Does your banana peel?

[woodengnome]

I remember seeing not long ago an unpeeled copy auctioned on ebay. The really cool thing was that it was signed with an inscription by Sterling. Apparently, it belonged to one of Sterling's students. I bid on it, but it quickly went way beyond my reach!

[guest]

I was lucky - in the USA in the early 1980s it was easy to find unpeeled mint mono banana lps for $30 or so - I bought 2 (and subsequently swapped one of them for a mint Femme Fatale promo 45) The copy I kept has the big sticker on the back and is now signed by the whole band (inlcuding Sterling and Nico). Just a few years ago I also got a uk 1969 reissue in a US peelable sleeve for ?30. Those were different times....

On a related topic - how many people have an original UK MGM CS8108 pressing of the 3rd LP? They hardly ever show up nowadays.

[tyu23666@yahoo.com]

i got lucky and bought mine for $11. i grew up in chicago, where billy corgan from smashing pumpkins worked at a record store. i was in one day shopping and saw him with am arm full of records being put into stock. he had the first VU lp in the stack and i followed him to the bin and grabbed it as soon as he put it in there. it was marked $17, but i only had $11. i told him that i would just run out the door with it if he couldn't see his way to giving it to me for $11. he said, 'yeah sure, that record sucks anyway.' so i got it home and discovered it was a west coast mono pressing with the lawsuit sticker in very playable condition. best eleven bucks i ever spent!

ps--i had to walk about 30 blocks home, since i had given away my bus fare for the record!

[simonm]

>i had to walk about 30 blocks home, since i had given away my bus fare for the record!
part of the ritual of buying records for me was to study the sleeves and vinyl intently on my homeward journey... sometimes I still do it.

Some questions above - the recent 'audiophile' mono LP is packaged to look like a quality Sundazed type issue, but apparently sounds crap. Don't know about the white vinyl WL/WH, but you can get a US original for only a few dollars more now.
I have given up on ever getting a UK first pressing of the 3rd LP, although I have all the other stuff I ever wanted [It's my least favourite too - I mean I love it, but not as much, I don't listen to it often].
I'd say it's the rarest of all the original LPs - maybe not the most expensive, but still, you never see it.
I saw a copy in a shop once for about ?25 a few years ago, but when I brought it to the desk they had mislaid the vinyl!! I left my number with them in case they found it but they never called.
Hey Alfredo - we are almost the same age - I was 16 in '81, and I discovered the VU in that year also.

[alfredovu]

We are getting old simonn! In two weeks I will be 41.
I have a nice original UK copy of the 3rd. It is true. Even those days when I bought the record was probably the cheapest of the USA/UK originals, but probably the scarcest.