is it on the Apple label? Are there any inserts (inner sleeves, posters, release sheets listing other Beatles titles available)? Is it a single? In a picture sleeve? Colour or black and white?

Right now, there is only one question, of course:

Is it an English, mono, first pressing of the White Album, in a cover stamped with ‘Nº 0000001’, once belonging to Ringo Starr?

Of course it isn’t, and that’s a pity, because if it was that record, discussed a couple of days ago, while thought to be worth about $40,000-$60,000, turns out to be worth a record-breaking $790,000 to the successful bidder.

One point that has not been raised in all the stories about Ringo’s auction, particularly of his copy of the White Album, is the fact that Ringo had actually quit the Beatles during the recording of the White Album sessions. Imagine if he’d not changed his mind and returned… than the copy stamped Nº 0000001 would still be lost rather than setting records.