Columbia "Stealth Quad" Marketing letter from 1974!

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ClarkNovak

1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
Since 2002/2003
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So I purchased an SQ copy of Herbie Hancock's "Thrust" off eBay recently, and when it arrived the first thing that hit me was that it was in a regular Stereo cover (PC-32965) instead of the proper Quad cover (PCQ-32965). "Aw Crap!" I thought, figuring I'd been hosed. But no -- inside was a gold-label Quad copy of "Thrust", along with the very interesting attached letter!

It appears that CBS Marketing, trying to boost Quad awareness, slipped SQ Lps into the regular Stereo jackets and enclosed the accompanying letter. I've never come across this before - has anyone else?

View attachment CBS-stealth-quad-letter.pdf

I love finding stuff like this :)
 
That IS very cool!

Such exciting and heady days those were and I, for one, would have been thrilled to have received a quad record and that letter when I thought I had bought a regular stereo.

Alas, there just weren't great enough numbers of people making the committment to quadraphonics.

Doug
 
Wow. Now this is something I have never heard of.

Of course, I would have never purchased a 'stereo' LP of a title that was available in quad back in the day, so that probably explains that, but still.

VERY COOL!!

I will add this bit of info to the Columbia Label Pages!

Big THANKS to "ClarkNovak"
 
Ah, the good ole days when some Columbia Exec's secretary had to type up this release on her IBM or Smith Corona typewriter being very careful to not make any typos. :)
 
Of course, I would have never purchased a 'stereo' LP of a title that was available in quad back in the day, so that probably explains that, but still.
Of course the Quad would be released months after the regular issue, so if you were a fan you'd end up getting the two. Bet that none of us waited for the Quad version of Wish You Were Here.

In my case I discovered a couple of artists because one of their albums were released in Quad. Janis Ian to mention one.

Cool letter. Thanks!
 
Ah, the good ole days when some Columbia Exec's secretary had to type up this release on her IBM or Smith Corona typewriter being very careful to not make any typos. :)

There were gals at work who could type so fast, it was like listening to a Geiger counter sitting on top of pure uranium.

:D

Doug
 
Fantastic find! :eek:

Does this explain the odd Best of Simon and Garfunkel SQ that turns up in a normal stereo cover? I have one and have always wondered.
 
Apologies for two things; firstly, I meant "Bridge over troubled water" (duh!), secondly, it will take me a while to post the photo but I will. The cover is definitely labelled stereo and has the ref. no. 63699. The inner sleeve is the old advertising sleeve but with blue text not black and does have the SQ logo on it (bottom right, front side). The matrix number are: P Q BL 30995-1C and P Q AL 300995-2B. Sadly, it was from an old friend (who bought it new) and it has seen better days - it looks like his cat used it as a scratching post. Thankfully most of it plays well and there is little surface noise.
 
alaric smith said:
Apologies for two things; firstly, I meant "Bridge over troubled water" (duh!), secondly, it will take me a while to post the photo but I will. The cover is definitely labelled stereo and has the ref. no. 63699. The inner sleeve is the old advertising sleeve but with blue text not black and does have the SQ logo on it (bottom right, front side). The matrix number are: P Q BL 30995-1C and P Q AL 300995-2B. Sadly, it was from an old friend (who bought it new) and it has seen better days - it looks like his cat used it as a scratching post. Thankfully most of it plays well and there is little surface noise.

I ironically have a copy of that with no sleeve, I bought an extra stereo copy to steal the sleeve but couldn't bring myself to put it in a stereo sleeve. Maybe I should and make a believable copy of one of those letters (I can get my hands on some old paper). LOL

If anyone has a gold border sleeve for that in any condition let me know. Maybe someone has one where the record is trashed.
 
That nifty communique from a CBS higher-up is part of history that should be saved by as many folks as possible.

Excellent contribution to the lowly-growing archive of neato quad-related goodies.
 
I recently got one of these letters too, inside my copy of Dan Fogelberg's "Captured Angel" SQ LP (in Stereo sleeve)..

image.jpg
 
These must be very rare. Out of thousands of records I have collected and thousands I have pulled out of jackets to check on condition, I have never come across one of these letters and I always check for extra stuff. This is great info. I have been collecting quad recordings for 20 years and never pulled a quad out of a regular jacket. When I am quad hunting I always check stereo titles that have quad counter parts just in case the quad was mistakenly put inside, but never found a quad.
Talking about being "hosed "I once purchased a quad America sealed CD-4 and it had a stereo recording in it instead of the quad. If memory serves me, the stereo recording was a Seals and Crofts album. Speaking of weird stuff, a couple of weeks ago I found a yellow with black label quad Ampex 8 track cartridge of Todd Rundgrens "Runt" which played back in stereo. I was mad because I thought someone had recorded over two channels of the tape (of which I have been a victim several times-usually on yellow ampex quad cartridges). I pulled it out of the deck and checked the back label, which had 4 tracks listed on it. So I have a stereo 8 track in a quad shell.
 
Captured Angel was a very late SQ title. Likely that's the reason that you got a Quad in a stereo jacket with the letter. Likely, they ran out of Quad sleeves and weren't inclined to print more, since Quad was on its' way out. Nor were they inclined to dump the extra SQ LP's pressed, hence, the letter.
 
Captured Angel was a very late SQ title. Likely that's the reason that you got a Quad in a stereo jacket with the letter. Likely, they ran out of Quad sleeves and weren't inclined to print more, since Quad was on its' way out. Nor were they inclined to dump the extra SQ LP's pressed, hence, the letter.

Very interesting Linda..! :upthumb

With the greatest respect (after all, you know so much more about all this than I do.. I wasn't even born! :eek: ) I'm not entirely convinced that is the whole story.. the Thrust SQ that was found by ClarkNovak inside a stereo sleeve with the same letter as my Fogelberg was from 1974 and this Fogelberg was from 1975..
and my Rock On SQ in stereo sleeve, bought new like that according to the bloke I bought it off (but without the letter) must have also been purchased when Quad was in full swing around '73/'74, no?

Also, how late is the Fogelberg Quad?
Afaik there were Columbia (and assoc label) SQ LPs of non-Classical repertoire for some time after these titles?

At least those SQ LPs I've picked up like..

Burton Cummings (1976),
EW&F - Spirit (1976),
Harold Melvin - Wake Up Everybody (1976),
Tower Of Power - Ain't Nothin' Stoppin' Us Now (1977),
Aerosmith - Rocks (1976),
Andy Williams - Andy (1976),
Jeff Beck - Wired (1976),
BT Express - Energy To Burn (1976),
Herbie Hancock - Secrets (1976),
Isley Brothers - Harvest For The World (1976),
Isley Brothers - Go For Your Guns (1977),
O'Jays - Message In The Music (1976),
Maynard Ferguson - Conquistador (1977),
The Manhattans - It Feels So Good (1977),
The Miracles - Love Crazy (1977),
Phoebe Snow - Second Childhood (1976),
Ted Nugent - Free For All (1976),
Santana - Festival (1977),
Johnnie Taylor - Ear'gasm (1976),
Johnnie Taylor - Rated Extraordinaire (1977),
Wild Cherry - Electrified Funk (1977),
Return To Forever - Musicmagic (1977)

..are all in proper Quad sleeves.

One theory I'd heard, it was partly because retailers used to bundle all Quad LPs together in the same bin in their stores and that combined with consumer apathy led to the Quads languishing unsold.. this little trick may have been a brainwave to get them into the racks with all the other stereo discs and to get people to try out Quad when they got a Quad record.. by stealth! Curious..
 
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