Pink Floyd – The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Looking for a cover only for this release, if anyone has one for sale please message me. Thanks

Hi pink Floyd fans I’m looking for a decent sleeve as blue mono Columbia unfortunately it’s in a stereo sleeve willing to pay a decent price thanks guys

Pink Floyd released their debut album in 1967, and while their later records would secure them international acclaim amongst the greatest rock artists of all time, many collectors insist that Piper -- created with the group's original guitarist and songwriter Syd Barrett -- is their crowning musical achievement. It speaks volumes that tracks like "Astronomy Dominé" were still performed live by the band several decades after their initial release. Piper truly is an experimental rock masterpiece brimming over with creativity, attributed in no small part to excellent production as well as the heroic doses of LSD that were consumed in its creation. This album reached spaces unheard at the time, and tracks like "Interstellar Overdrive" transcribed the psychedelic experience in musical form better than any acidheads had managed before, or since. The lyrical inspirations are far-reaching, with simultaneous references to children's literature ("Matilda Mother") and the I Ching ("Chapter 24"). It's hard to believe that an album this diverse was created on meager 4-track analog equipment in the late 1960s.

Like most albums of its era, Piper was released in both mono and stereo formats. The mono version included several overdubs which were missing from the (widely-panned) stereo mix. While the mono mix is now typically considered collectors' preferred version, as mono releases were curtailed by the end of the 1960s, it became obsolete. Several mono reissues have now been released, but the stereo mix remains the most readily available variant.

The earliest UK pressings (1967 - ca. 1974) were all sourced from a single lacquer master, which was used to create several mothers and then hundreds of stampers. This mastering is denoted by -1 / -1 endings on the matrix numbers stamped in the runout grooves. For both the mono and stereo releases, these masterings were relatively lo-fi, with a treble roll-off starting around 13-14 kHz, and had reduced channel separation on many of the widely-panned stereo tracks. A new lacquer, denoted by -2 / -2 runout stamps, was created ca. 1978 for the fifth UK issue, which offers a significant improvement in fidelity over the original (stereo) pressings. For some tracks, this new mastering more than doubled the channel separation, and completely restored the high end missing from the originals. In 1983, the budget Fame label manufactured several variations, which sound nearly as good as the Columbia/EMI discs that used -2 / -2 stampers, but with a bit more tape noise and less clarity, likely using a good analog tape dub.

The earliest CD mastering from 1987 remains the best-sounding digital (stereo) variant available, despite a few tiny spots of clipping on one or two tracks. The later Doug Sax remaster (1994) has no clipping, but seems to have used a bit of light compression to bring down the peaks. The 2011 remaster is more compressed than both of the above, but still listenable. For the mono mix, the 2007 remaster (3CD 40th Anniversary Edition) has good sound, and surprisingly is much less compressed than the earlier 1997 remaster (30th Anniversary). The mono mix was also pressed on vinyl in 2018 for a deluxe RSD package, which was mastered by Bernie Grundman and has been praised for its sound quality: in particular, it has a much better high-end response than the original UK mono LPs.

Much like The Beatles' LPs, this record suffered from significant edits and track reordering when released stateside on the Tower label (a subsidiary of Capitol Records). Nonetheless, this version might be preferred by some due to the inclusion of the excellent, trippy, & catchy single, "See Emily Play."

Like many people have said, you pay for the condition over any other aspect of this release. The 1st mono versions absolutely trump any other stereo mixes, but requires somewhat quiet + clean audio to feel the full effect. Completely fills the room, a classic piece of musical history.

I'm not old enough to remember mono and this is the only album I have really listened to in mono but I have to say that in stereo I thought it was just another silly novelty album but hearing it in mono really hits home. It's absolutely fantastic and fills the room. I'm listening to the 1997 CD not the new vinyl edition but still, I'm now absolutely sure that this album is a classic and not just a collection of daft noises. I'm wondering now what Dark Side would sound like in mono. I could get a quad copy and put all the speakers in one corner! hahaha.

Spot on! The "File under" to the flip back does not make this a 2nd pressing. Anyone would think E.J Day only had one printing press running for the multitude of sleeves that were being printed each week! Much more likely that one press was set up omitting the "File under" script and ran for a short period before being corrected as the vinyl itself is identical across the "variations"!

Who would have thought a simple “file under popular” would be the devalue version. I wish I wasn’t so obsessed with collecting these tiny pressings because it doesn’t change the music whatsoever. I wish I could find the blame on why I’m so picky about getting valuable pressings with dumb differences. I’m a monster!!! ):

This information is wrong.
The sleeve does not determine the issue.
There are 2 variations of sleeve, inner sleeve, and labels for the first issue.
The no "file under popular" variation is just the earliest sleeve.
All Blue and Black Columbia issues are considered first issues
The second issue is the One EMI Box Silver and Black - But audio wise, they are the same masters, and you can still find really early mother and stamper codes on the second issue, so you are often paying for the earliest variations of the original label and sleeve with the Blue and Black issues.
Condition is everything... the decline in condition and price is rapid.

Further to my comment, my original blue Columbia label first press has the Ernest J Day flip back sleeve. The top right on the reverse of the cover states “SCX 6157 stereo” but at the bottom next to the Columbia EMI labels it states “This mono record has been produced....” etc. The very bottom of the reverse side of the cover (on the flip back) states “6709 TPS Printed and made by Ernest J Day & Co. Ltd., London SX 6157/SCX 6157”. The label on the record states a cat. no. of SX 6157, and the matrix no’s are XAX 3419-2, 3420-1, which is obviously a mono pressing. Is this a hybrid pressing due to a dual format cover but a mono lp?

God how I loved this record back in the mid 70's!

But I was never a Floyd fan, I turned down the offer to see them at Earls Court in 73 because, as a teenage 'krautrocker' honed on Faust and Can, Floyd seemed pretty tame. Faust were the first band I saw live .... go figure.

But in 1978 when I had grown tired of the Clash and Pistols I remembered Syd Barrett was responsible for some great pop records, so I amazed all my friends by buying Piper. Here was some pretty essential proto punk - along with late the period Yardbirds - The Pink Floyd had made some fine pop singles and inadvertently sullied forth into the territory a few years ahead of punk rock proper. So Lucifer Sam rubbed his Science Friction shoulders with XTC's 3D EP on my crappy Garrard SP25. Of course a bit later it came out that a lot of punk era bands held Mr Barretts Pink Floyd in high esteem, as they rightly should.

Barrett was a far far better guitarist than he is given credit for, he was doing the slide with the echo years before his replacement copied him. His choppy rhythm playing is breathtaking, his sense of timing immaculate. Hell his bandmates owed him a huge debt, from the Jugband Blues brass band on Atom Heart Mother through to Waters' drawing most of his subject matter from 'what happened to Syd' the debt is openly obvious.

But Waters never had Barratts' gift for putting words into simple binary juxtapositions - Moonshine Washing line ... See-through, baby blue ...Doors Bang - chain gang - this is the stuff of genius. What Barrett brought to the group was his ferocious energy, Astronomy Domine, Lucifer Sam, Arnold Layne they all rocket along at the speed of life!

Post Barrett they became a lot more laid back and dreamy, the slightly burnt out feeling you got coming down off the acid instead of the kick of it coming on.