Hi Luca and thanks for a very interesting book.
I have an addition for you
Street Fighting Man / Everybody Needs Someone To Love
Wrong title on the sleeve….
Sleeve printed in Sweden
Vinyl pressed in UK for export to Sweden only
Decca F 13204
Matrix number on SFM side: ZXDR-43220-T1-K1
Matrix number on ENSTL side: XZDR-34769-1T-1K
Probably a new discovery for this century is unfolding:
This is an interesting single. To begin with, this is one of the hardest UK pressed singles to find as it was ONLY pressed in small quantities for export only to Sweden. I was able to put this into my collection last week, very happy for that as on the same time I completed my UK pressed Decca singles collection. (Well, a few boxed versions of the early 60’s singles still missing, but at least I have one copy of all song combinations now)
Just before receiving it I got a phone call from my friend Olle and he had just talked to the guy who sold it to me. The seller had plaid it just before shipping it just to confirm that it plays well. Olle told me that I might be in for a surprise and requested me to give it a spin on the turntable asap.
And in deed I was! SFM is ok on 45 rpm BUT Everybody was not! It sounded like Donald Duck singing ya know. Downgraded the speed to 33 rpm and voila!
So what we have here is a single that works on 45 rpm on one side and 33 rpm on the other side. Olle had also given a spin on his copy and that plays ok with 45 rpm on both sides!!!
So, in fact, this rare F 13204 is existing in two versions, one with wrong speed on everybody and another version with correct speed. On closer examination of Olles and my copy, we did find the key difference. It is all in the matrix numbers again:
My copy has: XZDR-34769-1T-1K
Olles copy has: 45- XZDR-34769-1T-1K
Speculation on the scenario: Everybody is also existing on the F13195 SFM / Surprise / Everybody single released a few months earlier in UK. This is the only Maxi single that plays on 33 rpm from this period. I checked the matrix numbers on both singles and Everybody has the same numbers on them. So what happened was that when Sweden wanted a combination of the single less Surprise Surprise, then Decca just took the same mother plates and made new stampers out of it, without thinking about the speed! So they pressed the singles and off they sent them to Sweden.
What then probably took place is: People bought the new release, went home and plaid it, rushed back to the store and said; what a load of shit you sold me, the single does not work!!!! It has a manufacturing mistake!!
Upon this Swedish Decca ordered a new set of singles from Decca in UK who then did a corrected matrix with the correct speed and just added 45- in front of the original matrix numbers. That is why Olles copy has the 45- in the offgrooves and spins with the correct speed.
Now then the interesting question, which is the harder one to find? I had my thoughts made up rather quickly. Majority of the singles were sold within a week or two after release and it must have taken weeks to get the corrected version into stock and by then most of the fans had already bought their copy. So my guess was that the 33 rpm version would be more common.
A rare single for sure, but my friends with the Nordic Stonesvikings are known to be hard core collectors. We have 9 copies in total and so far I have got eight of them confirmed; 5 are 33 rpm’s and 3 are 45 rpm’s. Kinda confirming my thoughts that the correct 45 rpm is the rare one of these two!!!
A bit of a long text, but Collecting is fun isn’t it
If you have a copy, please let us know if it is the 33 rpm or 45 rpm version
Can't get the picture posted so here is a link to it.
[
janrichards.kuvat.fi]
Jan Richards
[
www.stonesondecca.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2017-02-25 11:13 by Jan Richards.