LED ZEPPELIN Physical Graffiti VG/VG+ 1975 Swan Song MONARCH 1ST PRESS NO BAR

$

45

Vinyl:  VG/VG+ Play Graded. Sounds Great!  Has some occasional warm vinyl crackle in the background.  Swan Song Picture Labels are clean.  This is the Original 1975 Swan Song 1ST PRESSING with NO BARCODE!   This is the renowned Monarch pressing, pressed at Monarch Record Mfg. Co., Los Angeles.  This is, in my humble opinion, LZ's Finest Hour.  One of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time!  Essential!  allmusic gives it 5 stars!    See Review Below!
In the Dead Wax:  Side 1:  ST-SS-753309-BB    "MR" (circled, for Monarch) "Delta" 19707(7) "AT" (for Atlantic Records) "PR" (for Philips Recording, the place that made the metal parts to make the record)  
Side 2:  ST-SS-753310-DD-EX   "MR" (circled)   A.T.   "Delta" 19707-X   "F.T."   "PR"    Side 3:  ST-SS-  753311-DD-EX     "AT"   "MR", (circled)   "Delta" 19708(10)   "PR"  "F.T."   
Side 4:  ST-SS-753312-CD-C-EX  ST-7   "MR" (circled)   "Delta" 19708-X (10)  "PR"
Cover: VG/VG+ (see photos; some moisture staining on the bottom; a tiny piece of the credits insert and spine is damaged; two of the die-cut "window frames" have broken off)  Die-Cut Cover.  Includes all inserts:  the two custom inner sleeves and the credits insert.  
Goldmine Standards.   I play test every album that I sell on eBay as I have found you can't rate an LP accurately by just visually inspecting an album.  I wipe the dust off of every cover with clean, unscented baby wipes.  I professionally clean the vinyl.

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Why buy a first or early pressing and not a re-issue or a ‘re-mastered’ vinyl album? 
First and early pressings are pressed from the first generation lacquers and stampers. They usually sound vastly superior to later issues/re-issues (which, in recent times, are often pressed from whatever 'best' tapes or digital sources are currently available) - many so-called 'audiophile' new 180g pressings are cut from hi-res digital sources…essentially an expensive CD pressed on vinyl.  Why  experience the worse elements of both formats?  These are just High Maintenance CDs, with mid-ranges so cloaked with a veil as to sound smeared.  They are nearly always compressed with murky transients and a general lifelessness in the overall sound.  There are exceptions where re-masters/re-presses outshine the original issues, but they are exceptions and not the norm. 

First or early pressings nearly always have more immediacy, presence and dynamics. The sound staging is wider.  Subtle instrument nuances are better placed with more spacious textures. Balances are firmer in the bottom end with a far-tighter bass. Upper-mid ranges shine without harshness, and the overall depth is more immersive.  Inner details are  clearer.  

 On first and early pressings, the music tends to sound more ‘alive’ and vibrant.  The physics of sound energy is hard to clarify and write about from a listening perspective, but the best we can describe it is to say that you can 'hear' what the mixing and mastering engineers wanted you to hear when they first recorded the music.

AllMusic Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine  [-]

Led Zeppelin returned from a nearly two-year hiatus in 1975 with the double-album Physical Graffiti, their most sprawling and ambitious work. Where Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy integrated influences on each song, the majority of the tracks on Physical Graffiti are individual stylistic workouts. The highlights are when Zeppelin incorporate influences and stretch out into new stylistic territory, most notably on the tense, Eastern-influenced "Kashmir." "Trampled Underfoot," with John Paul Jones' galloping keyboard, is their best funk-metal workout, while "Houses of the Holy" is their best attempt at pop, and "Down by the Seaside" is the closest they've come to country. Even the heavier blues -- the 11-minute "In My Time of Dying," the tightly wound "Custard Pie," and the monstrous epic "The Rover" -- are louder and more extended and textured than their previous work. Also, all of the heavy songs are on the first record, leaving the rest of the album to explore more adventurous territory, whether it's acoustic tracks or grandiose but quiet epics like the affecting "Ten Years Gone." The second half of Physical Graffiti feels like the group is cleaning the vaults out, issuing every little scrap of music they set to tape in the past few years. That means that the album is filled with songs that aren't quite filler, but don't quite match the peaks of the album, either. Still, even these songs have their merits -- "Sick Again" is the meanest, most decadent rocker they ever recorded, and the folky acoustic rock & roll of "Boogie with Stu" and "Black Country Woman" may be tossed off, but they have a relaxed, off-hand charm that Zeppelin never matched. It takes a while to sort out all of the music on the album, but Physical Graffiticaptures the whole experience of Led Zeppelin at the top of their game better than any of their other albums.