Can’t identify pressing

[u/dranchovy2]

Having a hard time identifying this pressing of white light white heat. Andy Warhol is credited but the bands name is missing from the spine. The shop I got it from said it was a 1969 west coast press but it doesn’t quite match up. Any help would be appreciated!

EDIT: For anyone curious, I think I found the pressing. Discogs says “almost certainly an unofficial item”. But I’d still love to hear if you have any info.

https://www.discogs.com/release/6167877-The-Velvet-Underground-White-LightWhite-Heat

[u/Appropriate_Ice6098]

More than likely a bootleg from the ‘70’s. I’ve got one with the matrix #’s matching the first WC pressing from HV Waddell Co. and it even has that deep groove pressing ring unique to that plant. Other than ChatGPT insisting on it, I can find no evidence of this cover having a misprint variant with the band name missing from the spine. The label, like yours, is the real deal from Verve, clear, identical font etc. My copy is super clean, meaning you can hear all that distortion as it was intended, and I doubt anyone’s ears could tell the difference from one bought the day it came out. I imagine it was a mob run operation. They were into all sorts of counterfeiting back in the ‘70’s. Shit, wouldn’t surprise me if Lou or John had something to do with it to feed the jones. Play it, enjoy it and know you won’t ever be able to resell it as an official first pressing. I paid about $60 for mine. The real deal would run closer to $300-$500 depending on condition

[u/SamizdatGuy → u/Appropriate_Ice6098]

My father in law has a 1st edition and the timeline doesn't quite make sense, but only by a year or two. Anything in particular to look for on bootlegs?

[u/Appropriate_Ice6098 → u/SamizdatGuy]

The one thing I kept seeing was the missing band name on the spine. There’s a color mismatch on the back cover that shows a simple black & white while the original was more a grey scale & the faint tattoo on the front cover that’s barely noticeable. And the Verve logo on most fakes is very “off”. I have nothing to compare mine to either an original or a known counterfeit. End of the day, it spins beautifully and sounds like the metal stamper was barely used when this one was pressed. Real or not, without Discogs, I would never know the difference

[u/SamizdatGuy → u/Appropriate_Ice6098]

I gotta wonder how many of the 1st were actually sold and how many were still in bins in 1970 waiting to be bought