ELVIS PRESLEY SUN 45s: SPOTTING THE ORIGINALS
• Hear a sample of all 10 tracks from the Original 45s below! •

The Elvis 'Sun' set has been bootlegged & repro'd several times as well as the official RCA box set. You need to know what the originals are if you are paying top £££ for them. We had a set some years back & kept the photos below. We could straighten & tidy the pics a bit, but best left raw as any editing of photos would affect the object of showing them as they come.

Firstly, we'll rapidly dismiss some repros. Ones with RCA small text around the label edge are the modern box set ones. Any Elvis Sun with a GLOSSY label is not an original. Any Elvis with "Issued 1973" in the deadwax is a 1973 repro, but the earliest one & it has some value. Any different tracks from Sun sessions, or silly ones like RCA-only tracks are always fantasy issues coming under the general term "reissue". Some odd or early ones do have a collector value.

Similarly, if an Elvis Sun 45 is found in a Picture Sleeve that match the record details, do not automatically dismiss the record itself as a reissue. These early bootleg picture sleeves were bought by collectors in the early 1970s who may have put a genuine Sun 45 in it! Only other comparisons of the vinyl will reveal the truth.

Going by the Hand Etched matrix numbers isn't too helpful either as many repros can do the same easily. What they don't always do is add the "72" in small writing higher up, as in (3 to the power of 2 in maths). Original matrix handwriting will look different to newer, as 1954-55 was still ink and fountain pen days where people wrote slower.

THE ORIGINALS. They all look subtly different to each other as the photos show. Some are thin vinyl, as Sun 209 and Sun 215 are, some are thicker vinyl like Sun 210 and Sun 217 are. The first 4 play with the typical "SUN HISS" which, as we've explained elsewhere is because they mastered them wrongly with a Transcription size stylus. Only the last one can be played with a normal mono or stereo stylus. Any Elvis Sun, once played with the right stylus (1.5 to 1.8 thou) will sound very different to the RCA transfers, which were EQ'd to sound much fuller, compared to the thinner, more natural Sun masters. The spacing of the grooves section & the runout deadwax are is crucial too. The last one, Sun 223 was pressed in several places across America, you'll likely find it with MSICO & on styrene. But the metal master used was always the same on the first 4 as you only find 1 type, so if yours doesn't look like ours then it's not original. One minor difference is "Good Rockin' Tonight" either credits "Ray Brown" (sic) or "Roy Brown" as the writer.

ARE THEY RARE? In terms of Elvis, yes. The odds of you finding a real one in the open record market are pretty slim, unless you go to a proper dealer or an established collector is selling up. For Rarity of the Originals, consider some were big hits in the Country market & are rarer than similar size R&B hits simply as the C&W market in 1954-55 was pretty small. The last 2 are still easily found if you have the money as collectors & dealers regularly trade in them. The odds of finding one in the UK in a general music collection bought at the time are zero, but Collectors have been buying them since. Hank Williams in the 1950s had many huge C&W hits with tracks that are familiar to buyers today, but in their initial sales period, they barely touched the Pop Charts. From the Billboard charts, you can see 3 of Hank Williams sold a Million, with eleven No.1 hits, yet only made no 20 his highest rating in the Pop charts, simply as the pop market were buying the Pop versions, of which there were a lot. Most C&W records from 1950 to 1955 you see on 45s never made the charts at all, making the Country Singles Book not as interesting as it could be, as only 10-15 records appeared in the charts per week.

ELVIS on SUN: The Chart Positions. Sun 217 with "Baby Let's Play House" made no5 on the C&W Chart & stayed for 15 weeks, making No.5 as Jockey & No.10 as Best Seller. "I Forgot To Remember To Forget" after entering at 'equal No.12' on the 17-21 Sep 1955 "Most Played by Jockeys" Chart (not sales), eventually made a huge FIVE WEEK C&W NUMBER 1 HIT! It also hit the Regional charts. But there's more to that story: it only hit No.1 AFTER the RCA 6357 release in Dec 1955, hitting No.1 in Feb 1956. "Mystery Train" illustrates this, charting at No.11 from Dec 1955. But neither made the Pop Chart & the RCA 6357 record is still fairly hard to find on the first issue.

WHAT ABOUT THE "PUSH" MARKS? Sadly the whole story of Push marks is a load of amateur guesswork carried on as fact for decades! The 3 marks in a triangular shape are visible on the label area on the first 4 to some degree and can prove authenticity. You can see them in our photos. The last one does not have them as newer machinery was used, explaining the stylus size problem with the first. The 3 marks you see are found on plenty of other records, what they are is A FILLED HOLE on the acetate master the grooves were cut on to. The holes were needed to stop the disc slipping as it was being cut and once the manufacturing process was started, the holes were filled in. Plenty of early indie companies & 78s going back decades before have this feature. The holes were poorly filled leaving an obvious bump or dip, or well filled & smoothed off so they barely show. No warm record off the press would have itself have such heavy marks impressed that don't match either side, yet without warping the record. It's like with Gold Londons, these tired guessed ideas need correcting!

THE PHOTOS are exactly as taken. Note the groove to deadwax ratio, the edge of the vinyl. Sun yellow label paper is dull with a deep orangey richness to it. The print is always Brown on the early Suns. Minor label variations exist, ie the catalog number at the bottom or on the right & the Ray Brown error. We've sensibly heavily watermarked these big clear pictures, else shysters could eaily use a raw photo & try to sell you a fake! Enough of the detail shows through to compare yours to.

YOU SAY THEY SOUND VERY DIFFERENT! We want to hear them!! Well we recorded them raw to CD using the right stylus when were selling them, so we offer short MP3 samples of all 10 tracks below. As with early indie pressed vinyl, the pressing quality can be seriously lacking even on VG+ ones played with the best matched stylus, but if that's how they were made, that's how they are.

Here are 60 Second MP3s in good quality direct from the original 45s pictured below. The records were decent copies as you can hear & see, the 1st was EX & the others around VG+ with only Sun 215 with clicks at the start. They are played with the best size custom stylus to get the best sound. We have just run them thru the de-clicker else it's as they came. All original 45s will have the same sound characteristics if played with a custom stylus, if played with a standard shop-bought stylus they'll sound lousy as explained above.

The most different sounding are "That's All Right" with a more natural thinner live sound from the Sun 45 & the CD version beefed up & added echo losing the "Sun" sound into 1956 RCA sound. We know which we prefer... "You're A Heartbreaker" sounds muffly on every RCA issue as the Sun 45 wasn't mastered with enough EQ & there is distortion. Most will have never heard it like this and further our quick EQ version shows better resolution and how rough it was mastered! Compare both to the RCA "Sunrise" CD version & see what unnatural sounding processed music they are selling you! The transfers you hear on CD & Vinyl today are still based on the 1955 RCA dubbed copies, but "Restored" by careless people over the decades, especially the digital era, just look at the waveforms on an audio program to see the mess they've made... It needs Near Mint copies finding of 45 or 78 depending which was best mastered & properly transferring via the ELP Laser Turntable to lose stylus size problems to release an ultimate 10 track CD of these beyond-important tracks. They'd sell Millions! Elvis as you've never heard him before!

Enjoy our sample of The Real Elvis on Sun!