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Beatles White Album Numbered Copies: Low Numbers, Serial Numbers and First Pressings

How the Beatles White Album numbered copies work: who owned the low numbers, what the serial number means, famous sales and how to spot a first pressing.

Checked October 31, 2026

What are the White Album numbered copies?

Early copies of The Beatles (1968), the double album everyone calls the White Album, have a serial number stamped on the front of the plain white cover, so every sleeve in the first run carries its own number. The low numbers are the valuable ones: Ringo Starr's mono copy No. 0000001 sold for $790,000 at Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles on December 5, 2015, which Guinness World Records lists as the most expensive vinyl record sold at auction.

The album came out on Apple in the UK on November 22, 1968, as mono PMC 7067/8 and stereo PCS 7067/8, and in the US on November 25, 1968, as stereo SWBO 101. Numbered covers exist in both countries and well beyond them, so a number on its own does not make a copy rare. What counts is how low the number is, which pressing it is on, and whether the package is complete.

Why the covers were numbered

The sleeve was designed by the pop artist Richard Hamilton, working with Paul McCartney, as a stark contrast to the crowded Sgt. Pepper cover. Hamilton proposed a plain white sleeve with the band's name blind embossed, and he suggested numbering each copy “to create the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies.” The number sits in the lower right corner of the front, below the slightly tilted embossed title.

McCartney later recalled taking the idea to EMI, which first said it could not be done. His suggestion was a small device at the end of the packing line that would hit each sleeve and print a number on it. The official Beatles site describes the original as a top-loading gatefold with the title embossed on the front and the catalog number printed on the spine, and notes that early copies were individually numbered on the front.

How the numbering worked, and why some numbers repeat

There was no single worldwide sequence. Several pressing plants used the same numbering system, so a share of copies carry the same numbers, and more than one cover is stamped No. 0000001. The low numbers collectors talk about come from the UK run that started with the band's own copies.

US copies, pressed by Capitol for Apple, were numbered on their own, and US numbers can carry a letter in front of the digits. In 2013 Heritage Auctions offered a sleeve numbered A0000001, described as one of about two dozen such covers handed out as early promotional items to the Beatles and top Capitol executives; in December 2012 the same house had sold copy A0000023 for $13,750. In 2025 the Los Angeles dealer Rockaway Records announced US copies numbered 007, 008 and 009, which the Beatles authors Frank Daniels and Bruce Spizer describe as a test run of the number stamper at Bert-Co in Los Angeles, where the cover slicks were printed.

Numbering also outlived the first pressing. In the UK the stereo top-loading sleeve was replaced by a numbered side-loading sleeve, and numbered covers turn up on German, Japanese and US pressings made into the 1970s. A seven digit number proves the cover is an early style, not that the record is a 1968 first pressing.

Who owned the lowest numbers

The first four numbered copies went to the four Beatles, and copies close behind went to people around the band. These are the documented low numbers:

No. 0000001
Ringo Starr's mono UK copy, kept in a bank vault for 35 years and sold in near mint condition for $790,000 at Julien's Auctions in December 2015. It was long believed to be John Lennon's: McCartney said Lennon got number one because he shouted loudest.
No. 0000005
The lowest number in circulation after the band's four. A near mint mono copy sold for £19,201 (almost $30,000) on eBay in November 2008.
No. 0000006
A stereo copy John Lennon gave to his chauffeur and bodyguard Les Anthony. It sold for $162,500 at Heritage Auctions on February 24, 2024, with its poster, photos and black inner sleeves.
No. 0000007 and No. 0000009
The copies of producer George Martin and press officer Derek Taylor.
No. 0000012
A stereo copy that George and Pattie Harrison gave to a friend. It sold for £10,000 at Tracks Auctions in March 2025.

What counts as a low number

Collectors have long assumed that only the band's inner circle held numbers 0000001 to 0000020, which is why copies in that range sell with a story about who owned them. Beyond that range, judge a copy on its pressing, condition and completeness as much as on its number: a number in the thousands on a worn side loader missing its poster is a very different record from a complete, clean top loader.

Duplicates are the main trap. A mono No. 0000005 sold in 2008, and a stereo copy also numbered 0000005 sold on eBay in 2013 for about $5,300 with a claim that it had been Lennon's. For any very low number, provenance (who owned it and how it left their hands) is worth as much as the number itself.

How to tell a UK first pressing

First UK pressings, mono and stereo, share a set of features. Check all of them, because sleeves, discs and inserts have been swapped between copies for more than 50 years.

Sleeve
A heavily laminated gatefold that opens at the top (a top loader), with a seven digit number and the embossed title. Later numbered side-loading UK covers are worth much less.
Inserts
A fold-out poster with a photo collage on one side and the lyrics on the other, four color portrait photos of John, Paul, George and Ringo, and black paper inner sleeves.
Catalog number
PMC 7067/8 for mono and PCS 7067/8 for stereo, on the spine and labels. Original UK mono labels do not say MONO.
Labels
Apple labels that carry the line about being sold in the UK subject to resale price conditions; later pressings drop it.
Runout
Mono sides read XEX 709 to XEX 712 in the dead wax and stereo sides YEX 709 to YEX 712. A -1 after each number (for example YEX 709-1) marks the first lacquer cut. The album sold so fast that some top loaders already have a -2 on one side.
EMI codes
Next to the matrix number EMI stamped a mother number and stamper letters, where G R A M O P H L T D stand for 1 to 9 and 0. The earliest copies read -1, mother 1 and stamper G.

Mono or stereo?

The White Album was the last Beatles album with its own dedicated mono mix, and the mono LP was short-lived in the shops, so a UK mono top loader is the scarcer of the two. The mixes differ: the mono has a sped-up “Don't Pass Me By,” a shorter “Helter Skelter” and different sound effects. Ringo's No. 0000001 is a mono copy.

In the US the album was issued in stereo only, the first Beatles LP there without a mono version. Later US vinyl printed the title in gray instead of embossing it, a quick sign that a US copy is not early.

Numbered editions that are not 1968 originals

Several later editions are numbered or look like the original. EMI reissued the album on limited edition white vinyl in 1978 and 1979. The first CD edition in 1987 carried stamped numbers on the booklet, and the 1998 30th anniversary CD, a numbered limited edition, copied the top-loading sleeve. The 2018 Super Deluxe box is individually numbered. None of these is a 1968 pressing, and their numbers have nothing to do with the original sequence.

Checking your own copy

Start with the number and the way the sleeve opens: a seven digit number on a laminated top loader is the combination collectors want. Then check the spine and labels for PMC or PCS 7067/8, read the dead wax on all four sides for -1 lacquers and the EMI stamper letters, and make sure the poster, the four photos and the black inner sleeves are all there.

Grade the cover and the discs separately. A white sleeve shows every stain and every bit of ring wear, so condition moves the value more than on most albums. 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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