Side one Bohemian Rhapsody - EMI 2375 A-3
Side two I m In Love With My Car EMI 2375 B-1
The vinyl is in excellent condition
The labels are in near mint condition
The sleeve is in very good condition. It has some minor creases to the corners, slight wear to some areas of the edges and some light ring wear.
EMI s then general manager Paul Watts decided to press the single in extremely limited quantities to commemorate EMI s International Division winning the Queen s Award To Industry For Export Achievement beating off competition from many other manufacturers.
The award ceremony took place at a luncheon in the Cotswold suite at London s Selfridges Hotel on Wednesday, 26th July 1978.
The then current fashion for coloured vinyl seemed to be an ideal way to present this special edition of 200 copies recalls Watts We came up with the band s original colours purple and gold, as on the Queen 1 cover, these colour signified Queen in a way. We decided on a maroon and gold sleeve and a single in purple vinyl . But it wasn t to be as the whole project became a corporate event, with the powers at be from EMI getting involved, Watts had no option but to relinquish control of the production to a separate team, he did however insist that they get the job right.
Watts fears came true when the record came back from EMI s, Hayes pressing plant, it wasn t purple at all, but blue. As the run was only 200 copies it wasn t worth changing. EMI s, Hayes production controller John Tagg had not even been told that the vinyl should have been purple, and acting on corporate directives pressed the record in blue. The granules were specially formulated for the project he recalled.
Pressing a run of only 200 blue vinyl singles instead of the usual large runs of black vinyl was no easy feat, with Tagg and his team having to isolate the special edition from the rest of their system. Getting a pure blue strain of vinyl was also very time consuming, and the Queen single took about three days to produce, costing 4 to 5 per copy, where the usual rate was normally 50p. To finish off the record, full colour Night At The Opera crest labels were printed and added to each disc, each was then hand numbered on the A-side and again and the back of the special purple sleeve.
We have played the record through and there are no jumps or pops on either side.
