Re: Elvis vinyl related discussion

[Bilbobaggins]

It was about time: last weekend I found some time to record a new episode of Your Elvis Guide which will be premiering next Friday (December 5). In this video, I discuss the acquisitions that arrived in November 2025. For example, you'll see which rare reissue I found online at a record store in Hong Kong. Enjoy!

As always... a joy to watch, Alexander! Thank you for these great video's.

[JohanD]

Got the latest re-issue of the Japanese Christmas album.
Great artwork, well done in detail and a very nice looking vinyl.
Soundwise the source is probably digital, so therefore it sounds great.
The pressing is not that excellent, in quiet moments there are several pops notable throughout.
Anyway, it's nice to look at and a good alternative for the the extremely priced original.
And it got a place as my nr 52 in Elvis Christmas album in my collection...

[Colin.Bee]

Such a great cover, especially the rear and a lovely label but that vinyl is horrible.

[Alexander72]

Got the latest re-issue of the Japanese Christmas album.
Great artwork, well done in detail and a very nice looking vinyl.
Soundwise the source is probably digital, so therefore it sounds great.
The pressing is not that excellent, in quiet moments there are several pops notable throughout.
Anyway, it's nice to look at and a good alternative for the the extremely priced original.
And it got a place as my nr 52 in Elvis Christmas album in my collection...

Not a fan of these modern day reissues if I may say. Reissues like these, for me take the magic away from those great original releases and inflate the value of those great, early collectibles. I dream of adding the original to my collection one day Wow, 52 Elvis' Christmas Albums in your collection? I have got quite a few but I do not think I come close to 52

[AfoolSuchAsI.]

Hi Alexander , Good to see youre video excellence copy s you have. The Germany pressing sounds incredible. The tin cardboard is indeed as paper sadly but the media labels are always top nuts ! The USA cardboard are better.
Another question Alexander is do you clean all youre record imidely ?!
Please make more videos of Germany labels and singles and EP s . Thanks again .

[Alexander72]

Hi Alexander , Good to see youre video excellence copy s you have. The Germany pressing sounds incredible. The tin cardboard is indeed as paper sadly but the media labels are always top nuts ! The USA cardboard are better.
Another question Alexander is do you clean all youre record imidely ?!
Please make more videos of Germany labels and singles and EP s . Thanks again .

Thanks. I plan to do so @AfoolSuchAsI.. Did you notice I showed these German vinyls here on this forum before including these in the video? I do not clean my records instantly because I have multiple records coming in on a weekly basis and cleaning is time consuming so I put them on a stack to be cleaned. I do only play cleaned records. BTW: now working on a christmas episode kicking off an Elvis In The 80s thema in which I will discuss the European 80s labels over several episodes. Hope to finish the 1st episode next week.

[AfoolSuchAsI.]

Thanks Alexander, Good to see that , and the Camden series in the 80 would be great too .
The cleaning work is indeed a full job .

[colonel snow]

[/quote]
11 Uploads in a row like on November 25 is far too much within any existing thread and as an unintended side effect, can in my opinion be disrespectful to the other contributors: People are often investing energy and effort in their posts to share their insights and knowledge or to add to the conversation. I remember that I'd spent considerable time developing posts on FECC a couple of times, carefully crafting research into text and adding photos from my collection to add to the conversation in the thread. Only to find that hours later, Colonel Snow posted dozens of scans in a row, completely burying previous posts and obscuring these, preventing any interaction on the matter at hand. Let's try to avoid that here.
[/quote]

A few weeks ago I posted 11 scans in a row at one day on this forum; next day 6 scans in a row. That was too much at the same time for a some members. I can agree with their vision.
I’ve decided to post from now on the next time 1 topic between 11 - 17 days if interesting for the forum. No overflow of scans only.


colonel snow

[Alexander72]

11 Uploads in a row like on November 25 is far too much within any existing thread and as an unintended side effect, can in my opinion be disrespectful to the other contributors: People are often investing energy and effort in their posts to share their insights and knowledge or to add to the conversation. I remember that I'd spent considerable time developing posts on FECC a couple of times, carefully crafting research into text and adding photos from my collection to add to the conversation in the thread. Only to find that hours later, Colonel Snow posted dozens of scans in a row, completely burying previous posts and obscuring these, preventing any interaction on the matter at hand. Let's try to avoid that here.

A few weeks ago I posted 11 scans in a row at one day on this forum; next day 6 scans in a row. That was too much at the same time for a some members. I can agree with their vision.
I’ve decided to post from now on the next time 1 topic between 11 - 17 days if interesting for the forum. No overflow of scans only.


colonel snow

Thanks for understanding Colonel. Let's also agree on the fact that your contributions are valuable and appreciated. Just take it easy and let's give each other some space.

[colonel snow]

[/quote]
Thanks for understanding Colonel. Let's also agree on the fact that your contributions are valuable and appreciated. Just take it easy and let's give each other some space.
[/quote]

For me you get all the space you need because I've no intention to post something (limited to 1 post pro day only) before 11-17 days after today as stated in a previous post. For me this case is closed now.


colonel snow

[AfoolSuchAsI.]

Hi Colonel Snow , you show rare labels what i like and we learn more than . Sometimes im done too here . O miss the old school talks and how the fans are in the 90 s white so much fun on fanclub days too.
Greetings from me

[JohnnyByeBye]

Earlier in this thread, I have listed the Finnish lp discography. Finland is part of the Nordic countries and I thought I could also write down something about pressings from another Nordic country - Sweden. I wrote about the Swedish lp's already in the old forum but since that is long gone now, I will try to re-write the story here.

Since then, I've also been able to finally complete my collection of these lp's (yippee!) so now I consider myself to be fully eligble to write this post

The Swedish Elvis lp's 1977-80

As we know, in the 1977 there was a sudden demand for Elvis lp's, they started to sell like hot cakes. To meet the demand in the northern Europe, Swedish plant in Solna that was part of the RCA representative Grammofon AB Electra was put to the task to press some selected titles from Elvis catalogue.In hindsight, they probably picked the titles based on what had originally sold the most.

These reissues were pressed probably multiple times in 1977-80, with various label variations.

The 16 titles pressed in Sweden:

Burning Love And Hits From His Movies
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 1
Elvis' Gold Records Volume 2
G.I. Blues
Blue Hawaii
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 3
Elvis' Gold Records Volume 4
Elvis - NBC-TV Special. No mention of Grammophone or Sweden on the back sleeve but there is the tiny logo of the printing company.
Pure Gold Take Off! -cover
Blue Christmas. Ads of 4 other Swedish reissues pkus Sun Collection and Forever vol. 1, as well as text in Swedish on the back.
Elvis In Hollywood. "Stern Music " -cover.
Welcome To My World
Moody Blue. Reddish hype "sticker" printed on the front sleeve
Elvis In Concert
Elvis Forever Volume 2. Manufactured in 1980. Text in Swedish on the inside of the gatefold sleeve.
The Las Vegas Years. Manufactured in 1980. Sweden-only release. Hype "sticker" printed on the sleeve with Swedish text. Same content as record 6 on the Elvis Aron Presley box set, liner notes in English.

My collection:

How to identify them

These pressings have a tiny logo of the Swedish printing company on the back sleeve, usually on the lower right corner. (See the image below)

Most of the sleeves also had a text in the bottom of the back sleeve stating that the record was printed in Sweden by Grammophon (see the image below), although a at least Gold Records 2 did not have ny indication of Grammophon or Sweden on the back sleeve. That sleeve was printed in Germany

However, all lp's had text about Grammophon on the labels. The labels came in few different RCA Victor orange and green RCA International label variations, see the samples of labels below (page from the book How RCA Brought Elvis To Europe)..

The variations consisted of having either 2, 3 or 4 lines of copyright text eithrr on top or bottom of the label, or the text being in either black or white. But note that In all of these cases, the text always mentions Grammofon and Sweden. As you can see below, also black label was used at least once (with Forever vol. 2)

One nice thing about these pressings is that with the exception The Las Vegas Years, they all came with inner sleeves using the US "Elvis' Great LP Catalog" inner sleeve design of 1977, although the paper that was used for them was a bit thicker. The Las Vegas Years used a Grammophon AB Electra custom inner sleeve with Swedish releases by Swedish artists.

Rarity

Based on my experiences, majority of these pressings are quite easy to find, at least in the Nordic area as well as e.g. in Discogs. It is my gut feeling that Moody Blue and In Concert are the most common, I seem to stumble on them quite often. Perhaps those two were produced in larger numbers in 1977 than the others as they were the most recently released titles then.

NBC TV Special has been the toughest to find by far while the titles in the Gold/Golden Records series,the two soundtracks and Welcome To My World come as a close second.

Out of all these,I would say that The Las Vegas Years is the most unique one with absolutely stunning cover. This is not super rare either,so warmly recommended if yiu come across a copy.

Further reading:

An excellent FTD book "How RCA brought Elvis to Europe" by Sigbjorn Stabursvik and Hans Otto Engvold has chapter dedicated to the Swedish Elvis lp's, listing label variations.

A good blog posting on the subject can be found here:
http://www.elvistodayblog.com/2021/05/t ... s.html?m=1

Some info on Grammofon AB Elektra in Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/label/80233-Gra ... abBDHo5LqX

Wikipedia page (in Swedish) on Grammofon AB Elektra: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammofon_AB_Electra

Wikipedia page (in German) on Grammofon AB Elektra: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammofon_AB_Electra

[Bilbobaggins]

Earlier in this thread, I have listed the Finnish lp discography. Finland is part of the Nordic countries and I thought I could also write down something about pressings from another Nordic country - Sweden. I wrote about the Swedish lp's already in the old forum but since that is long gone now, I will try to re-write the story here.

Since then, I've also been able to finally complete my collection of these lp's (yippee!) so now I consider myself to be fully eligble to write this post

The Swedish Elvis lp's 1977-80

As we know, in the 1977 there was a sudden demand for Elvis lp's, they started to sell like hot cakes. To meet the demand in the northern Europe, Swedish plant of the RCA brach Grammofon AB Electra was put to the task to press some selected titles from Elvis catalogue. In hindsight,the probably picked the titles based on what had originally sold the most.

The 16 titles pressed in Sweden:

Burning Love And Hits From His Movies
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 1
Elvis' Gold Records Volume 2
G.I. Blues
Blue Hawaii
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 3
Elvis' Gold Records Volume 4
Elvis - NBC-TV Special. No mentiin of Grammophone or Sweden on the back sleeve but there is the tiny logo of the printing company.
Pure Gold Take Off! -cover
Blue Christmas. Ads of 4 other Swedish reissues pkus Sun Collection and Forever vol. 1, as well as text in Swedish on the back.
Elvis In Hollywood. "Stern Music " -cover.
Welcome To My World
Moody Blue. Reddish hype "sticker" printed on the back sleeve
Elvis In Concert
Elvis Forever Volume 2. Manufactured in 1980. Text in Swedish on the inside of the gatefold sleeve.
The Las Vegas Years. Manufactured in 1980. Sweden-only release. Hype "sticker" prärinted on the sleeve with Swedish text. Same content as record 6 on the Elvis Aron Presley box set, liner notes in English.

My collection:
20251213_205722.jpg


How to identify them

These pressings have a tiny logo of the Swedish printing company on the back sleeve, usually on the lower right corner. (See the image below)

20250405_124254.jpg


Most of the sleeves also had a text in the bottom of the back sleeve stating that the record was printed in Sweden by Grammophon (see the image below), although a at least Gold Records 2 did not have ny indication of Grammophon or Sweden on the back sleeve. That sleeve was printed in Germany

20250405_124242.jpg


However, all lp's had text about Grammophon on the labels. The labels came in few different RCA Victor orange and green RCA International label variations, see the samples of labels below.

20250405_112444.jpg


One nice thing about these pressings is that with the exception The Las Vegas Years, they all came with inner sleeves using the US "Elvis' Great LP Catalog" inner sleeve design of 1977, although the paper that was used for them was a bit thicker. The Las Vegas Years used a Grammophon AB Electra custom inner sleeve with Swedish releases by Swedish artists.

Rarity

Based on my experiences, majority of these pressings is quite easy to find, at least in the Nordic area as well as for example Discogs. It is my gut feeling that Moody Blue and In Concert are the most common, I seem to stumble on them quite often. Perhaps they were produced in larger numbers in 1977 than the others as they were the most recently released titles in the time after Elvis's passing.

NBC TV Special has been the toughest to find by far while the titles in the Gold/Golden Records series,the two siundtracks and Welcome To My World come as a close second.

Out of all these,I would say that the Lad Vegas Years is the most unique one with absolutely stunning cover. This is not super rare either,so warmly recommended if yiu come across a copy.

Further reading:

An excellent FTD book "How RCA brought Elvis to Europe" by Sigbjorn Stabursvik and Hans Otto Engvold has chapter dedicated to the Swedish Elvis lp's,listing label variations

A good blog posting on the subject was written:
http://www.elvistodayblog.com/2021/05/t ... s.html?m=1

Thank you for this very informative post, @JohnnyByeBye. So much to learn!

A lot of good things come from our Scandinavian friends... And you are right about the FTD book.

[Alexander72]

Earlier in this thread, I have listed the Finnish lp discography. Finland is part of the Nordic countries and I thought I could also write down something about pressings from another Nordic country - Sweden. I wrote about the Swedish lp's already in the old forum but since that is long gone now, I will try to re-write the story here.

Since then, I've also been able to finally complete my collection of these lp's (yippee!) so now I consider myself to be fully eligble to write this post

The Swedish Elvis lp's 1977-80

As we know, in the 1977 there was a sudden demand for Elvis lp's, they started to sell like hot cakes. To meet the demand in the northern Europe, Swedish plant in Solna that was part of the RCA representative Grammofon AB Electra was put to the task to press some selected titles from Elvis catalogue.In hindsight, they probably picked the titles based on what had originally sold the most.

These reissues were pressed probably multiple times in 1977-80, with various label variations.

The 16 titles pressed in Sweden:

Burning Love And Hits From His Movies
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 1
Elvis' Gold Records Volume 2
G.I. Blues
Blue Hawaii
Elvis' Golden Records Volume 3
Elvis' Gold Records Volume 4
Elvis - NBC-TV Special. No mention of Grammophone or Sweden on the back sleeve but there is the tiny logo of the printing company.
Pure Gold Take Off! -cover
Blue Christmas. Ads of 4 other Swedish reissues pkus Sun Collection and Forever vol. 1, as well as text in Swedish on the back.
Elvis In Hollywood. "Stern Music " -cover.
Welcome To My World
Moody Blue. Reddish hype "sticker" printed on the front sleeve
Elvis In Concert
Elvis Forever Volume 2. Manufactured in 1980. Text in Swedish on the inside of the gatefold sleeve.
The Las Vegas Years. Manufactured in 1980. Sweden-only release. Hype "sticker" printed on the sleeve with Swedish text. Same content as record 6 on the Elvis Aron Presley box set, liner notes in English.

My collection:
20251213_205722.jpg


How to identify them

These pressings have a tiny logo of the Swedish printing company on the back sleeve, usually on the lower right corner. (See the image below)

20250405_124254.jpg


Most of the sleeves also had a text in the bottom of the back sleeve stating that the record was printed in Sweden by Grammophon (see the image below), although a at least Gold Records 2 did not have ny indication of Grammophon or Sweden on the back sleeve. That sleeve was printed in Germany

20250405_124242.jpg


However, all lp's had text about Grammophon on the labels. The labels came in few different RCA Victor orange and green RCA International label variations, see the samples of labels below (page from the book How RCA Brought Elvis To Europe)..

The variations consisted of having either 2, 3 or 4 lines of copyright text eithrr on top or bottom of the label, or the text being in either black or white. But note that In all of these cases, the text always mentions Grammofon and Sweden. As you can see below, also black label was used at least once (with Forever vol. 2)

20250405_112444.jpg


One nice thing about these pressings is that with the exception The Las Vegas Years, they all came with inner sleeves using the US "Elvis' Great LP Catalog" inner sleeve design of 1977, although the paper that was used for them was a bit thicker. The Las Vegas Years used a Grammophon AB Electra custom inner sleeve with Swedish releases by Swedish artists.

Rarity

Based on my experiences, majority of these pressings are quite easy to find, at least in the Nordic area as well as e.g. in Discogs. It is my gut feeling that Moody Blue and In Concert are the most common, I seem to stumble on them quite often. Perhaps those two were produced in larger numbers in 1977 than the others as they were the most recently released titles then.

NBC TV Special has been the toughest to find by far while the titles in the Gold/Golden Records series,the two soundtracks and Welcome To My World come as a close second.

Out of all these,I would say that The Las Vegas Years is the most unique one with absolutely stunning cover. This is not super rare either,so warmly recommended if yiu come across a copy.

Further reading:

An excellent FTD book "How RCA brought Elvis to Europe" by Sigbjorn Stabursvik and Hans Otto Engvold has chapter dedicated to the Swedish Elvis lp's, listing label variations.

A good blog posting on the subject can be found here:
http://www.elvistodayblog.com/2021/05/t ... s.html?m=1

Some info on Grammofon AB Elektra in Discogs: https://www.discogs.com/label/80233-Gra ... abBDHo5LqX

Wikipedia page (in Swedish) on Grammofon AB Elektra: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammofon_AB_Electra

Wikipedia page (in German) on Grammofon AB Elektra: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammofon_AB_Electra

Wow, excellent post @JohnnyByeBye. I started picking up a few Swedish pressings on my summer holiday last year. Still got a few copies to go but this post will help tremendously.

Any here an early heads-up for my episode on the 80s European Christmas releases, for who is interested, premiering December 19.

[The fool]

The Swedish Elvis lp's 1977-80

Nice list, JohnnyByeBye. Here are a couple more from Sweden.

The Sun Years 1977 Sonet Grammofon AB (the vinyl is from USA, but the back cover is different)

The Elvis Tapes (German pressing, only the sticker makes it sort of Swedish)

Love Songs (vinyl and cover both Swedish)

The First Years 1980 (Rock&Country Records, which i believe is from Sweden?)

Session Talk (1992 fan club release only)

[Mike C]

It was about time: last weekend I found some time to record a new episode of Your Elvis Guide which will be premiering next Friday (December 5). In this video, I discuss the acquisitions that arrived in November 2025. For example, you'll see which rare reissue I found online at a record store in Hong Kong. Enjoy!

Another excellent video, Alexander. Happy to see you were able to obtain the a monaural copy of Fun in Acapulco. The Hollywood pressing you have (just like my copy) is very rare per Elvisrecords.com Did you obtain all of the 1960s monaural LPs you showed in the video from the Hong Kong store? How did you ever locate it?

[Alexander72]

It was about time: last weekend I found some time to record a new episode of Your Elvis Guide which will be premiering next Friday (December 5). In this video, I discuss the acquisitions that arrived in November 2025. For example, you'll see which rare reissue I found online at a record store in Hong Kong. Enjoy!

Another excellent video, Alexander. Happy to see you were able to obtain the a monaural copy of Fun in Acapulco. The Hollywood pressing you have (just like my copy is very rare per Elvisrecords.com Did you obtain all of the 1960s monaural LPs you showed in the video from the Hong Kong store? How did you ever locate it?

Nope. Only the Something For Everybody LPM White Top came from Hong Kong @Mike C, which I found on Discogs. Turned out to be an Englishman who opened up a vinyl store in the city. He had some other rarities as well, but could (or would) not tell how these ended up over there in Hong Kong. The other LPMs came from different dealers within the USA.

[Bilbobaggins]

Today, after crossing the rough North Sea Channel between the UK and the European mainland, these two new friends of mine arrived. They make my UK mono collection a bit more complete.

[BlackpoolEPfan]

Today, after crossing the rough North Sea Channel between the UK and the European mainland, these two new friends of mine arrived. They make my UK mono collection a bit more complete.


20251217_120005.jpg

20251217_120038.jpg

20251217_120222.jpg

20251217_120246.jpg

Never ever realised that "Loving You" UK album was first released without "Blueberry Hill", "Don't Leave Me Now", "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?", "I Need You So"???!!!

So when was it first released with the aforementioned songs all on Side 2 along with "True Love"??

[Bilbobaggins]

Today, after crossing the rough North Sea Channel between the UK and the European mainland, these two new friends of mine arrived. They make my UK mono collection a bit more complete.


20251217_120005.jpg

20251217_120038.jpg

20251217_120222.jpg

20251217_120246.jpg

Never ever realised that "Loving You" UK album was first released without "Blueberry Hill", "Don't Leave Me Now", "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?", "I Need You So"???!!!

So when was it first released with the aforementioned songs all on Side 2 along with "True Love"??

Yes, the 1957 UK mono release was this 10" album with less tracks than the original USA release. It wasn't until 1977 (if I'm not mistaken) that a UK pressing with all the songs was released, be it in the horrible fake stereo.

By the way, quite a few early UK LP's had different tracklistings compared to their US counterparts.