Well, I just recently jumped into the mini LP CD collecting and so far it has been enjoyable but I think I just made my first mistake. So far I have received Bruce Springsteen "Nebraska", Led Zeppelin "IV" and "Houses of the Holy", Jimi Hendrix "Electric Ladyland", Jethro Tull "Aqualung", Santana "III" and I have on order Jeff Beck "Jeff Beck Group" and Traffic "John Barleycorn". All of these are Japanese mini LP CDs and look fine and sound great. I also received Ten Years After "A Space In Time" and I believe it is okay but I question it a little bit because of the screen print on the CD. It is a vinyl album replica print but instead of black it is a redish/black mix which I have never seen. Oh, I forgot the David Bowie "Hunky Dory" which is also great.

Then there is The Beatles "Rubber Soul". I think I got took on this one. There are several questionable issues with this one. First there is an Apple Records logo on the front cover that doesn't look like any logo I have seen. On the back of the cover it has the same logo and says "Made In Japan". Below that it has "SRS Records". The inner sleeve is printed like the inner sleeves on the limited edition White Album 30th anniversary release with an image of the apple on side one and an image of a half an apple on side two. On that inner sleeve it says "MFD BY TOSHIBA-EMI LTD. JAPAN" The screen print on the CD itself is the Apple again but at the top, bottom and left and right edges you can see where an "overprint" has been done to "fill-in" black in an area that I am guessing got cropped by a scan. There is an folded lyric sheet insert printed in Japanese and English. I have not listened to this yet. I am almost afraid to. And finally there is an OBI on it product number AP-8156 with "THE BEATLES FOREVER" printed right above it.

There are no genuine Beatles mini-vinyls, except the White Album anniversary you mentioned. There are Chinise and Russian fakes, which are generally up to a pretty high standard, and definitely miles ahead of the standard Apple/ EMI product! The audio is usually a straight dub from the standard commercial cd, or in some cases, needledrops from vinyl in the cases where certain mixes are offered that have not been issued legitimately. There's a section on this site about these versions, and their dubious legality. I reckon they're pretty collectable in their own right- until the real thing comes along!