If you’re looking for Elvis Presley vinyl, here’s the honest news first: most Elvis records aren’t worth a fortune, and that’s brilliant if you actually want to play them. The copies collectors chase are early UK pressings in sharp condition, with the right label, the right catalogue number and a sleeve that’s survived the decades. Almost everything else counts as a listening copy, and a lot of those sit under a tenner.
Right now Elvis is the artist we have more of than anyone else in the crates, from 1961 soundtrack albums to the last single released in his lifetime. So this guide does two jobs. It shows you how to tell a sought-after Elvis pressing from a budget reissue in about thirty seconds, and it points you to the copies we’ve actually got in. If you read our Dolly Parton guide, you’ll remember Elvis very nearly recorded I Will Always Love You. This time the King gets a guide of his own.
Worth money, or worth playing?
Search for Elvis vinyl and you’ll quickly find people asking what their records are worth. The usual answer is less than they’d hoped, because RCA pressed and repressed Elvis in huge numbers for decades. Budget reissues, compilations and eighties repressings turn up everywhere, which is exactly why they’re cheap. That’s good news if you’re buying.
What makes one copy more desirable than another comes down to the same handful of things:
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Era and label: early pressings on the period RCA Victor label, not later repressings.
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UK or overseas: UK and US issues use different catalogue numbers, so check which one you’re holding.
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Mono or stereo: in the early sixties the same album was often issued both ways, with different numbers.
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Condition: a worn early copy can be worth less than a clean later one, and it’ll certainly sound worse.
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Completeness: inserts, booklets and original inner sleeves all count.
None of that means a later pressing is second best. If you want to hear Blue Hawaii on a Sunday afternoon, a clean copy at a fair price beats a battered first pressing every time.
Reading an Elvis label in thirty seconds
Start with the catalogue number
On UK RCA albums from the early sixties, RD usually means mono and SF means stereo. CDS and CDM numbers belong to RCA Camden, the budget label that reissued a lot of Elvis material in the seventies. Numbers starting PL or NL point to later RCA issues from the late seventies and eighties. Those are good records to own, just not originals of older albums.
Then look at the label
Early-sixties UK copies carry the RCA Victor label with a silver spot. By the late sixties and seventies you’ll see the orange RCA label instead. Label design isn’t proof of a pressing on its own, but when the catalogue number and label disagree, that’s your cue to look closer.
Check the run-out
The run-out area near the label carries stamped or etched codes that help separate one cut from another. Our listings note the run-out codes wherever we can read them, so you can check them against a discography before you buy.
What’s in the crate right now
Everything below is hand-graded and was in stock when we wrote this. Stock moves quickly, so if one catches your eye, don’t hang about.
Blue Hawaii (1961): mono and stereo side by side
This is the album with Can’t Help Falling In Love on it, and it’s a lovely one for seeing the mono/stereo split in action. We’ve got a UK mono copy, RD 27238, graded VG+/VG+, with the silver spot RCA Victor label and a laminated sleeve. We’ve also got a UK stereo copy, SF 5115, graded VG/VG. They’re £5 each, so you can have both for a tenner and settle the mono-versus-stereo argument at home.
The early-sixties soundtracks
These come from the same RD era, and they’ve clearly been loved:
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Girls! Girls! Girls!, RD 7534, VG+/G+, the one with Return To Sender, £5
You’ll notice the sleeve grades trail the vinyl grades. That’s normal for records that spent sixty years being pulled out at parties. We grade the sleeve and the record separately, so you can see which part has done the hard work.
The Sun Collection
Here’s a record with a proper British angle. Elvis’s 1954 and 1955 Sun recordings were first gathered on an LP for UK fans in 1975, on RCA Starcall (HY 1001), before America got its own version. Our copies carry the later NL 42757 catalogue number, so they’re the RCA reissue rather than the Starcall original, and we won’t pretend otherwise. What they are is clean: our best copy is graded EX/EX, which is a lot of That’s All Right and Mystery Train for a fiver.
Vegas, and the last concert album
Elvis In Person (SF 8080/81) catches Elvis back on stage in Las Vegas in 1969. It comes in a gatefold on the orange RCA label, graded EX/VG, for £5. At the other end of the story, Elvis In Concert (PL 02587) was recorded on his final tour in June 1977 and came out after he died that August. Our copy is an honest VG/G+ UK pressing at £5, and it’s more of a listening copy than a shelf piece.
Singles: two number ones for £2 each
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Surrender / Lonely Man, RCA 1227 (1961), VG/VG+. Surrender was a UK number one in June 1961, built on the old Italian song Return To Sorrento.
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Way Down, PB 0998 (1977), VG+/VG, on the orange RCA label. It was stuck around number 42 when Elvis died in August 1977, then went to number one for five weeks.
Both count towards the £2 singles deal, where you buy ten and pay for five. That makes it £10 for ten singles, and the discount comes off in your basket automatically.
For something more recent, we’ve also got several of the numbered 2005 reissues of his UK number ones, put out for what would have been his 70th birthday. It’s Now Or Never (5/18), Are You Lonesome Tonight (6/18), A Fool Such As I (4/18) and Good Luck Charm (11/18) are £5 each.
The fiver shelf, and a couple of treats
If you just want Elvis on the turntable, the Camden budget albums are the easy way in. Separate Ways (CDS 1118), You’ll Never Walk Alone (CDM 1088) and Easy Come, Easy Go (CDS 1146) are all £5. For something bluesier, try Reconsider Baby (PL 85418), a 1985 collection of his blues recordings.
For a present, we’ve got a Reader’s Digest Elvis Presley’s Greatest Hits box set (RDS 9001), EX/VG+, with its booklet and certificate, for £20. There’s also a gatefold copy of The All Time Greatest Hits (PL 90100) at £15.
What to expect from sixty-year-old Elvis
Early-sixties Elvis LPs were played a lot, often on family record players that weren’t gentle with them. A VG grade on a 1961 soundtrack is normal. Expect some surface noise in the quiet bits and a sleeve with a few stories to tell. If you want near-silent playback, go for a later pressing in EX or better.
Every record we list is hand-graded using the Goldmine standard, with the vinyl and sleeve graded separately. It’s photographed as the actual copy, grading note and all, and cleaned before it’s posted. If anything isn’t as described, you’ve got 60 days to send it back. Our vinyl grading guide explains exactly what each grade means when the needle drops.
Dig through the Elvis crate
Browse every Elvis Presley record in stock. New copies go up as they’re graded, so it’s worth checking back for first dibs. If you’re after a particular pressing we haven’t got, add it to our wanted list and we’ll email you the moment a matching copy lands. If you’re local to Mansfield, you can reserve online and collect in person.
The King has left the building, but plenty of his records haven’t. They just need good homes.