The trail-off area of every 45 and LP record made by Capitol Records in the United States includes a symbol that signifies which manufacturing plant the record was made in. These symbols can help you identify whether your copy is possibly one of a rarer variation made in one plant or another.

You can also find these marks on records not on the Capitol label, these would be records that were pressed by Capitol for their subsidiaries. You'll also find these marks on most Apple records made in the US, since most of them were pressed by Capitol.

When Capitol couldn't press Beatles records fast enough at their four plants, RCA, Columbia, Decca, and others also pressed records for Capitol. These records, although they would bear Capitol labels, would not have these mint-marks.

Most counterfeit Capitol and Apple records will not include one of these marks, and while not a 100% guarantee that a record having a Capitol mint-mark means that it is genuine, as some counterfieters actually tried to reproduce even these smallest of details, looking for these marks is a good start to try to ascertain whether a disk is genuine or not.

These are the Capitol mint-mark symbols and their corresponding plant location:

       / \    
      / I \     Scranton, PA
     / A M \ 
     ------- 

     \  |  /
      \ | /
   ----   ----  Los Angeles, CA
      / | \
     /  |  \
      _____
     /      \
    |        |  Jacksonville, IL
    |        |
     \______/

          /|
     ___ / |    Winchester, VA
         \ |
          \|

Beatles historian Bruce Spizer was the first to discover that the "IAM" in the Scranton symbol is the symbol for the union that worked in the Capitol pressing plant, the International Association of Machinists. The Los Angeles symbol is a star, for Hollywood. The Winchester symbol, which many collectors think looks like a wine glass on its side, was actually first crudely hand-etched into a record master by a pressing engineer and was supposed to look like a "Winchester" rifle.

Decoding Capitol LP Prefixes

On albums made by Capitol Records, the record's number is divided into a prefix (from 1 to 4 letters) and a number. For example, you might find a copy of Meet the Beatles numbered ST-2047.

The number is the actual release number. Capitol started numbering at 100, with some of their subsidiaries (like Tower) starting at higher numbers (such as 5000 for Tower and 3350 for Apple). By 1968, their regular issue albums had reached 2999. From 3000 to 9999 were reserved for subsidiaries. So they started over at 100. That's why the White Album is number 101! In about 1972, the numbering reached 999 and they jumped ahead to 10000. So albums like Rarities have higher numbers.

The prefix is composed of letters. If the record is in stereo, then the first letter is "S." No letter corresponds to a mono recording.

The next letter is the price code. The prices changed over the years, of course. "T" was the standard main line record, so you'll find a lot of "T's" among Beatles issues.

If there are other letters, it means there was some kind of special packaging, such as a boxed set, gatefold cover, booklet, etc.. The fourth letter denotes the packaging, although apparently this was loosely applied. The next to last letter (in a batch of 3 or 4) denotes the number of records.

So, "SMAS" represents a stereo issue with one record, Paul McCartney's Ram, SMAS-3375, for example, 1 disc in a gategold cover. "SWBO" is a stereo issue with two records, the White Album, SWBO-101, for example. "STCH" is a stereo issue with three records, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, STCH-639, for example, a 3 record box set.

Information thanks to Frank Daniels, one of the authors of The Price Guide for the American Beatles Records, 6th Edition.