Product Description

Lavishly illustrated with 1,360 photos, 160 in color, this volume--the only book available on the topic--identifies, dates and values, in two grades of condition, picture sleeves for pop, rock, alternative, country, r&b, dance, soul, jazz, blues, classical, comedy, movie & TV soundtracks, opera and other types of records. Readers will find entries for more than 10,000 sleeves, covering more than 40 years of U.S. releases .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1470638 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 1 pages

Customer Reviews

A Must Have for the Record Collector
I found this book to be a valuable source of information for the novice as well as the experienced record collector. This book encompasses many musical generes and I find it invaluable source before heading off for those record collecting shows. This book is layed out well, nice to look at, and has almost anything you could think of in it. A must have!

Useful, informative, and visually entertaining
I enjoyed the large amount of illustrations and the nice color section. A broad range of musical genres is covered and is the most complete and detailed cataloging of sleeves to date.

Extremely useful and fun to browse
One of the few good things MTV did for music was that it encouraged record companies to put out more 45 r.p.m. singles with picture sleeves. So for the same price as 45's that just came in standard sleeves (like the black one that just says "Columbia" at the top in thick white letters for example), you'd get a color (usually) picture of the artist (usually). Sometimes they were less interesting, maybe only showing the logo for a movie the song was from, like the hits from `Xanadu'. Often the records were only issued with a sleeve regionally or for just a fraction of the single's general release. Which of course, makes those sleeves rare and the object of irrational collectors' desire. This book shows, however, that picture sleeves were around since the beginning of the "Rock Era" (circa 1955) and before. Plenty are pictured, some rare and many not so rare.

Who knew that the sleeve to Bob Seger's tacky "Horizontal Bop" from 1980 is worth $80 bucks to some people? Or that people are actually looking for the sleeve to "Nightbird" by Stevie Nicks even though the song itself isn't hard to find? Yet I remember having trouble finding Huey Lewis' "The Power Of Love" from "Back To The Future", and it's hardly worth anything. Ditto for "The Lady In Red" by Chris DeBurgh.

There are several guides to records that include information on picture sleeves, but this is the only one I know of that focuses exclusively on sleeves. Great for those with general interest in record collecting, or to see if you've managed to save something that's actually worth something ("Gee, I wonder if this sleeve for the Stones' `Street Fighting Man' is worth anything?"). Obviously of more interest to collectors, but enough pictures to entertain a more general audience.