VIP 25006. Really that rare ?

[Becket]

When seriously collecting the Motown and related desirable Label no's back in the Nineties; I thought the Andantes was an impossible find.
I cannot remember ever seeing or hearing of one for sale ?
Now we have J.M. and T.B. each auctioning one together at the same time.
And T.B. has already sold another this year.

J.M's has a "deletion hole" through it - so who would have done that to delete it ?
I know it may be highly desirable; but is it really that rare ?

Cheers......................             Tom.
 

[Robbk]

I used to think there were only 6 store stockers pressed up originally as the test press run for the first pressing, which was cancelled by Berry Gordy.  I had seen only the 2 of them in The Motown and Jobete Record Files, and the 2 that were originally found by Ron Murphy at ARP, and the copy that was given to Quality Control (Berry Gordy's would have been the other of the 6 test copies. 

But, seeing the copy with the hole pressed into it (for sale at the reduced price, leads me to believe that there might have been a single, small press run made especially for The Andantes (similar to Raynoma Gordy's special press run of 50 of her Little Iva Miracle Record.  I still think it is extremely rare, as I never saw one in circulation.  The hole-pressed one may have bee among records from Motown that had been given to a Detroit store owner.  It's very hard for me to believe that that issue ever got to any stores, as I was visiting Detroit record stores and thrift stores, and visiting distributorships 2 Saturdays a month in 1964, and asking for any new Motown releases, and never saw it.  I saw virtually every record that was actually released.  I Think there were actually small press runs of Kim Weston "A little More love" before the pull-back, and same with Oma Heard on VIP.  But, I believe the only existing Patrice Holloway and Andantes on VIP were the 6 press run test pressings, and then those press runs were cancelled (just like the Frank Wilson), with the possibility that a small batch were pressed up to satisfy The Andantes.  In any case, I think there have been only 5 or 6 copies seen by collectors and people in the industry.  It should still go for very big money.

Edited December 11, 2017 by RobbK