Vertigo in South Africa released quite some of the British albums, often with covers imported from Britain. Most of these are not different enough to warrant inclusion here. We have heard about a Black Sabbath album with a different (black) cover, but haven't yet seen this with our own eyes. It should be the Paranoid album VO 6360 011. We now have a (small) picture of the cover, see below. We are still interested in anyone who actually owns a copy.

South African releases are not always easy to determine. Mostly the country of origin is not mentioned on cover or label. They lay-out of the label is quite characteristic, however (see scan below) while most releases have the ''VO'' prefix from good old times transferred to the new catalogue number. Matrix numbers are machine-stamped. There were some singles too, but none of the ones we have seen was any different to its British counterpart.

We have also seen a copy of 6360 093, Magna Carta Lord of the ages, on South African swirl. This was not released like that in the UK. Please refer to the Italy page for details.

There is also a release of Gravy Train A ballad of a peaceful man, 6360 051, on a blue and silver swirl label. South African people seem to tend to the opinion that this is a reissue from the late seventies (if this is so, then why that record?). It has a single cover, identical to the outside of the British gatefold. This seems doubly strange as there was a 1971 release of that record in South Africa already, as seen below:

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