A breakdown on differing variations of UK single releases

[Alan]

So after the agreement with HMV to press Elvis' first releases in the UK the contract went to Decca until 1969.

This first bit may well have applied to HMV to a degree. People say how come there's so many differing label variations for the same release?
The obvious one is that they were re-pressed every so often when the stock ran low. Elvis was a constant seller, releases of his still sold well every week even if the sales were not enough in any one week for it to chart. When the stock of a release ran low they'd just press some more.
Now Decca, as with many record pressing plants, had more than one press as did HMV. When a big release was being pressed they'd use more than one press and sometimes more than one shift. So you have people working the press setting up the label information to be printed. They'd each have their own way of doing it and no one cared so long as the information was included and was correct. So differing positions, fonts, bold, small, large, extra dash here etc.
You may even get three versions of a first pressing! And you'll never know!

So that's one thing that went on. Purchase Tax! Yeah, that horrible stuff that preceded the even worse VAT scheme that came into play in 1973.
But the great thing about this is it helps date when a disc was pressed. If it wasn't embossed on the label it may be found stamped into the run out area.
Here's a list of the tax codes used:
UK Purchase Tax Codes date introduced:

Dec 30th 1950 AT
Apr 15th 1953 NT
Oct 27th 1955 RT
June 1st 1957 XT
Oct 1st 1958 UT
Apr 8th 1959 ET
Aug 1st 1960 WT
July 26th 1961 OT
Apr 10th 1962 ZT
Nov 26th 1962 PT
Jan 1st 1963 MT
July 1st 1963 KT
Nov 23rd 1968 JT
Apr 1st 1973 - Purchase tax replaced by VAT

Combine that with the triangular centres of the 50's with the 4 prong knockouts of the 60's, the orange labels of 1969 on, then combine that with the RCA spot discs then onto the RCA Victor labelled discs and many times you can sort the order out of the various pressings as well as give then a date range of when they were pressed.
Then you have the sleeves. These also had date parameters of various changes, so although we can't be sure of every pressing we can apply a little bit of logic now and then and come up with a reasonable answer. It's never conclusive, back in the day someone would find an old carton of sleeves and use them up, or, in setting the type face up for the label - they get it wrong!

Then there's the "45-" prefix, the last single that had that was One Broken Heart For Sale, 45-RCA 1337, any re-pressings after this of any single that was originally prefixed with "45-" would now have that dropped after that date.

Have I listed them all - NO WAY! Wish I could, but they keep popping up and the great thing about this site is that we can just update them accordingly.
If you're thinking of collecting Elvis vinyl then a brief root around this section should put you off for good! Or it may assist you in a collection you've been doing for years, either way - enjoy!

Alan.