Vinyl:  NM-  Play Graded.  Plays Like New!   Warner Brothers Labels are Clean and Bright.   This is the 1970 Warner Brothers WS 1893 Release!  Arguably, The Dead's Finest Hour as measured by popularity in the general musci-lovers' audience, which The Dead never really cared about nor catered to...Still, it is certainly the one with the catchiest tunes and is full of classics:  Truckin', Friend Of The Devil, Box Of Rain, Sugar Magnolia...one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums!!  allmusic gives it 5 stars!!

As an aside...I recall driving back to LA from a Dead show in Berkeley and my friend, who was driving, pulling over and asking if I could drive..."What's up?", says I.  Says he:  "The freeway just turned into a giant Dead Ticket" ...now where were we??  
See Review Below!
In The Dead Wax:  On both sides:  matrices, etched.   Complete Dead Wax info cheerfully provided upon request.
Cover: VG+ (see photos).  Nice gloss on cover.  Front and back of cover artwork and text are rich, clear and bright, with some ring and shelf wear.  Seams and spine are solid and clean with some wear.  No splits.  No writing.  Spine print is readable. 

Goldmine Standards.   I play grade every record that I sell on eBay as I have found you can't rate a record accurately by just visually inspecting it.  I wipe the dust off of every cover with clean, unscented baby wipes.  I professionally clean the vinyl.  (I also operate a Vinyl Record Cleaning business for your dusty/dirty records--if interested, send me a message).
U.S. Shipping:  $4.99 Media Mail.  Tracking included.  50 cents additional shipping per additional item, when the shipment is combined.   If you wish to take advantage of my COMBINED SHIPPING deal, simply select your items 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!  
All records are packaged securely with the vinyl outside the jacket (to avoid seam split in transit). The vinyl and jacket are sandwiched between two cardboard stiffeners and shipped in a custom cardboard record mailer box. 
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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.   
American Beauty Review

by Fred Thomas

With 1970's , went through an overnight metamorphosis, turning abruptly from tripped-out free-form rock toward sublime acoustic folk and Americana. Taking notes on vocal harmonies from friends , used the softer statements of their fourth studio album as a subtle but moving reflection on the turmoil, heaviness, and hope America's youth was facing as the idealistic '60s ended. was recorded just a few months after its predecessor, both expanding and improving on the bluegrass, folk, and psychedelic country explorations of with some of the band's most brilliant compositions. The songs here have a noticeably more relaxed and joyous feel. Having dived headfirst into this new sound with the previous album, the bandmembers found the summit of their collaborative powers here, with lyricist penning some of his most poetic work, focusing more on gliding pedal steel than his regular electric lead guitar work, and standout lead vocal performances coming from (on the anthem to hippie love "Sugar Magnolia"), (on the husky blues of "Operator"), and (on the near-perfect opening tune, "Box of Rain"). This album also marked the beginning of what would become a long musical friendship between and , whose mandolin playing adds depth and flavor to tracks like the outlaw country-folk of "Friend of the Devil" and the gorgeously devotional "Ripple." eventually spawned the band's highest charting single -- "Truckin'," the greasy blues-rock tribute to nomadic counterculture -- but it also contained some of their most spiritual and open-hearted sentiments ever, their newfound love of intricate vocal arrangements finding pristine expression on the lamenting "Brokedown Palace" and the heavenly nostalgia and gratitude of "Attics of My Life." While eventually amassed a following so devoted that following the band from city to city became the center of many people’s lives, the majority of the band's magic came in the boundless heights it reached in its live sets but rarely managed to capture in the studio setting. is a categorical exception to this, offering a look at transcending even their own exploratory heights and making some of their most powerful music by examining their most gentle and restrained impulses. It’s easily the masterwork of their studio output, and a strong contender for the best music the band ever made, even including the countless hours of live shows captured on tape in the decades that followed.