Pentangle Basket Of Light 1969 UK First Pressing Transatlantic TRA 205

$

32

• The Pentangle.
• Basket Of Light.
• 1969 UK Pressing.
• Transatlantic TRA 205
• Inside Right Gatefold Has The Misspelling "accustic" Per 1st Pressing.

Item Details
Manufactured in: United Kingdom
Recorded: 1969 By Damon Lyon-Shaw And John Pantry At IBC Studios, London
Original Issue: October 26, 1969
This Issue: 1969 (based on label design and gatefold jacket misspelling)
Label: Transatlantic TRA 205
Runout Deadwax Matrix Numbers:
Side 1: (stamp:) STRA 205 A1 AF
Side 2: (stamp:) STRA 205 B1 AE
Was bought new by this seller many years ago and now offered from his private collection (you have absolutely known provenance). Has had limited plays only on an expertly setup high-end audiophile turntable, arm, and cartridge. Has never been exposed to heat or tobacco smoke and always stored vertically in a specially designed record cabinet (Rackit) to prevent warpage.
I have recently updated my VPI HW-16.0 record cleaner to a 16.5 and it now has much more positive suction (can remove all fluid in less than 3 rotations). I have also changed my choice of cleaning fluid to the Audio Intelligent "One-Step" formula that requires no rinsing and leaves no residue. It is alcohol free and uses enzyme agents to remove pressing mold-release compounds, fungi & bacteria, finger oils, and many other environmental contaminants. Made with laboratory-grade pure water(50X purer than distilled water). I neutralize residual static charge from both vinyl and new inner sleeve with a Milty Zerostat. I wear nitrile surgical gloves while cleaning and play testing to avoid any chance of transferring finger oils to the vinyl.

Very sensitive play testing was performed straight off my Ayre P-5xe fully balanced phono preamp over Sennheiser HD 600 headphones using a Schiit Audio Valhalla 2 tube headphone amp fitted with NOS Soviet Voskhod matched tubes (see last photo).

Track list
For track listings, please see my attached record label photographs.

I never take "distant" photos nor the so-prevalent type with the LP sticking halfway out of the jacket. I take close-ups under photo lamps so you can see nearly everything I describe in the jacket grading. It is virtually impossible to know the true vinyl condition from any photograph. That takes very bright and close visual inspection PLUS play testing with thorough coverage on high resolution equipment.
Grading Details
Note: Grading LPs by text characters is subjective and at best are only a guide as no two used records are of exactly the same quality. I do not use "EX" grades as my VG+ is right below "NM-." I never sell a "G" play grade and very rarely ever sell a "VG" play grade. Please, refer to both my photo evidence and detailed descriptions to judge by YOUR OWN grading standards. Questions are always welcome. eBay no longer allows me to enter separate grades for each side of the sleeve or record so you may not see any in the box above but are listed below. Play quality is personally most important to me so vinyl visual qualities are graded and described in detail separately for your complete assessment.

Outer Jacket Inspection/grading:
VG+/VG+/VG+/VG+
The jacket front has largely retained the matte finish but has some bookshelf sliding wear from shelving access over it's life. My photo exaggerates the extent of that because of my bright LED photo lamps. In person they are much less obvious. All corners have some rubbing wear as seen and the most noticeable flaw is a crease in the right middle. The top right edge has some inward curling and about an inch of the same at the bottom right corner edge. The left inside gatefold side has the front curling extending around into this face as easily seen in the photo. Otherwise its pretty clean except for a small light trace of ring wear at top left. The right side gatefold is the cleanest of the jacket sides but does have some ring wear at the top, a mild crease at the top left corner, and a couple of white abrasion spots at bottom center. The back of the jacket has some ring wear at the bottom, and sliding wear on the left side sleeve edge that is not very visible at all in person, but the bottom ring wear is somewhat visible. Overall, the jacket is still very solid with no split seams or tears.

Vinyl visual inspection/grading:
NM-/NM
On Side 1 I only found 2 small things. First, a tiny "gray spot" was located in the middle of T1 (have seen these before in UK pressings, they don't usually produce loud ticks or clicks). Made a note to check on play testing. Secondly, there were traces of original pressing "mottling" in only narrow sector close to the rim. Side 2 was visually perfect. Labels are very clean with no "scribble marks" around the sound holes.

Play Testing:
NM/NM
Extensive play testing was performed after visual inspection (continuous written notes were taken). I listened to the beginning, middle, and end of each track for a few minutes on each needle drop. When the track width was noticeably greater I took more play samples to get good coverage. I also listened to all lead-in, lead-out and transition grooves between each track. Some tracks were played all the way thru when digitizing my favorites to 96k/24-bit WAV files. This allowed me to go back and re-check some of my notes on digital playback in ProTools. Here is rundown of each side from those notes.

Side 1 Play
I recorded T1, T2, and T5 for my digital archive and they were all continuously very clean. No audible ticks or clicks except for a single low volume one at about the middle of T2. No audible ticks/clicks were heard in my play samples for T3 or T4. The transition grooves were pretty quiet except for some very low level mid-frequency "sputter noise" that was inherent in the original pressing. It was thoroughly masked by the hot cutting levels of all tracks, with T5 especially hot (-1.4dBFS peaks). In the first few seconds of T5 I was able to detect on my headphones bits of that low-level pressing "sputter noise" while Terry's first few solo bass notes started up but then no longer. In aggregate, I rate the S1 audio quality NM for it's very clean hot volume levels masking the original low-level pressing's noise floor and the delicate & fast high frequency transient performance.

Side 2 Play
On this side I recorded tracks T1 and T3 but also took more play samples on T4 as it was a longer track. Again, almost no ticks or clicks except for a single weak tick in the first few minutes of T2, but nowhere else. I thought that the transition grooves on this side were quieter than the 1st side with none of that "sputtery noise" like S1 way down in the noise floor. Audio quality was superb with more of those detailed very fast transients like Terry's glock in T3 and Danny's very powerful bass plucking. Voices and guitars were "right there." An easy NM play grade.

The pressing quality on Side 1 had just a little higher vinyl noise floor than Side 2 but still normal for this vinyl production era. However, the high but clean cutting levels made those differences inaudible except for in the transition grooves. I did not detect any loud or distracting ticks and clicks in any of my play sampling. Just a few moderate ones noted above. I did not do a 100% listening test so a buyer might hear a small amount of vinyl noise somewhere that I did not cover, but I imagine it might only be brief and isolated. A new owner is very likely to enjoy this whole album very much.

Packaging

• Record will be placed outside the jacket to protect against seam splitting.
• Original plain paper inner sleeve is not included separately as it was previously replaced with a better one some time ago. But I did replace that one with a brand new MFSL-style "rice paper" plastic sleeve. This will keep the cleaned vinyl surfaces well protected during shipping and ultimate buyer usage.
• Outer jacket is contained in a new clear polyethylene protective sleeve.
• Sent in high quality record mailer with cardboard stiffeners and all corners double-taped.

Shipping

• Shipping will be via USPS Media Mail for a flat charge of $3.98 per single album sale.
• A combined shipping discount is available on multiple sales completed on the same day($3.98 plus $0.50 for each additional LP).
• If you do buy more than one LP on the same daydo not pay immediately but wait for my all-combined invoice.eBay does give you the option to "Request an invoice from the buyer," but this option is not available on the eBay mobile app. A discount for the combined items will show on that invoice. Then, once payment is received, the items will ship.