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This odd variation has an unexplained particularity: The last two tracks of side 2 are "unbanded", meaning that there is no visual separation between the two tracks like there should normally be.

Availability

This third variation was available sometime around late 1965, or early 1966 (only one production run).

General Information

This pressing is interesting from a collector's point of view, but has no specific added value. The reason for this mistake is undocumented and unknown (and quite mysterious), but it is assumed that the engineer forgot to add the separation in the process of cutting the lacquer used to create the new stamper. In turn, this transferred onto the copies made from these specific plates. Later pressings reverted back to the -4 master (probaby a new lacquer from a previous master).

This variation was still only available in Mono.

Pressing Information

This pressing was also manufactured at the RCA pressing plant in Smith Falls (Ontario). Copies used new plates supplied by the head office, and featured an odd matrix number combination (XEX-447 and XEX-448-5). It is not known how many copies were made, and if they halted production to revert to the previous -4 plate or if they simply kept using the plates until they needed to be changed, but only one production run seems to have been made with these plates.

Side 1: XEX-447 (the exact same plates as LP.6051.1.1)
Side 2: XEX-448-5

These third pressings still feature the "no brackets" rainbow label (see perimeter print at the bottom of the label), indicating this is a pre-July 1966 pressing, while the -5 matrix indicates it is a later run, possibly late 1965 or even early 1966.

Cover

The jacket for this third pressing is identical to the previous variation (LP.6051.1.2), featuring a 10 mm straight inner seam (with no indentation in the centre).

The cover construction is identical to the previous variation, with a front slick construction.

Both front and rear slicks were printed by Parr’s Litho in Toronto (see the printer’s logo on the bottom right of the cover) and sent to Modern Album for assembly.

Covers also featured the words PRINTED IN CANADA inside a box at the bottom of the back cover, alongside the monophonic playing instructions.

Packaging

These would have been shipped in a tight shrink wrap, with or without a red and white Capitol / Pathe paper LP inner sleeve.

Sales

By early 1966, the first Beatles album was not the main attraction anymore and copies were pressed as needed. Indeed, 5713 copies have been sold in 1966, so one can estimate that about 2500-2700 of these were sold in the first half of 1966 (on the no brackets label). (source: P. Hemmingsen, The Beatles’ Canadian Discography part. 3). Maybe not all of these 2500 copies would have been "unbanded copies", so the expected number of unbanded pressings could be somewhere between 1000 and 2500, but this estimate might be impossible to confirm.