Vinyl:  VG++ Play Graded. Sounds Great!   Side 2 song 1 has a repeating tick sound that lasts about 10 seconds.  Has some other marks that don't affect play.  Tamla Labels are Clean.  This is the Original 1971 Tamla 1st Pressing!  TS-310.   This is Marvin's Masterpiece.  One of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time!!!  allmusic gives it 5 stars!!     See Review Below!
In the Dead Wax:  Side 1:  HS-1867    TS-310  S-1  H   L  and Stampers:  A4RS-2682-2-C
Side 2:  HS-1868    TS-310   S-2   H     L  and Stampers:  A4RS-2684-2-B

Cover:  VG+  (see photos; initials on back cover) Gatefold.
Goldmine Standards.   I play test every album that I sell on eBay as I have found you can't rate an LP accurately by just visually inspecting an album.  I wipe the dust off of every cover with clean, unscented baby wipes.  I professionally clean the vinyl.
U.S. Shipping:  $4 Media Mail.  50 cents additional shipping per additional album, when the shipment is combined.   If you wish to take advantage of my COMBINED SHIPPING deal, simply select your records by clicking on "ADD TO CART" on the main listing page.  Do this for all of your selections and then go to your cart to checkout.  Your combined shipping discount will be computed automatically.  Free domestic shipping if you spend $100 or more!  
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Why buy a first or early pressing and not a re-issue or a ‘re-mastered’ vinyl album? 
First and early pressings are pressed from the first generation lacquers and stampers. They usually sound vastly superior to later issues/re-issues (which, in recent times, are often pressed from whatever 'best' tapes or digital sources are currently available) - many so-called 'audiophile' new 180g pressings are cut from hi-res digital sources…essentially an expensive CD pressed on vinyl.  Why  experience the worse elements of both formats?  These are just High Maintenance CDs, with mid-ranges so cloaked with a veil as to sound smeared.  They are nearly always compressed with murky transients and a general lifelessness in the overall sound.  There are exceptions where re-masters/re-presses outshine the original issues, but they are exceptions and not the norm. 

First or early pressings nearly always have more immediacy, presence and dynamics. The sound staging is wider.  Subtle instrument nuances are better placed with more spacious textures. Balances are firmer in the bottom end with a far-tighter bass. Upper-mid ranges shine without harshness, and the overall depth is more immersive.  Inner details are  clearer.  

 On first and early pressings, the music tends to sound more ‘alive’ and vibrant.  The physics of sound energy is hard to clarify and write about from a listening perspective, but the best we can describe it is to say that you can 'hear' what the mixing and mastering engineers wanted you to hear when they first recorded the music. 

AllMusic Review by John Bush 

 is not only 's masterpiece, it's the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices, a man finally free to speak his mind and so move from R&B sex symbol to true recording artist. With ,  meditated on what had happened to the American dream of the past -- as it related to urban decay, environmental woes, military turbulence, police brutality, unemployment, and poverty. These feelings had been bubbling up between 1967 and 1970, during which he felt increasingly caged by Motown's behind-the-times hit machine and restrained from expressing himself seriously through his music. Finally, late in 1970, decided to record a song that '  had brought him, "What's Going On." When  decided not to issue the single, deeming it uncommercial,  refused to record any more material until he relented. Confirmed by its tremendous commercial success in January 1971, he recorded the rest of the album over ten days in March, and Motown released it in late May. Besides cementing  as one of the most important artists in pop music,  was far and away the best full-length to issue from the singles-dominated Motown factory, and arguably the best soul album of all time. 

Conceived as a statement from the viewpoint of a Vietnam veteran ('s brother Frankie had returned from a three-year hitch in 1967),  isn't just the question of a baffled soldier returning home to a strange place, but a promise that listeners would be informed by what they heard (that missing question mark in the title certainly wasn't a typo). Instead of releasing listeners from their troubles, as so many of his singles had in the past,  used the album to reflect on the climate of the early '70s, rife with civil unrest, drug abuse, abandoned children, and the spectre of riots in the near past. Alternately depressed and hopeful, angry and jubilant,  saved the most sublime, deeply inspired performances of his career for "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)," "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)," and "Save the Children." The songs and performances, however, furnished only half of a revolution; little could've been accomplished with the Motown sound of previous  hits like "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "Hitch Hike" or even "I Heard It Through the Grapevine." , as he conceived and produced it, was like no other record heard before it: languid, dark, and jazzy, a series of relaxed grooves with a heavy bottom, filled by thick basslines along with bongos, conga, and other percussion. Fortunately, this aesthetic fit in perfectly with the style of longtime Motown session men like bassist  and guitarist . When  were, for once, allowed the opportunity to work in relaxed, open proceedings, they produced the best work of their careers (and indeed, they recognized its importance before any of the Motown executives). Bob Babbitt's playing on "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" functions as the low-end foundation but also its melodic hook, while an improvisatory jam by  on alto sax furnished the album's opening flourish. (Much credit goes to  himself for seizing on these often tossed-off lines as precious; indeed, he spent more time down in the Snakepit than he did in the control room.) Just as he'd hoped it would be,  was 's masterwork, the most perfect expression of an artist's hope, anger, and concern ever recorded.