Waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr.

With the exception of the box set Night Beat which there only seems to be a single copy of this has to be one of the rarest covers. Finding one is possible though but “smakar det så kostar det” as we say in swedish, i guess you might translate it to “if it’s tastes good it’s going to be pricey”. I’ve seen a handfull of these on ebay and to my knowledge two of the most prominent collectors each have a copy so there might have been 10 copies or so in circulation in the last couple of years. Popsike has logged 9 sales of this EP in the last 2-3 years and the average selling price is a crazy $3000. So in other words this is a cover that i, and many other collecters, will never be able to get a hold of. Richard Forrest, the most prominent swedish collector that i know of has posted on his blogg here about something that you might call the unofficial “Warhol covers collectors club” and at the moment i might consider myself a prospect to this club. But he makes a good point, all the collectors that i have come in contact with have been very kind and courteous. Everyone is also happy to provide information, advice and tips so it really is a nice club to belong to.

A while ago Richard mentioned that he had created his own mock-up copies of the cover to Giant Size $1.57 Each in connection with the show in Piteå 2008 that he curated. Unfortunately he didn’t have any of these still available but he also told me that he was in the process of a similar project. This time around he intended to create mock-ups of some other rare covers like Progressive Piano and Waltzes by Johann Strauss Jr. I asked Richard if he would be willing to sell me copies of these when the project was finished and he finished it a few weeks ago. Not only did he send me a copy of Waltzes free of charge but he also included some other gems, but more on this later. Since i didn’t get to pay him i sent him the yellow MTV High Priority that i’ve posted about earlier and another really outskirtish Warhol cover as a thank you. I recieved two copies of the cover with very slight differences between the two. First there is a small detail that separates the two in that the line “Printed in the U.S.A.” at the bottom right corner is only present on one. There is also a bit of a difference in the coloring of the covers, if this is the same for the originals i’m not sure of though. The EP was released on Camden, a budget label introduced by RCA Victor, and the catalogue number is CAE 158. I’ve also included some statistics from Popsike, in may 2012 a copy sold for a staggering $5467, absolutely crazy! Since then prices seem to have dropped a little bit but the record is offcourse still way out my reach. I can’t thank you enough for these, Richard. And the best part is, there is still more to come… Image Image Image