I picked this Beatles record carry case up at a junk shop a couple of decades ago for a few shillings. These sort of carriers were very popular in the late Fifties and into the Sixties, with plastic pockets inside to hold sixteen 7″ singles, and retractable handles, so you could carry your singles to a friend’s house or party. Most of them had jazzy designs printed onto the plastic outsides, but here they had a printed photo of the group sealed into the plastic. A nice bit of memorabilia, I was fascinated to spot an advert for it in an old music magazine I was going through recently.
This is from March 1964, so dates the case really closely. The case was licensed by PYX but it was being sold by Mod Fashions in London, some time before Mod became a social / fashion trend. It wasn’t cheap either, 12/6d in 1964 (a loaf of bread was around 1/- or 5p) – but you did have a money back guarantee, plus it was “dainty, light, yet hardwearing”! The group had already produced four or five of their biggest UK hits by this time and everyone was wanting to cash in with merchandise, reportedly with the band losing out on some very poor deals. It is one of my few items of Beatles memorabilia and does remind me of when I first heard those singles on the radio as a school kid and traded the bubble gums cards in the playground!
Fabulous.