I do like vinyl art spin offs, and this was scanned for me by Pericle Formenti. Older collectors will be familiar with the blizzard of promotional material which labels sent to record stores during the 1970s and 80s, much of it now very collectable. It would be dropped off by label reps in the UK, who would then take back older material to be destroyed as legally it was not allowed to be sold (I think because it was written off against tax.) America being a tad larger, a lot would go out by post, and this is an album sized generic envelope from Warner Bros. used to do just that.
This one was shipped in November 1974 and contained album size window banners for Deep Purple and Frank Sinatra albums. It was shipped Fourth Class (whatever that was!) to the Bargain Warehouse, a vinyl outlet in North Carolina. I like the way the front just has ‘promotional material’ on but the label’s famous logo appears on the flaps at the back of the envelope. There is a sticker to let the store owner know what was inside, and in this case they clearly couldn’t be bothered promoting either Deep Purple or Frank Sinatra and it just got stuffed in a back room for 40 years!
I’ve also discovered that Pericle has kept a bag from every record shop he used in Italy and abroad, so will be pestering him for pics of those before long.
Lovely.