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Reminded of equipment serial numbers with leading zeroes which presume to anticipate future production volumes - by the number of leading zeroes they planned to sell (only) up to 10 million copies (#0000000 to #9999999)?

I'm still holding out for TWA copy #0000000 - that would be George Martin's. ;-)

My understanding is that the numbering was done independently at different manufacturing locations. So there is more than one #0000005, etc.
I don't think there is an #0000000, I read somewhere each of the Beatles got an #0000001.

http://www.thewhitealbumproject.com/

Or is he just cashing in on a bull vinyl market? Should the rest of us take this as the top of the curve in the record market?

Peace and love! Peace and love! No more autographs.

I wonder if whoever eventually acquires it will play it? Maybe Michael could offer, and report on the SQ? That would be interesting…

There are over 50 pages worth of items being auctioned off. Whether he needs the money or not, he's apparently decided on a major purge.

Actually it means they simply reserved enough numbers for at least 1 million sleeves. Remember this is the U.K. sleeve. Record sales in the U.K. were a fraction of that in the U.S. And even though the U.K. sleeves got used in some other countries (in very modest quantities), it was actually unlikely it would sell 1 million copies in the U.K., let alone 10 million copies. In fact, I don't think I've seen a UK top loader sleeve higher than the 0600000's. And that includes mono and stereo pressings (which do not duplicate numbers).

FWIW, the mono pressings tend to be lower numbers and the stereo pressings tend to be higher number, but that's just a general rule. There were later UK pressings that had a numbered side-loader sleeve but it was a only a 6 digit serial number.

As for the multiple plants theory posed above, I believe that might only be for U.S pressings. The U.K. sleeves were printed by one printer and U.K. records mostly pressed at one plant.

A few interesting things I note from the details:

1) The random-ish mothers and stampers used just illustrate how the manufacturing process was not nearly as orderly and linear as collectors and ebay sellers would like to romanticize it. They had many machines going at once and just used whatever was handy. And they just picked an LP off the stack and stuck it in a sleeve.

2) It doesn't appear that this LP has the single tissue paper separator for the photos found in early UK copies. I'm not exactly sure what this means -- were they not included with some copies or was it simply lost for this copy?

3) Contrary to the ad type, I was also under the impression that each Beatle got a No. 0000001 copy.

I feel lucky enough to have a low number, kudos to anyone wealthy enough to pick this up

A $40,000 investment perhaps?

The entire point of numbering copies of this album was to make each one unique. It's funny when I see low numbered copies offered for sale with "rare number" or something like that in the description. They're all rare, and all equally so...

...except for UK copies numbered 1. They made multiples of that one for the band, ironically making those the most common number of all.

Of course, the fact that it's Ringo's copy will be the determining factor in the final price. I also suspect that people will pay big bucks for one numbered 9, should one ever pop up. (One did on eBay a year or two ago, but it appears that the number on that one was altered.)

Charlie

In Anthology the Beatles explain that John Lennon got the first pressing of the UK album and Ringo Starr got the first pressing of the US release.

NO.0000009 NO.0000009 NO.0000009 NO.0000009 ...

It went for $790,000!!!!