Rubber Soul (AnTrop П91 00215)

In 1991, AnTrop prepared covers for the release of the Rubber Soul album and most of the printed copies bear this year. For some reason, however, the album was released only in March 1992 and flooded the market in the Baltic Republics and Russia.

Cover

Unlike other Beatles album covers released by AnTrop, in the case of Rubber Soul the first side is almost identical to the British original. Only the Russian-language title was added inside the English title, and the label’s logo was added in the lower right corner. The other side of the cover has been completely changed. In the lower left corner there is the Consummari in unum sign in its original version with a cross in the middle (on the label itself there is another version with the AnTrop logo instead of a cross), as well as the note: © ROCK-N-ROLL PRODUCTION CENTER OF THE PARISH OF THE UNITED EVANGELIC-LUTHERAN CHURCH OF RUSSIA SPb., 1991 In the lower right corner, the famous note „Записи из коллекции Коли Васина”, i.e. the Note from Kolya Vasin’s collection, has been added.

Since the circulation of this album was large (no one knows what it was), at least several versions of this cover were created: from completely paper to cardboard with laminate, and there are also very rare hand-made versions (source: Beatles Vinyl).

The real highlight, however, is the paper cover printed on the back of nautical charts, printed at the same printing house on behalf of the Soviet submarine fleet. There are copies with maps of Japanese ports or waters around Indonesia. The map on the cover of my album contains a fragment of the port in Sardinia in the Mediterranean Sea. According to unverified information I found on the Internet, the printing house carrying out AnTrop’s order ran out of paper and the missing part of the covers was printed on maps lying in warehouses. It is difficult to determine today whether this is true, but such copies of this pirated edition of Rubber Soul are indeed sought after by collectors.