"Golden Discs" EP Pye Pressing

HISTORY
In 1964 Parlophone were intending to release an EP with four hit Beatles singles which had sold a million copies, but for some reason the EP was not to be. A year later and the EP "Million Sellers" was released which had the same tracklisting as "Golden Discs" was to have but initial copies appeared with the "Golden Discs" title on the record labels! This wasn't changed until, reputedly, early 1966 so it appears that possibly a large number of these "Golden Discs" labels were printed up with tracklist and title information in 1964 and then applied to the first copies of "Million Sellers" - and why not, as the tracklist was to be the same and, evidently, the catalogue number hadn't been assigned yet - or it could have been a mistake in the printing process... All we know for certain is that "Golden Discs" were the first labels that appeared on the "Million Sellers" EP and they were, correctly, contained in the "Million Sellers" sleeve.

This is all pretty well known information but something which is little documented is that, in line with the period, EMI seemed to have asked another record company to help press up a quantity of the "Golden Discs / Million Sellers" EP in 1965. Up until now, the two or three copies that have surfaced have been attributed to Decca but at BeatlesCollecting we now know this to be untrue. In fact it was contracted out to Pye! This is especially noteworthy when we consider that previously it was thought Pye had only been contracted by EMI in 1968 for the "Hey Jude" single, but this alliance has now seemingly been pushed back to 1965 to include "Golden Discs" too.

Below are pictures of the copy that I was able to acquire and analyse.

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Side 1		Side 2

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THE GOLDEN DISCS COPY
My "Golden Discs" has the following data in the deadwax:

Matrix Number	At the correct 6 o' clock position to the record labels on side 2, but on side 1 it is sitting at around the 11 o' clock position. EMI discs usually have the matrix numbers aligned directly below the label, at 6 o' clock.
Tax Code	At the 12 o' clock position to the matrices, upside down.
Mother Number	At the 9 o' clock position to the matrices, both sides display a machine-pressed '5'.
Stamper Letters	Side one has a hand-etched character 'E' and side two has a hand-etched character of 'B'. Interestingly they are also at the 9 o' clock position directly below the stamper number! There is nothing in the deadwax at 3 o' clock, where you'd expect the stamper information to reside.

ANALYSIS
The instant giveaway that this is not an EMI issue is the presence of a ridge in the centre of the pushout. Also there is a wider gap between the pushout centre and the body of the label itself. The problem is discerning the difference between a Decca issue and a Pye. A general assumption can be made that Decca discs have a more noticeable secondary ridge just a fraction away from the gap whereas on a Pye pushout centre disc this is not so clear. But this is hardly a scientific method to figure out which is which!!

Below are two pictures, one showing an equivalent era Decca disc and the other a similar period Pye disc. As you can see, they are very hard to tell apart visually.

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Decca		Pye

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Therefore the deadwax gives us the clues to discern Decca from Pye. The specific details for each of these types are laid out in context in the section of this website describing the contract pressings - see here - but I shall repeat some of it here in a clear chart to clarify. The details below refer to contract pressings of Beatles singles, not standard copies of Decca's or Pye's as these sometimes differ to their contract press equivalents.

	Decca Contract Pressing	Pye Contract Pressing
Matrix Number	Usually found at the 6 o' clock position to the labels.	Usually found at the 6 o' clock position to the labels.
Tax Code	At the 12 o' clock position to the matrices.	At the 12 o' clock position to the matrices.
Mother Number	At the 9 o' clock position to the matrices, generally a single number.	At the 9 o' clock position to the matrices, general a single number but also can be two numbers above one another separated by a slash.
Stamper Letters	Not present. (Although one or two very rare examples of "I Feel Fine" have been found with the standard Decca 'BUCKINGHAM' stamper system.	A hand-etched character is present at either the 9 o' clock position below the mother number, or at the 3 o' clock position.

Clearly the stamper letters are the giveaway here moreso than anything else. Decca never used hand-etched characters, only Pye. And the Pye stamper lettering system is completely different, utilising different characters to the EMI and Decca sets. Sourcing some characters from my collection of Pye discs I come up with the following unique characters - although I'm sure there are more:

B, E, D, A, H, F, R, M, S, P, L, C, N, T, I

Of these, 'B' seems to be the most common among my singles. So far I haven't found a disc which has more than one character so for now I'm not sure whether Pye ever utilised a multiple-character set like EMI and Decca. EMI used combinations of the letters 'GRAMOPHLTD' and Decca used 'BUCKINGHAM'.