Now Playing: Michael Angelo on Guinn
Topic: Minor change or comment
One of last year's better scores was a strong copy of Michael Angelo on Guinn, a long-time want that more often than not seems to bring in four figures these days. Adding an original means that a reissue is sprung loose, and while packing the repro up for its next owner, I noticed that there really is very little that marks this repro as a reissue and not an original. I don't think it was intended as a counterfeit, but there is this spooky gray area where one can imagine a future where people remove the miniscule signs of the reissue status, and offer it as an "original". This has happened with the Maitreya Kali "Apache" bootleg, for instance.
In this case -- and I'm of course talking about the German, pre-Shadoks reissue of Michael Angelo, not the Void one -- the only tell of this being a reissue is a tiny numbering on the backcover, with '/450' printed, and the individual number added by hand. Placing a sticker on top of this, or creating a fake cover tear at the spoit in question, means that the printed contents of the German reissue looks exactly like the 1977 original down to the smallest detail.
However, there are significant differences that should make the identification easy. The reissue is board-printed on glossy, modern paper stock, while the original has cover slicks in the traditional old style. The spine of the reissue has printed text, while the original spine is blank. The labels are almost identical with a slight difference in color hue only, but the dead wax carvings are completely different. The reissue has 'Guinn 1050' in the deadwax, while the 1977 original contains no mention of Guinn, but instead a reference to the famous 'Rite' pressing plant (it's Rite # 338431) along with some other scribblings.
That should do it. This gave me the opportunity to listen to this extremely good LP once more, which was my hidden agenda all along.