Béla Bartók – Bluebeard's Castle

About this record

Dead wax on this Decca set carries ZAL 16589 and ZAL 16590, both stamped with the PRS Baarn pressing plant rather than an English plant, which marks it as a Dutch-pressed copy. The printing says "Printed in England" on the sleeve, so the sleeve and disc came from different production chains.

The insert, the sleeve art and the 1980 copyright line all match the original Decca Bluebeard's Castle release catalogued as SET 630.

What drives its value

Price guide figures for this Decca set run from 29.90 USD at VG+ to 43.70 USD at Mint, with NM at 39.10 USD and VG at 20.70 USD. The lowest current asking price is 2.99 USD, and 22 copies are listed for sale, so the bottom of the market is set by listings in weaker grades rather than clean copies.

Demand is measured at 136 collectors who have the record against 19 who want it, which means supply in the secondary market outweighs buyer interest. The record's position among other pressings matters most here: the Holland Purple Label first release, labelled HP1 on the disc, is the version that holds a premium over later or English-issued copies.

A copy from the Dutch PRS Baarn run should be priced against that Purple Label reference rather than against a generic 1980 Decca stereo LP.

How to appraise this pressing

Start by confirming the label and catalogue number: the front and back should read Decca with SET 630, and the copyright line should show the 1980 date with the recording noted as March 1979. Next, check the dead wax for ZAL 16589 and ZAL 16590, which are the matrix strings in the dataset, followed by the longer runout variants ZAL 16589 1 6 A11 and ZAL 16590 1 G B 15.

These suffixes are where the Dutch Purple Label first release is distinguished from later issues, so compare them against the HP1 Mikrokosmos label reference listed in the release notes. Confirm the pressing plant stamp reads PRS Baarn; a copy carrying an English plant mark would not be the Holland pressing.

Check that the insert holds the Hungarian and English libretto, Clive Bennett's synopsis and the photographs of Bartók and the 1918 Budapest Opera design, since a missing insert lowers the grade. Grade the disc and sleeve separately, using the Mint through Poor scale of the price guide.

Further reading: grading a record, how to sell vinyl.