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The Beatles Butcher Cover: Yesterday and Today First, Second and Third State Explained

The Beatles butcher cover on Yesterday and Today explained: first, second and third state, mono vs stereo, how to check a trunk cover and famous sales.

Checked October 31, 2026

What is the Beatles butcher cover?

The butcher cover is the original jacket of Yesterday and Today, the Beatles' 1966 US album on Capitol (mono T 2553, stereo ST 2553), showing the four Beatles in white butcher smocks draped with raw meat and pieces of baby dolls. Capitol recalled it within days and pasted a new photo of the band around a steamer trunk over most of the jackets, so surviving butcher covers come in three states: first state (never pasted over), second state (trunk photo still on top) and third state (trunk photo peeled off).

Because the replacement was glued over existing stock instead of replacing it, a butcher can still turn up inside an ordinary-looking trunk cover. That is why every copy of the 1966 album is worth a close look.

How the cover happened and why it was recalled

The photo comes from a session with photographer Robert Whitaker at his Chelsea studio in London on March 25, 1966. Whitaker meant it as one panel of a surreal piece about the band's fame, but the Beatles chose the butcher shot for the US album. Capitol president Alan Livingston was against it; McCartney told him it was the band's comment on the Vietnam War.

Capitol printed 750,000 copies of the album with the butcher cover and sent about 60,000 to radio stations, the press and its branch offices ahead of the planned June 15 release. Dealers refused to stock it, and Capitol recalled the album in an effort it called Operation Retrieve. Some stores had already sold copies, and the album went back out with the trunk cover on June 20, 1966.

Faced with so many printed jackets, Capitol decided to paste the trunk photo over the old ones rather than destroy them all. The new slick was not always laid on square, so the open end of a paste-over jacket was trimmed by about 1/8 inch.

First, second and third state

Collectors grade every butcher by state before they talk about condition:

First state
The original butcher jacket that never had the trunk photo pasted on. These are copies that escaped the recall, often from the advance batch kept by journalists, radio stations and record company staff. The rarest and most valuable, especially still sealed.
Second state
A paste-over: the trunk slick is still glued on top of the butcher image. Unpeeled second states are getting scarcer because owners keep peeling them, and dealers advise selling them as they are.
Third state
A paste-over whose trunk slick has been peeled or steamed off to show the butcher photo. Now the most common kind and the least valuable, with value depending on how cleanly it was peeled. The best professional jobs leave only faint horizontal glue lines.
Livingston butchers
Sealed first states from a box Alan Livingston took home during the recall: 20 mono and 4 stereo, first offered for sale in 1987. They carry a premium over other sealed copies.

Mono or stereo: why the catalog number matters

The catalog number on the spine, back cover and labels tells you which version you have: T 2553 is mono and ST 2553 is stereo. Mono copies outnumbered stereo by roughly ten to one, which makes a stereo butcher in any state much harder to find; the Livingston box itself held 20 mono copies and only 4 stereo. The first stereo pressings also used fake stereo (duophonic) mixes of I'm Only Sleeping, Doctor Robert and And Your Bird Can Sing.

The disc inside tells you where the record was pressed, not what state the jacket is in. Labels carry T-X-1-2553 (mono) or ST-X-1-2553 (stereo) under the catalog number, and the dead wax shows the plant: Scranton copies read like T1-2553-G6 with a triangle containing IAM, Los Angeles copies like T-1-2553-G-22 with a small star, and Jacksonville copies carry a 0. Butcher jackets were assembled at all three plants, although Jacksonville sent most of its stock to a landfill.

How to check a trunk cover for a butcher underneath

Do not peel anything. These checks take a minute and need nothing more than good light:

Look right of the trunk
On a paste-over, Ringo's black turtleneck from the butcher photo shows through the white area just to the right of the steamer trunk, roughly in line with the word Today. On most real paste-overs it is easy to see, even on dirty covers. If you have to strain to see it, it is almost certainly not a butcher.
Use a strong light
Look at the front under a bright lamp. The whiter and cleaner the trunk slick, the clearer the outline of the turtleneck; even on a moldy cover it should still be visible.
Check the edges
Look along the edges and corners for a second layer of paper, or a slick that sits slightly off square. Paste-overs were trimmed about 1/8 inch along the open end.
Look for the gold record seal
If the front of the jacket has the gold record award seal printed on it, it was made after Capitol stopped pasting over butchers, so it is not one.
Read the catalog number
Note whether it says T 2553 or ST 2553. A stereo paste-over is the bigger find.

Famous butcher cover sales

Prices have climbed steadily since collectors first noticed the cover. A few public results show the range at the top of the market:

1974
A near perfect sealed mono first state sold for $457 in collector Jerry Osborne's auction catalog, the first documented sale of one.
2006
A sealed mono Livingston copy sold for $38,837 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas.
2016
A sealed first state sold for $125,000 at Heritage Auctions on February 20, 2016.
2019
John Lennon's own stereo first state prototype, signed to a fan in 1971 and also autographed by McCartney and Starr, sold for $234,000 at Julien's Auctions on May 9, 2019, which Julien's called a world record for a butcher cover.

Fakes and reproductions

Fakes exist. An Antiques Roadshow appraiser examining a genuine first state in 2003 warned that there are fakes out there and said that copy was so clean it almost looked like a color photocopy. Be wary of a perfect looking first state with no history, and buy an expensive butcher only from a seller who will take it back or from an auction house that stands behind its lots.

Legitimate reproductions muddy things further. The full butcher photo was printed as an insert in the 1980 US compilation Rarities, and the 2014 CD of Yesterday and Today used the butcher cover with a trunk cover sticker. Neither is a 1966 jacket, and a printed insert on its own is not a butcher cover.

What to do if you think you have one

Write down the catalog number, photograph the front in raking light (light coming from the side), and photograph the dead wax on both sides. If you see the turtleneck shadow, leave the slick alone: an unpeeled second state is often worth more as it is, and a bad peel can ruin the butcher image underneath. If you want it peeled, use a professional.

For a first state or a stereo copy, get a specialist dealer or an auction house to look at it before you sell. VinylLens can identify the pressing from a photo of the center label and show what it is worth in each condition grade.

Sources

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