Led Zeppelin III Near Mint first pressing indicators. Looks close to new. 

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Led Zeppelin III early pressing ( first pressing ? ) Near Mint ! You won’t find a cleaner record,labels and cover than this one ,unless you too bought it and left in the shrink wrap. Everything points to this being a first pressing in the deadwax . ALL pictures are of actual album. It took me forever to get pictures in deadwax . Cover also is rather shiny and hard to get pictures of without reflection . Played ONCE ! on high end system a few years ago. You would probably not even know it was ever played had I not mentioned it here . ( I generally only sell Beatles UK albums ) I came across this record in shrink wrap in the 1970s, , and owner said it was a rare first pressing . I know very little about Led Zeppelin vinyl records . I played the record once some time ago, I have a good playback system, and track at 1.5 grams . The only info I could get online was confusing. Here is everything I got off the deadwax that I could read. It’s etched on both sides , no stamped letters or numbers. Labels say Rockefeller Plaza , cover says 1841 Broadway . On side two it has a very nice script “ Do What Thou Wilt “ . SD 19128 catalog number. Has Peter Grant listed as executive producer inside gatefold cover ( which looks like new, and has a rotating spinning wheel on front cover ) Deadwax side one. ST A 702005 cc triangle ( 5 ) 23533 Mastercraft ( see inscription last picture ) in script followed by something I could not decipher .Deadwax side two. AT - STA-702006 Aa ( two letter A’s one upper case, one lower case ) 23533 X ( 5 ) 2 ( two ) one numeric number ,second TWO in brackets spelled out “Do What Thou Wilt “. That’s everything I can see. I played record once . I’m not into Zeppelin so I can’t really comment on the music. It played like a new record should . It’s impeccable . That was quite a few years ago. I put record in MoFo inner sleeve, but I’m sure I must have the Atlantic Records inner sleeve somewhere. But there is a possibility I threw it out, as it was paper which always leaves hairlines .The only thing that I’ve found is the idea that Atlantic Records USA Zeppelin is that it’s very confusing trying to figure out what’s a first pressing of this album. I understand there is another catalog number for the first pressing ( 1970 ) catalog SD 7201 , but from all I’ve read this album has all the first pressing identifiers . These pictures are as good as I could get with an iPhone . Shipping in USA $4.00 overseas $14.00 . No Russia,Greece,Portugal,China ... Japan ALWAYS WELCOME .

Of course it’s got the odd hairline or whatever, but it was only played once , check out trails around spindle . My table is a Rega ,hard to get centered . This record is 9.5 / 10. As mentioned unless you have one unopened in Shrink you would be hard pressed ( no pun intended) to find a cleaner copy. The jacket / sleeve is immaculate as well, not even a trace of imprint on cover from the record. I always take albums out of cover ,and store separately, hence no ringwear on cover , still very white . From what I’ve heard the number 5 , I assume mother was supposed to be the best , after others were rejected . I don’t know how to read Atlantic’s mothers ,and stampers , that why I put everything I could see in deadwax in the ad. I’m CBS ,and Gramophone savvy , not Atlantic. I should play it once more, as it has been at least more than forty years . I’ll be gentle with it .

Ebay won’t let me change two pictures , pictures that have relevance to the record. Some have said this record doesn’t exist as such. I finally got a good picture of the “2 TWO “ followed by “ Mastercraft “ . The point being people are claiming that’s only on the 1970 first pressings ,and not this pressing which is apparently from mid 1970s. I know enough about records to know that on rare occasions things happen out of the norm. Meaning this could have possibly been a first pressing that never had a label adhered to it . I’m NOT saying that is the case, rather from what I could glean from a few sites is the idea that on Led Zeppelin III the first pressings were “ Mastercraft “ . As I mentioned first thing in this as, I don’t know Led Zeppelin Records ,nor how to accurately read their matrix,moth,stamper codes . I should have gone to Amoeba Records here in SF to see what they could tell me . But I didn’t ...