I recently bought a (legit?) copy of Are You Experienced from HMV. The disc has printed on it "Made In Japan", label side, but "Made in Austria" in the flip side centre. Also, the card is thin, the graphics are not up to the usual Japanese standard, and yet it sports an obi with Japanese text, price in Yen etc... and a sticker saying "Not to be sold in Japan" ! I noticed there are similar versions of the recently re-issued Lennon catalogue. So are these legitimate, Univeral and EMI versions of the real Japanese deal,only masquerading as the real thing? What's going on here?

Very well spotted Poncho71 - and the same problem I had with The Police issues I recently bought in Australia!

Universal approved, created and sanctioned fakes!!!

On closer inspection, I noticed that the Lennon releases have a sticker on the back saying Made In Holland! And they are selling for £21! If the major labels are going to try to muscle in on the Japanese replica market, they might as well get the quality up to scratch, and just do equally good versions for the domestic market instead of trying to pass off rubbish as a genuine import. I wasn't surprised to find out that the Pink Floyd box-set was inferior in comparison to the Japanese versions, but I guess that's why we love the real thing so much- because they're so good. When Russian bootlegs are so well made I don't see why EMI can't do justice to their catalogue with as much care. Official fakes- now there's a new category! Lookout everybody!

I bought the 3 Hendrix releases of this series in a record store in Madrid. Electric Ladyland even had the Japanese/English lyric booklet. The discs were all pressed in Germany. The store advertised these as JAPANESE editions, so I had no problems returning them for a full refund.

I just bought the John Lennon Imagine tonight at Best Buys ($22.99) and noticed the same sticker. If is very confusing. The package quality looks first class. I am about to give my first listen. I have just gotten into collecting these mini lp cds and I must say it is a challenge to understand really what the product and market is. Right now of the 10 or so I have recently purchased and the 6 or so I already had I don't know what is real and what is not (except for The Beatles Rubber Soul which is a very poor Russsian knock-off.

I recently bought "plastic ono band" and "imagine" from importcds (amazon.com marketplace), and they also have the "made in holland"-sticker on the back - does anybody definitely know by now, if these editions are fake or not?
Both have all inserts and look really great, except for the cardboard, which is a bit thinner than the ones i know from japan paper sleeves...do the original john lennon japan paper sleeves have these thin cardboards?
I also discovered, that the barcode on the obi is marked with an other barcode (e.g. imagine: 5099951837020)...
Hope that somebody can help me, 'cause I'm not sure, if I should return the cds...

Hello and welcome...

I don't work for the company so I can't say 100% but...

• They are probably not fakes.


• They not 100% Japanese (obviously).


• The covers are possibly made in Japan and the discs are probably made in Europe somewhere.


• The best way to tell if they are "fake" is to look at the CD for the tell tale inner ring (see here)

Hello,

thank you for your quick reply, it helped me a lot. I looked at the cd for the tell tale inner ring and everything seems alright, now I don't think, that they are fake.
There is "made in japan" printed on the discs and on the cover - another fact that makes me believe they are the real deal.
The only thing that bothers me a bit are the thin cardboard sleeves, I only know thick sleeves from japan releases (e.g. the first led zeppelin-album), so if anyone can tell me, that these thin sleeves are standard for john lennon-japan-releases, I'll be completely satisfied. Thanks.

I don't know about J. Lennon releases, but I think that maybe half of the paper sleeve releases in Japan are made with thin sleeves. For example, Warner (Stooges, Ramones, Led Zeppelin), Sony (Clash, Iggy) sleeves are thick; Universal (Metallica 2010, The Who 2008, Nirvana, Guns N' Roses), JVC (Motorhead, Iggy), King Records, Strange Days (The Damned) are thinner. I think Queen (EMI/Toshiba) paper sleeves were thick (but do not remember for sure). So I think thin papersleeves are as common as the thick ones, and that depends on the label that releases them.

I apologize, I made a mistake (remembered incorrectly). Out of those that I mentioned, Sony (The Clash, Iggy Pop) are thick sleeves (regular sleeves - not gatefold - that fit more than one disc are thin), but Warner sleeves of Ramones and Stooges are thin. Led Zeppelin IV and II from Germany are thick gatefold sleeves, but I presume that the ones from Japan are such too. I have not seen any thick sleeve by Universal, so I think most of the sleeves are made of a thin cardboard.