The Beatles — Abbey Road: How to Identify a First Pressing

• Label: The first pressing uses the standard dark-green Apple label and does not carry the words 'Sold in the U.K...' — unlike some other Apple-label albums.
• Cover: Because 'Her Majesty' was deliberately treated as a hidden bonus track, the earliest sleeve design was not originally intended to list this title on the tracklist or back cover.
• Inner sleeve: The first pressing has a black inner sleeve.
• Cover: There is a rarer first-pressing variant in which the Apple logo below the Side One tracklist on the back cover is slightly misaligned, the background photo is also shifted slightly compared to the standard version, and the front-cover composition is somewhat more 'zoomed in'.

• The source itself acknowledges some ambiguity about the inner-sleeve colour and whether 'Her Majesty' is listed on the sleeve: the first pressing is said to have come with either a black or a white inner sleeve, and early pressings may or may not list the 'Her Majesty' title, so this alone cannot fully date a copy — it needs to be checked together with the label and matrix etching.

• Misaligned Apple: A comparatively scarce variant in which the Apple logo position on the back cover, the background photo, and the front-cover composition all differ slightly from the standard first pressing; regarded by collectors as a distinctive early-pressing marker.

discogs.com returned a 403 in this research environment; jpgr.co.uk (a complete UK vinyl guide to The Beatles) was used as the source instead. Matrix etchings such as YEX 749/750, which are commonly found on Discogs and similar databases, could not be verified this time.

• 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.