vertigo swirl

In every label collector there must somehow lurk a masochist. What other reason could there be to spend strenuously earned money on, say, New Look At Latin by Los Escudos, except the fact that this is Deram DML 1003, and thus indispensible for Deram collectors? Luckily there is another side to this as well: label collectors can be agreeably surprised by acquiring a record they wouldn't have dreamed about purchasing otherwise, but which turns out to be musically satisfying or even better than that.

In the late sixties and early seventies almost every large record company set out to initiate a subsidiary label (or more than one) that aimed to seriously consider rock as a form of art, and by doing so offering the public ''quality'' through elaborate and artful packaging, as well as opting for more adventurous musical contents. The teeth of time often gnawed away at this concept pretty roughly, but it cannot be denied that some releases born under this new sun hold their ground as of yet.

Which labels are the collectible ones is determined by a broad spectrum of reasons - too many to dive into here and now. There is little doubt, however, that the Vertigo swirl label is one of rock's most collectible labels. Vertigo may be considered as the Blue Note of rock.

What label collectors (and other record collectors as well, of course) need most is reliable information, a rare and seldom seen commodity. This guide aimes to fill the lacunas and simultaneously compile the already known facts into one accessible source. Surely a gargantuan task. We therefore need your contributions!! You will be credited for any contribution that adds something or corrects a mistake. We do not know all there is to know, nor do we have pictures of all there is to see. You are very welcome to make this guide more complete than it is now. ANY CONTRIBUTIONS THAT WE USE WILL GET A FULL CREDIT ON THE SITE.

We are compiling all Vertigo swirl releases from the inauguration of the label until the final straws in the late seventies and even early eighties. We do NOT compile any releases on the label (like those of Soft Cell or Metallica) that were issued AFTER the initial gap!! Nor do we compile releases that had a later label design, even though the Vertigo logo may be used somewhere on the new label or on the cover.
Also: we do not list any reissues.

Please understand that all text and pictures are protected by copyright, just as a printed article would be. You are welcome to use and quote any of the information within, AS LONG AS YOU ARE ALSO QUOTING THE SOURCE FROM WHICH IT WAS TAKEN. If you neglect to do this, you are actually breaking the law. If you want to quote more than just a quote, please feel free to ask permission to do so. Normally we will consent. Now read on...

EXPLANATION OF THE GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE SITE

As the Vertigo swirl label was treated differently in many countries, we found the best way to structure the information was to divide it by country. England (or perhaps we should say Britain) was the country where the label first saw the light of day, and so we will handle the British releases first. In the British department you will find most of the general information that we could retrieve. Of course, these are the most collectible anyway.

Aspects which we will consider are the music itself (but concisely), the packaging (cover and inner sleeve, art-work, label design etc.), the disc (matrix numbers and the like), the rarity, but NOT the value on the collector's market, as this is fluctuating too much for comfort. The rarity-scale will be the usual one from COMMON (nowadays only very few, if any), through SC (scarce) and further getting ever rarer from R1 to R5, this last meaning extremely rare and yes, we mean extremely rare. You will probably have noticed that rarity and collector's cash or trade value do not necessarily match. A record can appear several times a month on many platforms and still command a high price, although it's obviously not very rare.
Rarity scale indications are always for complete copies, that is with all posters, inserts and other paraphernalia intact and present.
The split-up by country will give you the opportunity to compare similar releases in different countries, as well as show you some releases you most likely have never seen. You thought that 6360 035, 6360 047 and 6360 061 were not released? We will prove you wrong!

Hoping you will enjoy the material we have compiled, we suggest that you click on the country of your choice and, again, read on....

This is a non-commercial site, aimed strictly at the discerning collector. You will find no advertising here, nor do we in any manner change anything on your computer. We send you no cookies, no malware, no data-miners, no anything; there is no password, no log-in, no counters, no tracking and of course the site is free to use. We do not store any information from your computer in any way.

Due to the large amount of pictures on some of these pages, loading may take some time without a broadband connection. We are quite convinced that it will be rewarding enough to endure this.

Well, here we go, full of gratitude:

THANKS!!!!

To Peter Eklund from Sweden, who provided us with 22 pictures of Black Sabbath sleeves and corrected some mistakes in our Sabbath discography!
And to Morten Birkeland Nielsen from Norway for pointing out several very helpful sites and persons and also providing some nice single scans and an Argentinian album too and several, no, countless (we have lost count, indeed!) more contributions! He just did it again!!
And to Erik Smedsvig from Norway, who found a hitherto unknown swirl inner sleeve from Germany and contributed with more single scans!
And to Sergey Batalin from Russia for a great label picture (Black Sabbath again)!
And to John Buck (from South Africa?), who pointed out yet another Black Sabbath cover!
And to Deepinder Cheema from good ol' England who shed light on the origins of the swirl design and also provided us with with scans and additional information!
And to Adam Kaufmann from Switzerland who provided additional information concerning the Swiss release of 6360 011 (featured on the 1st UK LP page, though)!
And to Michel Veenstra from The Netherlands who sent us additional information on Dutch releases!
And to Kim Hjerppe from Finland who provided us with some missing matrix numbers!
And to Jukka Vihunen from Finland who explained the last few digits of the matrix numbers to us!
And to Ken Thornton from the USA who added invaluable info on Patto!
And to Martin Daughton from the UK who intensively updated the singles sections, not once but several times!
And to Chris Davies from Wales who sent us an avalanche of great scans and additional information too!
And to Bjørn Luka from Norway who sent us a missing single scan!
And to Pär Pålsson from Sweden who provided a missing label scan to our great pleasure!
And to Aalbert Rebergen from New Zealand who sent great additional information on releases from that country!
And to Davy Mattheeussen from Belgium who pointed out a grave omission!
And to Mathew Villain from The Netherlands who provided additional info (and scans too)on Black Sabbath singles!
And to Håvar Eide from Norway who added some variations on a Quo album and quite a lot of other details too (to put it mildly)!
And to Richard Morton Jack (UK?) for an interesting suggestion on a 'lost' album!
And to Julian Thomas from the USA who taught us the meaning of some Japanese characters!
And to Martin Green from South Africa who did just the same!
And to Serge Bellerose from Canada who sent info on Canadian releases.
And to Jean Jöbses from the Netherlands who provided great scans of a missing album!
And to Paolo Chiorino from Italy who send us three missing single releases!
And to Todd Dalessandro all the way from Connecticut who severely updated the Mexican department!
And to Swa Verhoeven from Belgium with an obscure release from that country!
And to Roger Trenwith from the UK for an unknown release from India and additional matrix number information!
And to Jan van Zeeland from The Netherlands for an update of the US singles department and quite a lot of other suggestions too!
And to Paul Allen from the UK for pointing out two different variations of a British cover and a counterfeit release as well!
And to Brian Ashworth from the UK for pointing out another set of variations on a cover and offering a scan of this!
And to Miguel Angel Salazar Canuto from Mexico for an intensive addition to the Mexican releases.
And to John Stannard from the UK for additional info on his very own Tudor Lodge!
And to Virginia Scott from the UK for additional info on her very own Beggar's Opera!
And to Graham and Tracie Kidd from the UK for an addition to the Singapore page!
And to Jan Andersson from Sweden for a hitherto unspotted Italian single!
And to Uli Klatte from Germany who send cartloads of information as well as a few great scans!
And to Michael und Mario Zepke from Germany for adding releases aimed at the Austrian market!.
And to Bas Möllenkramer from The Netherlands for explaining 8-track tapes to us, as well as providing several interesting contributions!
And to Mauro Malaguti from Italy for severely updating the Italian section and several other contributions, too!
And to Mark Lungo from the USA for contributing several corrections!
And to Julio Rojas from Chile for sending a missing Chilean single scan!
And to James Anderson from the UK for providing us with strange releases!
And to Rainer Thieme from Germany for pointing out a spelling mistake!
And to Andy Hibberd from the UK for sending scans of a missing link!
And thanks to Luiz Claudio Cals Brügger from Brazil for a useful addition!
And to Mauro Degrassi from Italy for more rare scans and information from his country.
And to Terje Hultstrand from Norway for adding to the Peru page!
And to Augusto Croce from Italy for many additions to the Italy Page!
And to George Prior from the UK for a nice addition!
And to Paul Kenney from the UK for an unknown Argentinian release!
And to Marcel Hatzky from Germany for another Portuguese release!
And to Matthew Reynor from the UK for delivering a missing matrix number!

A BIG THANKS TO YOU ALL, YOU ARE A GREAT HELP TO GET THIS SITE AS ACCURATE AND COMPLETE AS POSSIBLE!!

We sincerely hope that you will be of assistance in making this information as reliable as possible.
In case of any contributions or questions or even complaints, please use this here virtual address: e-mail.
Best wishes to all of you, thank you for your interest and, how could it be otherwise, happy hunting.

Marcel Koopman in 2006

There is now a lavishly illustrated book on the Vertigo swirl label by Ulrich Klatte too, which even includes a price guide! Please have a look here to find all information: