David Bowie The Man Who Sold the World

• Drums – Mick Woodmansey
• Electric Bass, Producer, Piano, Guitar – Tony Visconti
• Engineer – Ken*
• Executive-Producer – Robin McBride
• Guitar – Mick Ronson
• Synthesizer [Moog] – Ralph Mace
• Vocals, Guitar, Written-By – David Bowie

Counterfeit of the original US Mercury edition of the album, see David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World.
For visually similar counterfeit with simpler matrices, please see David Bowie - The Man Who Sold The World.

Not dated but it is fair to speculate pressed sometime post-1972 when Bowie was becoming more well known.
The country is also unknown but judging by the sleeve construction probably USA. There are said to be many more bootlegs of this album than real copies as it sold very few on release.
The bootleg is a very faithful reproduction of the original and appears almost exactly identical except for three prominent differences:
1- the matrix # is hand-scratched, NOT machine stamped
2- about 2 seconds of music is missing from All The Madmen, there is an edit that removes the words 'they're all as sane as me' from the line 'For I'm quite content they're all as sane as me' from the end of the first chorus (although you can hear the start of the word "they're" if you listen closely). Someone who had not heard the album before would probably not notice this edit. This is not a skip, it is quite smoothly done and sounds like a tape edit. It suggests there was some imperfection with the source material which was deliberately edited out. Therefore this also suggests the audio is taken from an archival copy of the vinyl and dubbed to tape, rather than a master tape transfer.
Apart from this omission the music is of a professional sounding quality and artwork appears identical
3 - The rear cover speech bubble "Oh by jingo" on an actual Mercury cover is very close to the lyrics above it (less than a lyric line space below the lyric "So softly a supergod cries (second times dies)" ), whereas on counterfeits the speech bubble is almost three line spaces below.

Track A2 is titled 'All The Madmen' on back cover and 'All The Mad Men' on label side A.

From back cover:
All selections published by PRS. Ltd (ASCAP)
Recorded at Trident Studios and Advision Studios, London, England
Remixed at Trident Studios, London, England
Many thanks to our engineer, Ken.

• Matrix / Runout (Runout side A, etched, var. 1): SR - 61325 - A - M2
• Matrix / Runout (Runout side B, etched, var. 1): SR - 61325 - B - m1
• Matrix / Runout (Runout side A, etched, var. 2): SR - 61325 - A - M2
• Matrix / Runout (Runout side B, etched, var. 2): SR - 61325 - B - M1 PR
• Rights Society: ASCAP

• For a counterfeit the label is extremely good and the sound is great on mine. Preferable to the UK reissue for me as too bass heavy. I'm not entirely convinced that many of these are actually cash in reissues pressed quickly. Quality control was not that great at the time in the US.

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  I have a 61325-A etched copy here in VG+/G+ available.
  

• I have the A-M2/B-M1 PR matrix of this pressing in VG+/VG+ condition. The sound is superb - preferable to the official UK RCA re-release of 1972 & the Parlophone 180-gram re-release of 2016 in my view.

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  In fact I have the edition with matrix numbers, etched SR - 61325 - A - M2 and SR - 61325 - B - m1. The lyrics of "All The Mad Men" is complete, no pause and no interruption, no cut. I suppose the mix down is from the original tapes. Because the sound quality is superb, I suppose the very first mix, the original mix from the seventies. Sounds typical seventies-like. I am very lucky that I got that edition by luck, because I aprreciate the original mixes, as the musicians heard their sound at the time of creation. So I suppose that this is an unofficial copy of the master tapes. To recommend for those who love the originals. Now I'm just interested in what the real original might sound like.

• 

  Edited 4 months ago

  One NM/VG+ copy available here. text me, i'm open to your offers

• 

  i have a NM copy still in shrink if anyone wants to buy contact me.

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  I can attest that the audio on the boot is not very good. When I was young I didn't notice this much but I rarely played this copy as I had a later pressing too. I mostly bought it for the artwork, knowing it was a boot.
  

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  this counterfeit just flat out sounds awful in every way, thin and noisey and mine's in pristine shape in and out with no hole punch on the jacket...as someone else said avoid unless you just want one for the collection

• My copy does not skip, or have the 2 clicks, & sounds great. There has been a rumor that there was a legit copy that was hand etched. Can anyone verify this? Here is a link that talks about the different versions.
  http://www.bowie-collection.de/70_74.htm#TMWSTW_US
  

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  mine has all the Counterfeit / bootleg characteristics, and also has the hole punch in top corner of sleeve which seems to be a common characteristic with the ones for sale so would be interested if anyone else has the small hole punch.
  

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• Avg Rating:4.12 / 5
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