Comments on: Giant Steps: Black or Bulls-Eye or Both?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 00:11:28 +0000

Hi Eric,
Giant Steps was recorded in both mono and stereo. The green & red label was introduced in 1969 and continued on for around 20 years, these pressings in NM condition typically sell for $20 or less.

By: Eric Bromley

Eric Bromley — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 18:59:18 +0000

I have a SD1311 disk which was purchased in the 60’s. The label is Green and Red with a white strip in the middle. The Album cover has Stereo in black and reversed embossed (indented). The sound quality is good except for the piano which Atlantic alway somehow clipped. The question is this: The stereo is piano and coltrane on the left and the bass and drums on the right. Is that how it was recorded? Or was it a mono recording remastered for stereo. And – is this album worth anythng? Not a click or pop on any track.

By: Rudolf

Rudolf — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:28:44 +0000

very interesting find. This should be the original stereo pressing.

By: Woody

Woody — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:18:30 +0000

Just found your comments. I have a copy of Giant Steps with a light-green label and stereo marked in a black box above atlantic on the record. Could this possibly be the original stereo pressing?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:18:45 +0000

It makes sense that the FIRST mono pressing was in 1959 on the black label (but from my research the same stampers were used for the the mono “bullseye” labels so copy-to-copy variants could account for the sonic differences). BUT the stereo pressing is a completely different matter as no one has ever been able to produce a vintage, US green label pressing to my knowledge. My hypothesis is that that the mono came out first in 1959 but the stereo was first produced the next year on the current label of the time, the transitional “bullseye label”.

By: Floris Stehouwer

Floris Stehouwer — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:45:51 +0000

This record exists with black label, so I tend to consider at least the mono bulls-eye label as second pressings.
But how about stereo copies? Has anyone ever seen a stereo copy on the light green stereo label? I have only seen stereo copies on the green/blue bulls-eye label, and I tend to consider them as original stereo pressings.
Kind regards, FLoris.

By: Rudolf A. Flinterman

Rudolf A. Flinterman — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:35:34 +0000

Michel: IMHO you are jumping too quickly to conclusions: the buyer may just think, upon the very persuasive sales approach of the seller, that he is bidding on the original first pressing.

By: Michel

Michel — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 19:46:53 +0000

To close the debate,it eventually sold for 410…so Mr Bob, maybe right : it IS an original :-/

By: Al

Al — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:02:41 +0000

I went back into my files and found the original post of when I bought the bulls-eye label. I realized that there are still some of the early newsletters from 2004 that have not been transferred over to the current site, so I will spend time over my upcoming holiday to do so. Anyway, here’s the post from April 2004:

“Two readers gave us a hard time for buying a bulls-eye stereo copy of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps, Atlantic 1311. They pointed out that the original mono pressing has the black label and the original stereo pressing has the green label. We knew this. In our defense, however, we saw a bulls-eye copy selling on eBay for $99 and we assumed there was something interesting and/or noteworthy about this pressing. Apparently we were wrong.”

By: maarten kools

maarten kools — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:20:01 +0000

I agree with Michel, there are many naive (and greedy) collector’s; I could be one of them;-)
that is why ebay should not be so overated as it is, because there will always be 10 people out of the 2 billion who uuse ebay, who are willing to pay 1000 dollar for 200 dollar record.

besides that, if I see a ebay-page like that from Bob, all colours of the rainbow, the shouting etc, i am always careful.
like Rudols says;ceveat emptor

does the black atlantic label realy sound better?