Sold Date: March 4, 2022
Start Date: February 22, 2021
Final Price: $15.00 (USD)
Seller Feedback: 3929
Buyer Feedback: 128

  For sale is a vinyl record starring Carol Lawrence, Larry Kert and Chita Rivera titled "West Side Story: The Original Broadway Cast", originally released in 1957 by Columbia Records with grey and black labels that had Six "CBS" logos, three on each side of the center spindle hole, commonly called a "6-Eye" Columbia LP because the logos look like "eyes", then reissued between 1962-63, indicated by different labels. This release has grey labels with "Columbia" in white at the top, two white "CBS" logos, one on each side of the center hole, along with "360 Sound" STEREO "360 Sound" in black at the bottom without any arrows. These labels are commonly called "2-Eye" Columbia labels and were used between 1962 and 1963. In the dead wax between the labels and the last tracks is machine stamped a lower case "o" and an upper case "P", followed by the matrix numbers 1-FD/1-FB, indicating that the album was mastered at Columbia Records' Customatrix before earlier stampers were used to make this first edition at Columbia Records' pressing plant, located in Pitman, New Jersey. These are hallmarks of state-of-the-art engineering, sought after by collectors and music lovers for their superior sound quality. I bought this album used, professionally cleaned it on my VPI HW-17 machine and put it into an archival inner sleeve. This protects the integrity of the vinyl and any original inner sleeve(s) or insert(s) that may have come with the release. There is no original inner sleeve with this listing. The cover is graded as Near Mint. The spine is Near Mint. The vinyl is visually graded as Near Mint, with surfaces that are shiny and bright, in a like-new condition, with some superficial sleeve marks, but without any surface scratches, scuffs, smudges or spindle marks on the labels. I'm play grading it as Very Good Plus, because of occasional low level surface noise and ticking, but never over-powering the music or vocals. It plays all the way through without any lock-ups, skips or pops from start to finish. This is still the best copy of this hard to find album that I have ever seen or heard and you would be hard pressed to find a 2-Eye original in this condition, especially a Pitman pressing. This would make a great addition to anyone's collection. I have more Soundtrack albums, as well as records of all different genres, in my Ebay store. Please take a look. They're predominately Near Mint. Thank you for viewing my listing.   I've been collecting records for about 50 years now and have always cleaned them and put them away carefully in plastic inner sleeves. Over the years I've used Dust Bugs, Disc Washers and have finally invested in a professional VPI record cleaning machine. Now that I'm retiring, I'm selling my very esoteric collection. I'm not a professional grader of records, but will use record guides, as well as my personal experiences as a basis of my grading all records. Since grading is subjective, I will be conservative. I offer discounts for multiple sales. Photos are of the actual item for sale, not a stock photo. Please review all descriptions and photos because I do not accept returns. Thank you for looking!