Fake U23 EPs?

[jimjim]

Guys, I hope someone out there can solve a mystery of mine that's been bugging me for nearly 20 years (but until now I have been too afraid to ask!).

Sometime in the late 80s I used to go to Record Collector fairs at Belfast's Maysfield Leisure Centre to do some serious crate digging with my 1st job's wages. At the time I had finally succumed to the lure of the band and became the sort of fan that had to have everything they had commited to vinyl up 'till that point. So these sorts of places were godsend for finding some of their hard to get early singles and other rarities.

One time I had the shock of my life when the holy grail of U2 collecting seemed to have turned up at one of these fairs. I say "Seemed" because this vendor had a huge wad of the U23 7" singles and they all looked brand new. The cover looked authentic albeit very "new" and when one looked at the vinyl inside they had the then latest CBS record label like so:



But, as there was no internet or other easily available resource to check out this sort of thing, I quickly made a decision on its authenticity based on the notion that there may have been a possible recent re-issue of the single with the new-ish CBS label. As I had never heard these three tracks before and it cost next to nothing (£4, I think), I went ahead and bought it. Aside from one very loud pop at the end of 'Boy/Girl' it was money well spent and for years to come I believed it was a genuine item. The font on the label and even the little groove sitting beside it looked very like the one on my Bruce Springsteen CBS single bought a few years earlier at my local record store.

However since the internet came around, I have my doubts. This and other U2 websites make absolutely no mention of a 7" re-issue beyond 1982. The "red label" in this instance is an older more primitive version which looks nothing like the example above. So, this begs the question: did I buy a very good fake all those years ago or is someone aware of another unaccounted for re-issue of the single from the late 80s?

Any opinions are most welcome!

Sean

PS Thank goodness I got "The Complete U2" for my ipod  Xmas a few years ago and have now got these tracks in pristine sound!

[Edited on 2007-7-2 by jimjim]

[u2rob]

Patrice's site shows many different label variations.  I believe all of the red labels are reissues.  The "older" looking one with the black typeface (if that's the more primitive label you're referring to) is part of the re-issue for the '4 U2 Play' singles pack that was released.  The bottom image (Item #54), however, appears to be the label that you purchased, yes?

Also check out the article on @U2 by Matt McGee and Chris Nilsen, which mentions the fact that reissues of the 7" were done all the way up to 1985.

There *are* known fakes of red label versions of Three, though.  Noodlz's site, though mostly offline, mentions this possibility on the bottom of the front page.

If nobody here can sufficiently answer your question, you should probably try posing it to the Collect-U2 group at yahoo...

[jimjim]

Originally posted by u2rob
Patrice's site shows many different label variations.  

I think this confirms it:



It's on his site and this is my copy! Yay! It's official!

Thanks for that mate!

[Edited on 2007-7-9 by jimjim]