When "With the Beatles" was released Beatlemania had taken hold of the UK and demand for it was huge! Before it had even been released there were advance orders of over 500,000 and it had sold another 500,000 on top of that by September 1965 (making it only the second album ever to sell more than a million copies - the first being the "South Pacific" Soundtrack). Because the album it had knocked off the top spot was "Please Please Me", it meant that the group had a run of 51 consecutive weeks at the top of the UK album charts!

While mono copies are plentiful, few stereo issues were produced as the demand was limited. As such there appeared to have been several independent runs which accounts for the number of variations which exist as first press during late 1963-early 1964. To date we have counted *6* different variations of the 1st label variation alone!

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

Credits:
Label 3C courtesy of forum member Baard
Label 4 courtesy of forum member Nowhere Man

Stereo 1st Label, Variation A

When this LP was initially released there were a few little problems on the label that still had to be cleared up. The song title You Really Got a Hold on Me was mis-spelled as You Really Gotta Hold on Me and the song Money was incorrectly credited to the publishers 'Jobete'. In stereo these are relatively easy to find.

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Stereo 1st Label, Variation B

For some reason, someone fiddled with the label prints (possibly to replace worn stamps?) and in the process mis-spelled the credit for You Really Got a Hold on Me (in itself still mis-spelled as 'Gotta') as Domion rather than 'Dominion'.

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Stereo 1st Label, Variation C

This is where corrections were starting to be made. The 'Gotta' spelling error was corrected to 'Got A' but the Domion error still remained. Not only that, but the 'Jobete' credit for Money was corrected to 'Dominion Belinda' and mistakenly the NCB initials for Jobete remained giving the credit for Money as 'Dominion, Belinda (Ldn.) Ltd. NCB'.

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Stereo 1st Label, Variation D

Now the quality control discovered that the credit for You Really Got a Hold on Me was mis-spelled as Domion, so this was corrected to spell Dominion again. However, the erroneous NCB mark at the end of the credits for Money still remained.

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Stereo 1st Label, Variation E

Finally, all the problems were sorted and now the labels were error free.

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Stereo 2nd Label

In February of 1964 new tax laws meant that EMI had to declare that their record was 'Sold in the UK' and a big statement saying this appeared just under the big yellow PARLOPHONE title. The rimtext still began with "The Parlophone Co.". This variation is unlikely to exist but is kept here due to the length of time this variant could possibly have been produced making it marginally possible.

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Stereo 3rd Label, Variation A

In 1965 the Parlophone rimtext was changed to begin with "The Gramophone Co." to unify all EMI pressings (whereas before they were different depending on the individual company). Also the "Recording First Published 1963" has been replaced with 1963. Of note, the paper used on the labels now has a different consistency and is more smooth than the slightly rough paper used on the older labels.

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Stereo 3rd Label, Variation B

The same as 3A, but for some reason the writing credit for Till There Was You was misspelt 'Wilson', with one 'l'. Oddly, this was never rectified back to 'Willson' later on.

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Stereo 3rd Label, Variation C

This variation is the same as 3B except the album title and band name has increased in size.

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Stereo 4th Label

In summer 1969 the tax laws that required EMI to add the 'Sold in UK' statement to their labels was repealed and as such the text was removed. Parlophone were still using their Yellow / Black label design with 'The Gramophone Co." but only a few copies have surfaced from this period and are very rare indeed.

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Stereo 5th Label, Variation A

Soon after the 'Sold in UK' statement was removed a major Parlophone label change appeared, switching to the 'one box' black and silver design. The early copies with this label style kept with the slim typeset used on earlier labels.

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Stereo 5th Label, Variation B.

Pretty soon however the slim typeset used on variation A was ditched and a wider typeset was used instead.

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Stereo 6th Label

In late 1970 a second EMI logo was added to the label at the top. This is known as the 'Two Box EMI' type label. For now the rimtext continued to start with 'The Gramophone Co. Ltd...'

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Stereo 7th Label

In late 1973 the label was slightly altered so that the rimtext now began with 'EMI Records...' Also note the 'Made In Gt. Britain' text at the bottom of the label has been incorporated at the end of the rimtext.

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Stereo 8th Label

In 1979 the rimtext was again slightly altered so that it started with 'All rights of the producer...'. Around the 11 'o' clock position in the rimtext the wording is: Unauthorised public performance broadcasting copying and hiring...

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Stereo 9th Label

In 1982 the rimtext still started with 'All rights of the producer...', but importantly, around the 11 'o' clock position in the rimtext the wording now reads: Unauthorised copying, hiring, renting, public performance and broadcasting... This was the last variation of the LP before EMI stopped production of the stereo pressing of "With the Beatles" to make the album only available in mono for both vinyl and CD.

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