Led Zeppelin 1 – UK 3rd pressing

Just acquired this very nice copy of Led Zeppelin’s debut LP. This is the 3rd UK pressing and the first issue on the green and orange Atlantic labels (the first two editions being the Turquoise sleeve with Superhype publishing credits and the orange sleeve with Warner publishing credits, both on ‘red/plum’ labels).

Points of interest about this 3rd UK pressing:

1. The catalogue number has changed to K 40031. The K prefix denotes the change of ownership to the Kinney corporation (see the details here).

2. The copyright/legal wording around the perimeter of the label is all self-contained within the orange segment. Later 70’s and 80’s reissues have this wording extending through the white band and into the green segment.

3. By 1973, the label design also incorporated a small lozenge logo ‘W’ at the end of the copyright statement to denote the WEA Corp. So if your copy has this ‘W’ logo it is a later reissue than the 3rd pressing shown above.

4. The front of the sleeve is identical to the original issue but without the grey stripe at the bottom.

5. The rear sleeve now carries a distribution credit to ‘Kinney Record Group Ltd.’ and this replaces the earlier mention to the ‘UPTIGHT AND OUTTA SIGHT’ reference on the original sleeve.

Example of the later reissue style label. Note the different style typography throughout the label design and also the difference in the copyright statement as detailed above.