It’s weird how lately I’ve been finding a lot of old vinyl still in the shrink wrap. I’m talking albums way over fifty years old and albums that I usually find pretty trashed or possibly in decent shape but rarely in brand new condition.

This past weekend I stumbled upon another one of those unexpected album finds; a Monkees two-fer actually and low and behold one of them was still in the shrink wrap!

As usual on a vacation I happened upon some new antique malls and at my first stop I noticed a stash of records from the 1960’s – my favorite kind of vinyl.

After a slog through three bins or so I came upon a minty, still in the shrink wrap copy of The Monkees 1967 album “Headquarters”. Now I needed another copy of this album like I need a hole in the head but I’ve never found another copy of this album in this good of condition.

The cover is sparkly white with near perfect shrink wrap and the album itself looks as if it was played maybe once or twice with no noticeable marks near the spindle hole on either side (thank you previous owner).

I noticed the matrix number was pretty high, 12S on both sides, so I was kind of surprised it wasn’t one of the later RE copies with the picture of The Monkees with beards. I own two beards copies and both of them had much lower matrix numbers like 4S and 6S – strange.

(Note: RE pressings are RCA records – distributor of Colgems Records – way of indicating it’s a reissue that’s made some sort of correction. The original pressing of “Headquarters” has a mistake in the caption on a photo on the rear of the cover that was replaced on a later pressing with a picture of The Monkees wearing beards. It’s often called the beards cover and is much rarer than the original pressing.

Also the higher the number on the matrix the more times this record has been taken from the master tape for pressing.)

Anyway, I looked on Discogs and it said this particular label style (see photos above) was pressed by MGM Records for Colgems and it also mentioned the 12S matrix so it must be a later pressing right before they made the RE copies.

And of course the price was right – $10 – so I bought it.

If that wasn’t enough later that day I found a record store that had the black vinyl version of the latest reissue of “Headquarters” in stock.

(Note 2: in August I reviewed the multi-color pressing of this reissue only available online through Rhino.com. This black vinyl version just came out and is the retail version of the album and not exclusive)

I hadn’t planned on buying this version but seeing it in person was another story as usual. This retail black final version of the album has a much thinner cover and it also has a barcode on the back of the album cover unlike the issue that came from Rhino.com.

The thinner cover is actually a bonus as it’s much much easier to get the records in and out of the sleeve and that’s one of the drawbacks of the online version, the cover is so rigid that it’s nearly impossible to get the records in and out of the sleeve.

Of course the record sounds identical to the colored vinyl version (and they do sound fantastic) so I’m going to use this as a listening copy and keep the colored vinyl version as a collectible.

So overall I was quite pleased to add these two new versions of this album to my collection. It’s always exciting to find an original pressing of any Monkees album in near mint condition and since this is my favorite Monkees album that’s even better.

That’s all for now just a quick Monkees/ vinyl update.

As usual see the photos above and below and until next time be healthy and well and see you soon.