Sold Date: May 13, 2024
Start Date: May 6, 2024
Final Price: $898.00 (USD)
Bid Count: 3
Seller Feedback: 2640
Buyer Feedback: 0

    Here we have a very nice copy of "The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons" on Vee Jay Records DX 30 from August, 1964. This is a mono copy. Two of the biggest selling recording groups of the day in 1964 were on Vee Jay Records. So, apparently the promotional people at Vee Jay realized this and they knew that the record buyers of the day (mostly teens) liked the Four Seasons and that they also liked the Beatles and wouldn't it be fun for these teens to stack one artist against the other in a popularity contest!
    And so in this double LP package we find one LP by the Four Seasons and one by the Beatles. The idea was to play a song by the Four Seasons ("Sherry") and a song by the Beatles ("I Saw Her Standing there") and assign points to each song with 10 points maximum per round.  (Example: 6 points for "Sherry" and 4 points for "I Saw Her Standing there." There is a scorecard on the back cover to keep score and a large box in which to place the Winner's name. 
   Inside the gatefold are photos of the Beatles and Four Seasons, plus a biography of each Beatles and a biography of each Season.

   Included with this package was a beautiful poster of the Beatles, which has now become very rare and accounts for much of the value of this Beatles item.
   The vinyl is Mint. Both LP's look Mint and they play Mint. I did play test some of each LP and I heard silence at the lead-in groove and silence between cuts. The "wrinkles" on the Beatles LP label are the way they came from the factory. The "wrinkles" are not cracks, etc.

   The inner sleeves are official Vee Jay inner sleeves and they show small images of the many other artists that were on the Vee Jay label as of 1964. They are Near Mint as the paper from 60 years ago begins to dry out.

   As for the front cover, it does present itself very well. The colors are sharp, the white background still looks nice and white and the images of the Beatles and the Seasons, while not great photos in the first place, still look great. There is little wear to the front cover. I would grade it as VG++. However, there is a 4 3/4" seam split at the top right. The bottom corners of the front cover show wear. The inside of the gatefold with the biographical information is clean with no writing and no marks of any kind.

   While it may have been tempting to the original owner to do the scoring between the Beatles and the Four Seasons on the back cover, as explained above, no one ever entered any "grades" into the appropriate boxes on the back cover, so it is clean of any marks. The back cover does have some wear, though, and a "wrinkle" in the lower left. 

   The included Beatles poster is absolutely beautiful! The images are crisp and the colors are vivid! There are no tears or markings of any kind. There are no folds or fading. All I could see are a couple of very, very faint "wrinkles" above John's head. They are very difficult to see, but I did want to mention them. I did include one image where I tried to show them.   
   The Perry Cox book explains that only 18,000 of "The Beatles vs. The Four Seasons" double LP's were ever made! So, you can imagine how few remain after 60 years! The other Beatles LP's sold in the millions and there were only 18,000 of this LP made! When you consider the time that has elapsed, the number of these LP's that were just discarded and the number that were ruined in entry level record players in the 60's, it's understandable that only a small number of these have survived. Someone said recently that this LP is rarer than a Butcher Cover LP and that sounds correct!
    Shipping/Handling will be $14.99 Ground Advantage within the U.S. I will insure the package.