"Oldies... but Goldies" was a stop-gap solution to solve the problem of the '2 albums a year' deal that the Beatles currently had with Parlophone / EMI. "Revolver" had been released in August and they had only just started work on their next album (what was to become "Sgt. Peppers") by December when a new album had to be released.

George Martin solved the problem and collected up all the Beatles songs he could that had, up until then, never featured on an album. He filled out the rest of the space with a few other hit songs and also included the track Bad Boy, a song that had been recorded exclusively for the American market and had never been released in Britain before.

The album did pretty poorly by the Beatles' standards, becoming the first official Parlophone Beatles album to miss hitting the number 1 spot, reaching only number 4.

If you have a label or font variation - no matter how small - that we haven't documented here, please contact us!

Mono 1st Label, Variation A

"Oldies but Goldies" came out as Parlophone were producing their Times New Roman typeset runs and most early copies (as determined by mother / stampers) appeared on this label design. It is not yet known whether the vertical spacing present on the side 1 label might indicate a slightly later period, perhaps 1967, therefore a label mismatching here. Although every copy I've seen so far has this anomaly of wider spacing on side 1 compared to side 2. This is interesting, as with further research it could indicate a date of late 1966 for this subtle TNR variation appearing across the Parlophone labelography.

Side 1 ..... Side 2

Mono 1st Label, Variation B

At some point in 1967 Parlophone had seemingly gone back to exclusively using the sans serif typeset for their labels, so although these 1B labels were simultaneously produced with the Times New Romans', by early 1967 this Arial font was to continue solely. This variation is not as common in mono as 1A as we assume sales tailed off after the Christmas rush of December 1966.

Side 1 ..... Side 2

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