Sold Date: August 8, 2021
Start Date: July 29, 2021
Final Price: $99.00 (USD)
Bid Count: 1
Seller Feedback: 201
Buyer Feedback: 0

The Grateful Dead. One From The Vault. Triple LP Vinyl Album. Gatefold Jacket. First 1991 Pressing Only Available In Europe For Less Than A Year.
Item Details
Manufacturing And Pressing in: Germany
Recorded: By Wally Heider, August 13, 1975 at The Great American Music Hall, SF, CA
Original Issue: April 15, 1991
This Issue: 1991
Label: Grateful Dead Records GDV3 4015
Runout Deadwax Matrix Numbers:
Side 1: (stamp:) 106 DMF-3752 A2
Side 2: (stamp:) 106 DMF-3752 B-1 C
Side 3: (stamp:) 106 DMF-3753 A-1 C
Side 4: (stamp:) 106 DMF-3753 B-1 C
Side 5: (stamp:) 106 DMF-3754 A-1 C
Side 6: (stamp:) 106 DMF-3754 B-1 C
Was bought new by this seller from European exporter in 1991 and now offered from his private collection (you have absolutely known provenance). Most tracks had just one play when first bought. I was never a "Dead Head" but liked a couple of tracks enough to buy the live versions of them and just digitized those for "mix tape" CDRs. The LPs were only played  on an expertly setup high-end audiophile turntable, arm, and cartridge. The album has never been exposed to heat or tobacco smoke and was always stored vertically in a specially designed record cabinet (Rackit) to prevent warpage.
Was cleaned on a VPI HW 16 with Audio Intelligent solutions and ultra-pure water rinse (50X purer than distilled water) before my pre-sale sound check. I wear nitrile surgical gloves while cleaning and play testing to avoid any chance of transferring finger oils to the vinyl.

Very sensitive play testing was performed straight off my Ayre P-5xe fully balanced phono preamp over Sennheiser HD 600 headphones using a Schiit Audio Valhalla 2 tube headphone amp fitted with Voskhod Soviet matched tubes (see last photo).

Track list
1: Introduction, Help On The Way / Slipknot!, Franklin's Tower, The Music Never Stopped.
2: It Must Have Been The Roses, Eyes Of The World / Drums.
3: King Solomon's Marbles / Stronger Than Dirt (Or, Milkin' The Turkey), Around & Around, Sugaree.
4: Big River, Crazy Fingers / Drums.
5: The Other One, Sage And Spirit, Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad.
6: U.S. Blues, Blues For Allah / Sand Castles & Glass Camels / Unusual Occurrences In The Desert.

I never take "distant" photos nor the so-prevalent type with the LP sticking halfway out of the jacket. I take close-ups under photo lamps so you can see nearly everything I describe in the jacket grading. It is virtually impossible to know the true vinyl condition from any photograph. That takes very bright and close visual inspection PLUS play testing with thorough coverage on high resolution equipment.
Grading Details
Note: Grading LPs by text characters is subjective and at best are only a guide as no two used records are of exactly the same quality. Please, refer to both my photo evidence and detailed descriptions to judge by YOUR OWN grading standards. Questions are always welcome. eBay no longer allows me to enter separate grades for each side of the sleeve or record so you may not see any in the box above but are listed below. Play quality is personally most important to me so vinyl visual qualities are graded and described in detail separately for your complete assessment.

Outer Jacket Inspection/grading:
VG+/VG++
The exporter did not package the album securely enough and during shipping the upper right corner suffered a 4" bend-crease but it does not break the underlying printed color. The creasing is more pronounced on the front than the back as the back side has more of a gentle bend. The LPs had not been removed from the jacket before for shipping. As a result the front gatefold pocket did not get damaged but the rear pocket did because it had discs 2 and 3 inside it. Their combined mass was enough to cause a 3/4" split in the top center of the rear gatefold sleeve. This could be easily repaired with reinforcement inside and careful gluing on the outside. The top front upper edge has 5 light creases about 1/4" long. There are very small amounts of corner blunting on both front and back sleeve corners. Otherwise the surfaces are near mint with no ring or sliding wear and there is no rubbing wear on the any of the edges as the album has always been stored in a heavy duty poly bag.

Vinyl visual inspection/grading:
NM-/VG+/NM/NM-/NM/VG+

Side 1: All sides have very wide lead-out "dead wax" rings around the labels. Because the audio was cut only into the "outer grooves" zone the high frequency details will not be compromised from start to finish. This side looked really clean except for those lightly reflective nanometer hairlines from paper sleeve contact. While tilting and rotating I saw a microscopic gray "dot" about 1/2" from the start of T1 and some light vinyl "mottling" within that track. I made a note to check those areas carefully during play test.

Side 2: This whole side looked easily NM until I saw 2 light colored specks of dust (1st larger, 2nd smaller) starting about 1-1/2" into T2 that I couldn't rub away with my nitrile gloved fingertip. I thought they might be some type of dust that adhered itself to the vinyl so I did a 2 hour spot soak with my AI "Enzymatic" cleaning solution but that did not soften and release them. So I  soaked them again with the AI "Super Cleaner" designed to remove different kinds of contaminants. That also did not budge the specks. I zeroed in on them under bright light and saw the grooves were pressed right into them and their surfaces were glossy like the vinyl. My conclusion is that there was some kind of unprocessed "micro-chunks" in the vinyl biscuit used to press this record and they ended up thermally melded into the top surface by the pressure and heat of the stamper. It will remain to be seen what effects they may have on tracking or sound during my play testing (they could create ticks per each revolution). I made a note to really check that section out (see play testing below).

Side 3: This side looked really clean with only those same sleeving "polish" hairlines that are hard to see without tilting and rotating under bright light.

Side 4: All I could find on this side was a fog-like surface "contrail" through T2 with 3 reflective micro-dots next to it.

Side 5: This side looked really clean with only those same sleeving "polish" hairlines that are hard to see without tilting and rotating under bright light.

Side 6: Easily looked NM until I found a brightly reflective line in the last 1/8" of T3. It looked like a scratch caused by an old accidental needle drag. I made a note to check for potential ticks on each revolution through this area and so I downgraded the my visual rating from NM to VG+.

Play Testing:
NM/VG++/NM/NM/NM-/VG+

Extensive play testing was performed after visual inspection. Because of the lengths of many tracks are long, I advanced my stylus about 1/4" at a time, listening for a few minutes on each needle drop. I also listened to all lead-in, lead-out and transition grooves between each track. Continuous written notes were taken. Here is rundown of each side from those notes.

Side 1 Play
I noticed that this side played with a slight warp that did not affect play (I try to reveal everything here so the buyer gets no surprises); T1 is just a short intro of the band lineup by Bill. My visual inspection notes reminded me to listen carefully about 1/2" into T2. I didn't hear any kind of distracting vinyl noise in that area while playing continuously through it. T2 starts segueing into Franklin's Tower about a 1/4" before the track separation band. T3 is my top favorite of all three discs and I never get tired of it. Its well recorded, mixed, and mastered. There were no vinyl distractions in it either. T3 was also very clean and quiet except for a bit of mild crackle starting up right before hitting the lead-out grooves as the music was winding down. Overall I'd rate it to be a very clean and well preserved side.

Side 2 Play
With the record clamped on this side the slight warp I saw on Side 1 was minimized. During the first few minutes of T1 I was able to occasionally hear some tiny low level high frequency ticks. Their occurrences diminished as the track played on. But there was one isolated single "click." T2 started off very quiet but at about 1/4" into it I heard about 7 low level (but still audible) "ticks' that repeated each revolution. I hadn’t found this visually, so that's why play testing is essential for grading. This was also the side with those two visually noticeable specks of vinyl contaminants fused right into the surface by the stamper about 1-1/2" into the track. I was very concerned that they might create some loud clicks or possibly cause my stylus to skip. I was really happy when my cartridge played right through both spots with no problems. I wasn't sure if I heard some low frequency noise way down there but for sure there were no sharp ticks or clicks. I was totally amazed so once I finished my play test for the the rest of the side I stopped rotation and cued up my arm right before the first speck then listened once again with more concentration. The 2nd time I managed to detect only about 3 repeating low frequency soft "thumps" way below the music levels and difficult to catch even on my headphones. So, it was a great relief to know they weren't much of an issue. This helped to build my theory that they could be partially processed raw vinyl components that were melted enough to get fully modulated grooves pressed into them but remained slightly "hilly" above the surfaces around. The later much smaller spec was not detected at all on my 2nd listen. I decided that the 7 small repeating ticks and single "click" noted above should push my final grade into VG+ territory. However, for the majority of the whole side the play quality was NM.

Side 3 Play
In T1 I only detected two tiny separated ticks. The track had great recording and mixing audio quality. All instruments and voices were fully separated with no congestion. T2 had the same audio quality and presence as T1 but also some explosive musical peaks. This is a very strong track. T3 is one of my personal favorites that I digitized for regular listening and it was just flawless.

Side 4 Play
T1 is another really strong track that played nice and loud but very clean at the same time. The stereo imaging of T2 had lots of width and depth that really captured the acoustics of the GAMH venue placing the listener right there in the audience. This track is my top pick for overall audio quality..

Side 5 Play
Thus side played nicely flat on my platter. T1 is an instrumental track and I detected a single "click" about 1.4" from start and a single "tick" about 1/2" into it. The track was otherwise very quiet. As the end of T1 transitioned into the start of T2 I detected a few random micro-ticks here and there. Its another instrumental track but gentler and quieter that allowed very low energy high frequency vinyl ticks to occasionally bubble up into detectability on the headphones. T3 is a vocal track but with a realistic stereo image of the whole band spread out on the stage . A very clean track with Jerry's voice and Phil's bass exceptionally vibrant. I added a minus to an otherwise NM rating because of the small amount of detected vinyl noise noted above.

Side 6 Play
In T1 Jerry's vocals were clear and had an up-front perspective making it very enjoyable. At he start of T2 I noticed a couple of micro-ticks as the levels ramped up gently. Except for the very end of this 21 minute track, I only heard a single moderate tick about 1" into it. I had a hard time deciding what style of blues this was to me and the only thing that came up was "raga-psychedelic blues." Lots of percussion and sound effects, but in the last 1" or so, Jerry moved into more traditional blues riffs and Phil had some very powerful bass lines (the bass was consistently captured with power and low extension all throughout the album). Up to the end I was holding on an NM grading until I heard a string of repeating ticks right as the track was winding down into its end. So the artifact I found during visual checking was an actual scratch caused by an old accidental needle slip. That changed my rating down to VG+.

I spent a lot of time and effort to document the condition of all 3 LPs in detail so any buyer will know exactly what they would be getting. My conclusion is that this item is a very worthwhile collectable album because there is a high percentage of clean music here to fully enjoy and the jacket is decently preserved. I hope these extensive grading details will be helpful.

Packaging All three records will be placed outside the jacket to protect against jacket damage. Original paper inner sleeves are included separately. All 3 records have been placed into a new MFSL-style "rice paper" plastic sleeve, as the original paper ones can be abrasive and may be holding onto some dust. This will keep vinyl surfaces clean and well protected during shipping for ultimate buyer usage. Outer jacket is contained in a new clear polyethylene protective sleeve. Sent in good quality record mailer reinforced with cardboard stiffeners.
Shipping Shipping will be via USPS Media Mail for a flat charge of $3.98 per single album sale. A combined shipping discount is available on multiple sales completed on the same day($3.98 plus $0.50 for each additional LP). If you do buy more than one LP on the same daydo not pay immediately but wait for my all-combined invoice. A discount for the combined items will show on that invoice. Then, once payment is received, the items will ship.