Item: THE BEATLES 78 RPM 78rpm INDIA INDIAN RED PARLOPHONE original ULTRA RARE NM. R5114-YOU CAN’T DO THAT/CAN’T BUY ME LOVE – 1964
Sold For: $3,189.00
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Description and Image By: bollywoodshoppe
BEATLES 78 RPM RECORD
R 5114
RARE MADE IN INDIA
NEAR MINT CONDITION
WITH ORIGINAL PARLOPHONE SLEEVE
NEAR MINT CONDITION
NOT ALWAYS YOU COME ACROSS SUCH A GEM IN THIS CONDITION !!
SERIOUS OFFERS WILL BE CONSIDERED
The record has the original Parlophone Sleeve, which makes it even more special. If you are a collector or have been following the Beatles discography, I need not explain to you the worth of this record.
History of The Indian 78s – Why are they valuable ???
India was one of three countries known to have been pressing 78’s when the Beatles came along — the Philippines and Argentina being the others.
All of the 78’s are scarce to rare, with the later singles being hardest to find.
According to a recent book on collecting original UK pressings, the Indian pressings not only exist, but supposedly there were 30 or so different titles issued!
The story goes (the author appears very knowledgable on all aspects of the UK pressings) that when Parlophone decided in March of 1963 that they would stop producing 78’s, they dismantled the machines and sent them to India, of all places. The demand for 78’s still existed there since the records could be played on phonographs that did not require electricity and most Indians didn’t have electricity. Beginning in the summer of 1964, the Indian branch of Parlophone not only pressed the 45 rpm format of Beatles singles, but also released identical issues on 78 format.
By the mid 1960s the 78rpm record had become a scratchy memory in the world of recorded music. The tenacity of this format in some markets however resulted in some of the most unusual and unexpected releases ever.
Great Britain’s EMI records continued to issue 78s in India until at least 1968, legend has it due to the preponderance of wind-up phonographs there. Among those are a number of releases by the Beatles on Parlophone. The earliest of these featured a red Parlophone label. Parlophone switched to a black label in 1965.
These releases carried both the standard (UK) ‘R’ numbering series as well as DPE prefix releases with different couplings than that of the standard Parlophone UK issues.
Each record has an individual value in the range of least US$3000 to US$6000.
Similar to the situation with vinyl 45s in the USA today, EMI also released 78s in Argentina and the Philippines for radio stations and juke boxes, many with unique combinations of songs.