Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead - Vinyl record - 1970

General Information

Artist: Grateful Dead
Title: Workingman's Dead
Label: Warner Bros. Records
Catalog number: 1869
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo
Year: 1970-1975
Country: US
Edition: Early Pressing Era (1970-1975 Range)
Genre: Folk Rock / Country Rock / Americana

Description

Released on June 14, 1970, Workingman's Dead is the fifth studio album by the Grateful Dead. It marked a radical and historic departure from the band's previous dense, avant-garde psychedelic jams like Aoxomoxoa. Instead, the band pivoted toward an acoustic, stripped-down Americana, folk, and country-rock sound. This stylistic shift was profoundly influenced by their close friendship with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, who famously coached the Dead on vocal harmonies.

The album features some of the band's most enduring and beloved tracks, including "Uncle John's Band" and "Casey Jones." Upon release, it was a massive critical and commercial success, voted the best album of 1970 by Rolling Stone readers. It remains a definitive masterpiece of the early 1970s country-rock movement.

Condition

Vinyl: Presumed MINT (unplayed)
Cover: Factory-sealed, never opened (small area of the original shrink is missed on front side, see pics)

Notes for collectors

This copy is a spectacular, investment-grade collector's item: a genuine, early US factory-sealed pressing of Workingman's Dead dating from the 1970–1975 release window. Because the album remains entirely factory-sealed, the exact pressing run cannot be determined visually. Warner Bros. utilized the exact same jacket configurations during this first half of the decade, making this a pristine time capsule from the peak analog era of the early '70s.

This copy features the early-issue catalog number 1869 on both the front jacket and the spine, accompanied by the iconic original Warner Bros. shield logo. The vintage factory shrink wrap is tightly intact along all edges, preserving the jacket beautifully. For absolute transparency, the wrap has a vintage yellow price sticker ($4.93) in the top right corner.

Matrix/Labels

Because this absolute gem remains factory-sealed and entirely unopened, the exact matrix runout stamps, press-plant markings, and inner label variants (such as the early 1970 green WB label versus the 1973 Burbank palm tree design) cannot be verified. Since Warner Bros. issued this album with identical covers and the same 1869 catalog number between 1970 and 1975, it is safely and accurately pinpointed to this exact historical timeframe. The bottom spine clearly displays the text "PRINTED IN U.S.A." as part of the original sleeve construction.