there is a special export-only pressing of “my boy” (rca 2458EX)

Es­ti­mated reading time is 12 min­utes.

A SPE­CIAL EXPORT-ONLY pressing of the “My Boy” single was man­u­fac­tured in the US ex­pressly for sale in the UK. RCA Victor 2458EX was shipped to Eng­land in late 1974, ap­par­ently be­cause British plants were un­able to meet the de­mand for new product on their own. Aside from filling a need, RCA cre­ated a col­lectible whose im­por­tance is still dis­cussed decades later.

Elvis had added My Boy to his reper­toire during his month-long stay at the Las Vegas Hilton in August-September 1973. The song was orig­i­nally written in French as “Parce Que Je T’aime Mon En­fant” (trans­lated as “Be­cause I Love You, My Child”) by Jean-Pierre Bour­tayre and Claude Fran­cois. It was first recorded by Fran­cois and re­leased in France in 1970. 1

2458EX has at­tracted at­ten­tion since it first ap­peared in a price guide years ago with an ab­surdly in­flated value.

The lyrics were sub­se­quently trans­lated into Eng­lish by Phil Coulter and Bill Martin. Ac­cording to Martin: “The demo was just Phil playing and me singing. We gave it to Richard Harris, who thought it was phe­nom­enal. We took My Boy and Richard Harris to the Radio Lux­em­bourg Grand Prix music con­test in 1971 and we won. My Boy wasn’t a UK hit but it did well in America and that is prob­ably how Elvis Presley heard it.”

Harris re­leased My Boy as a single in De­cember 1971. His ver­sion fea­tured a rather re­strained and sen­si­tive lead vocal and a rel­a­tively sub­dued arrange­ment (as hard as ei­ther may be to be­lieve for those who lived through MacArthur Park). The record only reached #41 on the Bill­board Hot 100 and #46 on Cash Box but was a siz­able hit with Easy Lis­tening audiences.

After per­forming the song sev­eral times in Vegas, Elvis fi­nally recorded My Boy in De­cember 1973 at the Stax Studio in Mem­phis. Pres­ley’s arrange­ment stays fairly close to the Harris recording and Elvis sings it beau­ti­fully, al­though without the re­straint that marked Har­ris’s ver­sion. This recording was first re­leased on the GOOD TIMES album (RCA Victor CPL1-0475) in March 1974.

 

Export Only: photo of advertisement for "My Boy" in Febrruary 1, 1975, issue of Cash Box magazine.
This full-page ad­ver­tise­ment for the US re­lease of My Boy ap­peared in the Feb­ruary 1, 1975, issue of Cash Box mag­a­zine. It was not normal prac­tice to pull a single from a modest-selling album that was al­most a year old.

“My Boy” the hit record

In the UK, My Boy was a fill-in for British fans as the pre­vious single, If You Talk In Your Sleep, had been re­leased way back in June. Rather than wait for the next of­fi­cial Elvis single, RCA pulled My Boy from the re­cent GOOD TIMES album and is­sued it as a single in the UK in Oc­tober 1974. Backed with Loving Arms, it was re­leased as RCA 2458 in Oc­tober 1974.

While 2458EX is unique among Elvis records, its col­lectibility does not af­fect every Elvis collector.

De­spite it being an over­wrought bit of melo­drama (and a less-than-spectacular choice as a single during the height of the Glam Years and the dawning of the Disco Era), it be­came Pres­ley’s first Top 5 hit in the UK since Until It’s Time For You To Go in 1972. 2

The suc­cess of My Boy in Eng­land ne­ces­si­tated a re­lease in America in Jan­uary 1975 (PB-10191). There it was cou­pled with Thinking About You, a nice if minor track from the just-released PROMISED LAND album (APL1-0873).

The single was also a suc­cess in America, with My Boy peaking at #17 on the Cash Box Top 100 and reaching the Top 20 on both Bill­board’s pop and country charts.

 

Export Only Record: photo of a-side of full record of RCA 2458EX, "My Boy."
This is the grey label pressing of RCA Victor 2458EX, My Boy / Loving Arm. It was man­u­fac­tured in the US ex­pressly for ex­porting to the UK. The usual color for a reg­ular RCA single or album in 1974 was orange.

“My Boy” the export-only record

But RCA 2458 had been re­leased at an in­op­por­tune time in the UK. Ac­cording to sev­eral web­sites, this was due to labor is­sues in Eng­land, RCA there was un­able to keep up with the de­mands for man­u­fac­turing records. But ac­cording to the au­thors of Elvis UK it wasn’t labor at all:

“It has been sug­gested that the reason RCA im­ported [these records] was that RCA’s UK plant in Wash­ington, Tyne and Wear was on strike at the time, or that it was be­cause of the world­wide shortage of vinyl which forced com­pa­nies to ra­tio­nalise pro­duc­tion. How­ever, we have it on good au­thority that it was pro­duc­tion prob­lems at Wash­ington which mainly ac­counted for the fact that most copies avail­able in the UK were pressed in America.” 3

What­ever the reason, RCA UK had to use other com­pa­nies to man­u­fac­ture a por­tion of its product for its market. RCA US man­u­fac­tured sev­eral records es­pe­cially for ex­port to the UK. One of these records was 2458EX. This spe­cial record used the same cat­alog number as the UK record but with an “EX” suffix, the “EX” standing for ex­port. It also fea­tured gray la­bels in­stead of or­ange. 4

What is known about this record?

Decades later and con­fu­sion still sur­rounds 2458EX, some of which I ad­dress in this ar­ticle. It has at­tracted at­ten­tion from col­lec­tors since it first ap­peared in a price guide years ago, where it was listed with an ab­surdly in­flated value at­tached to it. Here is what we know for certain:

•  All copies were pressed in Indianapolis
•  All copies have grey labels.

All known copies have “RCA Victor 2458A 1” stamped into the A‑side trail-off area and “RCA Victor 2458B 1” stamped into the B‑side trail-off area. (Other press­ings with dif­ferent num­bers could exist.)

While the exact number of copies that were made is not known, it is known that it is not a par­tic­u­larly rare record. But it is a bit more dif­fi­cult to find than other Elvis records of that period.

There are two other items as­so­ci­ated with 2458EX:

•  a paper sleeve
•  a paper insert

Col­lec­tors have known about the in­sert for years but the sleeve was only re­cently brought to my at­ten­tion by one of the con­trib­u­tors to this ar­ticle, Dave Reynolds (Sven­gali of Elvis Rare Records).

Both items re­quire an explanation.

 

Export Only Record: photo of a-side of RCA 2458EX, "My Boy," in special US-made company sleeve.

Export Only Record: photo of b-side of RCA 2458EX, "My Boy," in special US-made company sleeve.
This is the grey label 2458EX housed in an RCA com­pany sleeve. Both this record and this sleeve were man­u­fac­tured in the US and ex­ported to the UK. The sleeve has “Ptd. in U.S.A.” printed in the lower right corner on one side and “21–107‑1 PT2” in the lower right corner on the other side.

The export sleeve

In the UK, the generic RCA com­pany sleeve of the 1970s had “RCA” in or­ange let­ters against a green back­ground on the top half of both sides with “RCA” in green let­ters against a white back­ground on the bottom half. “Made in Eng­land” was printed on the back.

RCA US man­u­fac­tured a ver­sion of this sleeve that was shipped with copies of 2458EX. It has the same de­sign and color scheme but has “Ptd. in U.S.A.” on one side and “21–107‑1 PT2” on the other side.

The latter is a com­pany iden­ti­fi­ca­tion number—a cat­alog number—and is sim­ilar to the num­bers found on the paper inner sleeves used in US-manufactured Elvis LP al­bums in the ’60s and ’70s.

At least one con­trib­utor to this ar­ticle be­lieves that this sleeve was man­u­fac­tured ex­pressly for 24578EX. If that is so, then its im­por­tance to Elvis col­lec­tors is ob­vious. But I have seen ad­ver­tise­ments for other RCA export-only records that in­cluded this sleeve.

I have seen a few, but not many. This could mean that there were many more sleeves man­u­fac­tured than copies of 2458EX. So, while it ap­pears to be dif­fi­cult to find, this sleeve may not be “rare” nor may it be ex­clu­sive to the Elvis record. 5

 

Export Only Record: photo of insert for RCA 2458EX, "My Boy."
This is the one-page in­sert with black and green print on the front and a blank white back­side. It is as­so­ci­ated with 2458EX but its au­then­ticity has been ques­tioned for years.

The export insert

Col­lecting 2458EX is a Big Deal among some col­lec­tors be­cause of the ex­is­tence of a one-page in­sert as­so­ci­ated with the record. And I say “as­so­ci­ated with” in­stead of “be­longing with” be­cause the au­then­ticity of this item has been dis­puted for decades.

I ad­dress the ar­gu­ments for and against the le­git­i­macy of this item in a sep­a­rate ar­ticle, “Valu­able In­sert As­so­ci­ated With Elvis Pres­ley’s ‘My Boy’ May Be Bootleg.”

To read that ar­ticle, click here.

 

Export Only Record: photo of RCA UK company sleeve.

Export Only Record: photo of US-manufactured RCA company sleeve for use in UK.
The UK record on top is re­ferred to as a “solid center” record and is housed in a stan­dard com­pany sleeve for the time with “MADE IN ENG­LAND” on one side. The UK record on the bottom is re­ferred to as a “knockout center” record but is housed in a com­pany sleeve that was man­u­fac­tured in the US.

Who should collect this record?

RCA Victor in the US man­u­fac­tured sev­eral Elvis records ex­pressly for ex­porting to other coun­tries in the 1950s and ’60s—notably to US mil­i­tary PX stores in West Germany.

While 2458EX is a unique item among Elvis records, its col­lectibility does not af­fect every Elvis collector.

You prob­ably need this record and the com­pany sleeve if:

•  you col­lect Elvis records man­u­fac­tured in the US, or
•  you col­lect Elvis records re­leased in the UK.

You prob­ably do not need this record or the sleeve if:

•  you col­lect Elvis records man­u­fac­tured in the UK, or
•  you col­lect Elvis records re­leased in the US.

 

Export Only Record: photo of RCA 2458EX "My Boy" with grey label.

Export Only Record: photo of RCA PB-10191 "My Boy" with orange label.
The grey label record is the spe­cial pressing of My Boy / Loving Arms man­u­fac­tured in the US for sale in the UK in 1974 (2458EX). The or­ange label is the reg­ular US pressing of My Boy / Thinking About You re­leased in 1975 (PB-10191).

The Avid Record Collector

While 2458EX is hardly a rare record, it is dif­fi­cult to find out­side of the UK. Pop­sike lists a mere three dozen copies as having sold on eBay over the past thir­teen years. That is a mi­nus­cule amount, av­er­aging one sale every four months. On Discogs, ten copies have sold during the past eight months.

Based on those Pop­sike and Discogs list­ings, here are the values I have as­signed each item:

The record

For 2018–2020, I found eleven copies of 2458EX in top con­di­tion but without the in­sert listed on Pop­sike as having sold on eBay. Prices paid ranged from $19 to $145 and all of the sellers were from the UK.

On Discogs, I found five NM copies without the in­sert listed as having sold in the past year. Prices paid ranged from $6.57 to $31.58 and all of the sellers were from the UK.

So, a re­al­istic value for the record without the com­pany sleeve and without the in­sert in the UK is $20–30. As non-UK buyers would need to add ap­prox­i­mately $15 to that price to cover the cost of ship­ping from the UK, the ef­fec­tive price for those col­lec­tors would be $35–50.

There is cur­rently one copy graded Mint with a com­pany sleeve (and it doesn’t say whether it’s the UK or the US sleeve) for sale on Discogs for £24.99. (ap­prox­i­mately $33) plus postage.

The sleeve

A few of the records listed on Pop­sike came with what ap­pears to be the US-made sleeve. As few collectors—and prob­ably even fewer dealers—are aware of the im­por­tance of this sleeve to the 2458EX record, it’s un­likely that many of the sellers have been men­tioning it in their ads. 

So, how valu­able is this generic, RCA company?

Is it worth $1?

Is it worth $10?

I don’t know . . .

The export-only ‘My Boy’ by Elvis Presley (RCA 2458EX) has a hugely in­flated value as­signed to it in some price guides, which also list a spe­cial in­sert that may be a fake. Click To Tweet

Export Only Record: photo of Elvis on stage at Auburn University in March 1974.

FEA­TURED IMAGE: The photo at the top of this page is Elvis and drummer Ronnie Tutt on stage at the Beard-Eaves Memo­rial Col­i­seum at Auburn Uni­ver­sity, Al­abama. It was taken by Larry Parker on March 5, 1974, and il­lus­trates that Elvis was looking trim and fit at the time. “For at least one day, Pres­i­dent Philpott [of Auburn Uni­ver­sity] ceased to rule the campus and east-central Al­abama be­came a monarchy. The King was here.” (War Eagle Reader)

This is one of four ar­ti­cles that ad­dress the export-only sin­gles of 1974. The other three are:

•  Why Did RCA Have to Ex­port David Bowie Records to Eng­land in the ’70s?” ad­dresses the ten records known to have been man­u­fac­tured in the US ex­clu­sively for sale in the UK, fo­cusing on three by David Bowie.

•  “Mys­te­rious In­sert As­so­ci­ated with Export-Only My Boy” ad­dresses a sheet of paper with “Elvis Presley / My Boy” printed on one side that some col­lec­tors be­lieve is as­so­ci­ated with RCA 2458EX.

•  “British Press­ings of Elvis Pres­ley’s My Boy Are Common in the UK” ad­dresses the var­ious ver­sions of RCA 2458 man­u­fac­tured by or for RCA in Eng­land at the same time they were im­porting copies from the US.

There is some over­lap­ping and re­dun­dancy of the in­for­ma­tion in these articles.

 

Export Only: photo of Elvis in gold suit in 1957.

POST­SCRIP­TU­ALLY, I want to thank the fol­lowing people for their con­tri­bu­tions to this ar­ticle (listed alphabetically):

Paul Alner (Elvis On Record)
Frank Daniels (Frik­tech)
Paul Dowling (World­wide Elvis)
Felix Gü­beli (Bootleg Elvis)
Craig LaPine (col­lec­taire extraordinaire)
Bernard Roughton (col­lec­taire extraordinaire)

Spe­cial thanks to Dave Reynolds for turning us all onto the weird com­pany sleeve man­u­fac­tured in the US for sale in the UK and for ar­guing with me over just about everything.


FOOT­NOTES:

1   Fran­cois has an­other tie with Elvis: In 1967, he and Jacques Re­vaux wrote Comme d’ Habi­tude (trans­lated as “As Usual”). Paul Anka rewrote the lyrics and pub­lished the song as My Way.

2   Yes, you are in­ter­preting that state­ment cor­rectly: Burning Love failed to reach the Top 5 on the major UK sur­veys in 1972.

3   An­other ex­pla­na­tion for RCA UK needing product from RCA US can be found on the Elvis Records site and in­volves “se­vere en­ergy con­ser­va­tion im­posed by the UK gov­ern­ment” starting in De­cember 1973. This was fol­lowed by a na­tional min­er’s strike in Feb­ruary 1974: “This dis­rup­tion in the in­dustry is di­rectly at­trib­uted to the US man­u­fac­turing of this re­lease for dis­tri­b­u­tion in the UK.”

4   The British record RCA Victor 2458 was pressed with both or­ange la­bels (RCA) and tan la­bels (CBS). Both records can be found with small, LP-sized spindle holes and the normal large holes with a knockout center.

5   RCA man­u­fac­tured and shipped other export-only sin­gles to Eng­land during this time. I con­tacted record re­searcher ex­tra­or­di­naire Frank Daniels, prob­ably the only person I know who gets his ya-ya’s off doing record re­search more than I do! This is what he had to say:

“First of all, I have seen on other web­sites the al­le­ga­tion that the British gov­ern­ment im­posed such se­vere aus­terity mea­sures during the oil crisis (which began in Oc­tober 1973) that there was no vinyl pro­duc­tion from De­cember 1973 to March 1974. That is simply false. The De­cember 22, 1973, issue of Bill­board re­ported that vinyl pro­duc­tion was slowed for all pressing plants, but that the record com­pa­nies were ba­si­cally dealing with the problem. In par­tic­ular, the ar­ticle stated that RCA Victor was down to 85% of their usual pro­duc­tion levels, but they were also using other local plants for con­tract press­ings and were importing.

I know of at least three David Bowie sin­gles and two sin­gles from Sweet that ap­pear as US export-only press­ings for the UK. While some of these can be found in the same RCA Victor com­pany sleeve (“Ptd. In U.S.A.”), most of them seem to have come in stan­dard US sleeves. As for the My Boy in­sert, I cannot con­firm its au­then­ticity, but many Elvis col­lec­tors seem to swear by it. Anyway, I don’t know of any such in­serts for the Sweet or Bowie sin­gles. Bowie’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Sui­cide single was quite pop­ular in the UK, so for the in­sert to be used for ID pur­poses, it would seem to me that we’d hear about those, too.”

To read the Bill­board ar­ticle that Frank cites, click here then scroll back to page 1 and read “LP Im­ports Ad­vance Sharply in U.K.”

 

2 thoughts on “there is a special export-only pressing of “my boy” (rca 2458EX)”

  1. Ok Big N, here’s three, no make that four, facts. Oh hell, make it five:

    1) “Polk Salad Annie” is the greatest ’70s rocker The King ever did.
    2) The unedited, 8:44 ver­sion of “Merry Christmas Baby” is the greatest song The King ever recorded.
    3) “My Boy” in­sert is legit.
    4) You’re crazy as a loon and I love ya!
    5) Tom Jones is the second greatest pop/rock singer/entertainer.

    Can’t wait till our next argument!

    Now, put that in your pipe & smoke it ;)

    Reply
    • D

      Thanks for the thoughtful, sen­si­tive com­ments. Here are my replies:

      1) I can agree that “Polk Salad Annie” may be the greatest live ’70s rocker The King ever did (and I’d rank “Trying To Get To You” from 1974 its equal). Overall, I prefer “Burning Love” as his greatest ’70s rocker with “Washed My Hands In Muddy Water” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” right behind.

      2) “Merry Christmas Baby” is a good choice but it’s sooooo sub­jec­tive and there are soooo many possibilities. 

      3) Maybe, maybe not. (I’d be working on that ar­ticle now if I wasn’t re­sponding to your comment.)

      4) I’m the sanest, most “normal” person most people (in­cluding you) has ever met.

      5) Tom Jones is a good choice but it’s sooooo sub­jec­tive and there are sooooo many possibilities.

      As for our next ar­gu­ment: Hah! Did you get Covid-19 and it turned you into a glutton for punishment?

      I should write an ar­ticle about the water-pipe my roomie and I made back in the early ’70s that pro­vided a cooled, men­tho­lated toke every time.

      Rock­ahula, baby!

      N

      Reply

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