Gold Standard 45s

IN 1976, the Gold Stan­dard Se­ries was re­vamped for the fourth and final time with a new ‘retro’ look. Along with the rest of the RCA cat­alog, the modern look and layout of the pre­vious or­ange and red la­bels was jet­ti­soned and the com­pany opted for a retro look: black was back and so was Nipper! But the ef­fect was cheesy: the paper used for the la­bels seemed of a lesser quality—a dull black rather than the high gloss stock of the past.  READ MORE

IN 1969, the Gold Stan­dard Se­ries was changed for the third time: the vi­su­ally life­less or­ange label was re­placed by a more at­trac­tive bright red label. (The or­ange label re­main as the pri­mary label for RCA’s stan­dard cat­alog sin­gles and al­bums.) Oth­er­wise, the layout and the type­face re­mained the same from the pre­vious to the newest. 

In 1968, RCA had switched from its classic black label to a more ‘modern’ or­ange label for all its records. READ MORE

IN 1969, the Gold Stan­dard Se­ries label was dra­mat­i­cally mod­i­fied, along with the rest of the RCA Victor cat­alog (45s, EPs, LPs, and reel-to-reel tapes). Gone was the fa­miliar glossy black back­ground with “RCA Victor” in tra­di­tional serif type with the big “V” across the top. Gone, too, was the dog, beloved Nipper, cocking his head to his mas­ter’s voice em­a­nating from the horn of an an­tique phono­graph.  READ MORE

IN 1965, the Gold Stan­dard Se­ries label was changed for the first time. The la­bels re­mained an at­trac­tive glossy black, but “RCA Victor” was moved to the right side of the spindle hole while Nipper was placed on the left side. Again, there was no men­tion of “Gold Stan­dard” any­where on the label; only the 447 prefix iden­ti­fied these records as reis­sues. READ MORE

THE GOLD STANDARD SERIES of reis­sues of Elvis Pres­ley’s 45 pm sin­gles ran for more than forty years. During this time, ninety-five records were re­leased, in­cluding thir­teen unique pic­ture sleeves! Some of these records went through five label changes, meaning each has five major vari­a­tions of in­terest to must-have-it-all Elvis col­lec­tors, of which there are more than a few. READ MORE