Fleetwood Mac — Rumours: How to Identify a First Pressing

• Cover: The cover shows Mick Fleetwood with one foot up on a stool, and Stevie Nicks posed in her 'Rhiannon' stage look; the back cover is a collage of portraits of the band members, all photographed by Herbert Worthington.
• Cover: In the cover photo, Fleetwood has a toilet-cistern pull-chain (with a wooden ball on the end) hanging between his legs, and holds a crystal ball in his left hand — a visual detail that identifies the original cover photo, as opposed to a later cropped or altered version.

• Label: The original 1977 edition was released by Warner Bros. Records, with the mastering engineer credited as Ken Perry (another account also credits mastering work to Charlie Watts) — a possible clue for verifying the original master source.

• During recording, the tape at the Sausalito studio was damaged from repeated reuse, leaving the kick-drum and snare tracks sounding 'lifeless'; extended multitrack overdubbing also wore down the 24-track master tape, so that by the time mixing began, many sounds had already become somewhat dull — this physical degradation of the original recording is useful background for understanding the sound character of the 1977 original vinyl and for comparing it against later remasters.
• A remaster was released in 2004, a Deluxe Edition followed in 2013, and a live album, 'Rumours Live', came out in 2023 — all of these are clearly later repackagings/remasters than the 1977 original vinyl.

discogs.com returned a 403 this time and could not be accessed; the English Wikipedia entry was used instead. That entry does not give a specific catalog number, label design, or inner-sleeve/insert details, so these fields are left blank and listed in unverified_fields.

• Read the runout (the smooth area between the last groove and the label) with the disc tilted under a lamp: matrix numbers, stamper codes and mastering initials are the strongest evidence.
• Label details change between pressing plants and years: rim text, logo style, address, "Manufactured by" wording.
• Cover printing shows the plant and era: printer credit, catalog number position, barcode presence.
• Match all three. A first-press disc in a later cover, or the reverse, is common.

Shoot the label straight on in even light, then the runout with the disc tilted so the etched text catches the light (a phone torch from the side works). Add the front and back cover, the spine, and any inner sleeve or insert. The app reads the label and cover; the runout photo is what confirms the pressing.

RareVinyl.com's listings (read 25 September 2026) fill in the details this page could not confirm before:

• US first issue: Warner Bros. BSK 3010 on the Warner "Burbank" label, in a fully textured picture sleeve with a fold-out picture and lyric insert.
• UK first issue: Warner Bros. K 56344, also on the Burbank label, in the textured sleeve with the fold-out illustrated lyric insert.
• UK second issue: the same catalogue number in a smooth sleeve, so the sleeve texture separates the two.
• 1981 UK issue: the cream Warner Bros. label.
• Japan, 1977: first Japanese issue made by Warner-Pioneer with an obi strip and Japanese insert.

Rumours is common, so even first pressings are modest. RareVinyl.com list prices in US dollars, 25 September 2026:

• UK first issue with insert: US$93 (Excellent) to US$112 (Near Mint).
• US first issue with insert: US$65 (Excellent) to US$109 (in open shrink).
• 1981 UK cream-label issue: US$65.
• 2024 coloured-vinyl reissues, sealed: US$63.99 to US$74.99.
• 1977 Japanese first issue with obi and promo booklet: US$354.

Across all 55 Rumours LPs in the catalogue, the median list price was US$46. The Fleetwood Mac records listed higher are the late-1960s UK first issues from the Peter Green era, such as a 1968 mono Mr. Wonderful at US$304 and an Excellent Then Play On at US$347. The Record Store Day and retailer-exclusive coloured pressings are new and plentiful; they are not first pressings.