Queen Jazz LP Picture Disc from France

Picture disc from France – at least two different versions: white riders on black and black riders on white. Rumours of a third version with red riders, but this seems doubtful. Beware of bootlegs !! The bootleg Jazz PD is very recognisable. The main thing is the quality of the printing on the outer sleeve – on the real sleeve, the back has a smooth (gloss) feel to it, whereas the bootleg is rough (matt). Also, the background of the back of the real sleeve is pure white, whereas the bootleg is dirty grey (similar to a photocopy-of-a-photocopy… ). One other thing it’s that the front and back pictures are not aligned in the bootleg (i.e. if you hold it so the front picture is vertical, and then rotate the disc about a vertical axis, the rear picture will not be vertical. I *think* that for the real disc, the two pictures are aligned correctly .The blue coloured circle on the sleeve of the bootleg is more blue and bigger than the original issue. The text on the disc of the bootleg isn’t sharp.

a genuine white border version

MACHINE-STAMPED MATRIX NUMBER IN TRAIL-OFF VINYL (DEAD WAX) OF THE RECORD:M6325533 (SIDE 1) AND M6325534 (SIDE 2)

ALL AUTHENTIC FRENCH PRESSINGS OF THIS PICTURE DISC WERE MADE FROM AMERICAN STAMPERS AND ALSO (IN ADDITION TO FRENCH MATRIX STAMP) HAVE AMERICAN PRESSING MARKS (CATALOG NUMBER AND ‘STERLING’ STAMP) IN THE TRAIL-OFF VINYL (DEAD WAX) AREA, WHICH ARE GENERALLY CONSIDERED A PROOF OF AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIRST PRESSING.

MATRIX NUMBERS IN THE TRAIL-OFF VINYL ARE AS FOLLOWS: 6E-166 (AMERICAN CATALOG NUMBER) AND RTB-10 (MATRIX NUMBER), BOTH HAND-ETCHED); STERLING (PRESSING PLANT, MACHINE-STAMPED) AND 61 820 B1 / M6 325533 (FRENCH MATRIX NUMBER, MACHINE-STAMPED)