Vinyl:  VG Play Graded. Sounds Very Good!  Warner Brothers Labels are Clean and Bright.  This is the 1968 Warner Brothers 1ST PRESSING!  WS 1768.  1B/1B.  Here's Van the Man seemingly out of nowhere creating an instant Pop masterpiece that sounded like nothing before it and has been unequalled to this day... sheer brilliant poetic songs and Celtic Soul and swingin' jazz!  Enjoy!   One of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All time!!!  allmusic gives it 5 stars!! See Review Below!
In the Dead Wax:  Side1:  39435  WS  1768A -1B  O  ((Capitol's Jacksonville, IL pressing plant)) Side 2:  39436  WS  1768B -1B  O  ((Capitol's Jacksonville, IL pressing plant))
Cover:  VG/VG+  (see photos)  Nice high gloss on cover. Front and back of cover artwork and text are rich, clear and bright, with some shelf and ring wear. Seams, corners and spine are solid with some wear.  No splits.  No writing.  Spine print is clear.  

Goldmine Standards.   I play grade every record 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.  (I also operate a Vinyl Record Cleaning business for your dusty/dirty records--if interested, send me a message).

U.S. Shipping:  $4 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. 
INTERNATIONAL BUYERS!  I CAN COMBINE SHIP FOR YOU AND MINIMIZE SHIPPING COSTS!!!  IF YOU TELL ME WHICH ITEMS YOU WANT TO BUY, I CAN WEIGH THEM AND THE PACKAGING TOGETHER AND THEN GO IN AND ADJUST THE LISTINGS ACCORDINGLY TO REFLECT THE EXACT WEIGHT OF THE COMBINED SHIPMENT!  THIS WILL SAVE YOU A LOT OF MONEY!!!  IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN THIS, SEND ME A MESSAGE TELLING ME WHICH ITEMS YOU WOULD LIKE TO PURCHASE AND WE'LL GO FROM THERE.
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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 William Ruhlmann   is generally considered one of the best albums in pop music history, but for all that renown, it is anything but an archetypal rock & roll album. It it isn't a rock & roll album at all.  plays acoustic guitar and sings in his elastic, bluesy, soulful voice, accompanied by crack group of jazz studio players: guitarist , upright bassist ,  drummer , vibraphonist and soprano saxophonist  (also credited on flute, though that's debatable -- some claim an anonymous flutist provided those parts). Producer  added chamber orchestrations later and divided the album into halves: "In The Beginning" and "Afterwards" with four tunes under each heading. 's songs are an instinctive, organic mixture of Celtic folk, blues, and jazz. He fully enters the mystic here, more in the moment than he ever would be again in a recording studio. If his pop hit "Brown-Eyed Girl" was the first place he explored the "previous" -- i.e., the depths of his memory -- for inspiration and direction, he immerses himself in it here. The freewheeling, loose feel adds to the intimacy and immediacy in the songs. They are, for the most part, extended, incantatory, loosely narrative, and poetic ruminations on his Belfast upbringing: its characters, shops, streets, alleys, and sidewalks, all framed by the innocence and passage of that era.  seems hypnotized by his subjects; they comfort and haunt a present filled with inexhaustible longing and loneliness. He confesses as much in the title track: "If I ventured in the slipstream/Between the viaducts of your dream/Where immobile steel rims crack/And the ditch in the back roads stop/ Could you find me?/Would you kiss-a my eyes/...To be born again...." doesn't reach out to the listener, but goes deep inside himself to excavate and explore. The album's centerpiece is "Madame George," a stream-of-consciousness narrative of personal psychological and spiritual archetypes deeply influenced by the road novels of . The climactic epiphany experienced on "Cyprus Avenue" paints a portrait of place and time so vividly, it fools listeners into the experience of shared -- but mythical -- memory. "The Way Young Lovers Do" is the most fully formed tune here. Its swinging jazz verses and tight rhythmic choruses underscore a simmering, passionate eroticism in 's lyric and delivery.  is a justified entry in pop music's pantheon. It is unlike any record before or since; it mixes together the very best of postwar popular music in an emotional outpouring cast in delicate, subtle musical structures.