Alarm, The - Rain in the summertime / Rose beyond the wall - IRS - 7 inch Picture Cover Pre Release - Rock 80s

Pre release

with glossy thin paper picture cover

Top left corner is stamped (in dutch) 'Not for sale'  by means of pressing a metal embossed stamp onto the paper, thus imprinting the text onto the paper causing an indent.

This is only a partial stamp due to the shape of the corner and was certainly done whilst the disc was inside the sleeve, which means that they could not fully stamp the sleeve for fear of breaking the disc (and presumably were too lazy to remove the disc first !). It is there to indicate to the receiptee that the item should not be sold and to prevent it ending up in a shop as a sale.

The statement/message is not valid in law but was used throughout the record industry to attempt to keep the receiver selling the item on and therefore 'ruining' the sales figures !

It was tested in law by CBS in the UK who took a dealer to court for selling 'illegal' items and profiting from them.

It was thrown out by the judge on the grounds that the item(s) were freely given to the defendant and that he was entitled to dispose of them as he saw fit (i.e. sell, give away, destroy etc).

All costs were deemed to be paid by the ailing record company 

Prior to this we had a visit from a representative of CBS (UK) accompanied by two detectives, claiming that certain Abba vinyl items were illegally obtained/imported and that VAT & duty were due. The items were forcibly removed-no receipt given-and we were told that an affidavit was required to be signed and forwarded to them stating that a) no more such oroduct existed in our stock and b) that we would give an undertaking to never attempt to acquire such product in future.

No affidavit was sought or signed and no more was heard from anyone about this business.

The products: 1. Abba 12 promotional issue (USA), 2. assorted ABBA USA Atlantic promotional 7" (mono/stereo).

We continued to import and sell such items.

This was an illegal act by CBS and the police were sucked in without properly checking the validity of the statement from CBS.

However, we established whom the informant was: an ABBA collector who continually phoned us about our Abba items, told us how he hung around the hotem where Agnetha was staying and continually badgered her for an autograph. Very creepy guy with a very creepy voice.

Later we persuaded him to excahnge a fully autographed picture sleeve of Abba which he mentioned he had a few spares of. He explained that he had flown to Stockholm and gone to Abba's offices, met the group and eventually chatted them into signing some sleeves and giving him some bits and pieces. Their latest single 'One of us' was in the office at the time, a boxful of UK pressings, and thus he acquired a few spares and was anxious to obtain rare Abba product that we had in exchange. We had many such items he required having excellent contacts around the world.

Feigning disinterest and disbelief at his autographed items we eventually agreed a 'trial swop' whereby he would send us a copy and if we were happy, send him an agreed swop. However, the first swop 'failed to arrive' and he was informed of this sad fact. Therefore another copy was dispatched and having already decided that the signatures were 100% genuine, sent the desired swop.

More than compensated for the £20 worth of confiscated product !

THE FUCKING CREEP