The Smiley Smile Message Board

I bought one of these from e-bay, imported from the USA to the UK, a few weeks ago as a Christmas present to myself from my kids!

I just opened it tonight and was gutted to find there was NO signed postcard from Al.  Has anyone else had this issue?

The vinyl looks pristine, unplayed (I've now played it and it sounded great, very clean, no pops or clicks).  The record was still sealed and looked to be genuine.  On other people's versions, where was the postcard placed?  Also, some of the font looks fuzzy (the back cover art and the "Recorded at Red Barn Studios..." bit on the inside of the gatefold under the song info).  Is this the same on all the other copies out there?  The pictures aren't particularly great either.  Is this just because the artwork has been blown up for the LP?

I just watched a video on youtube of someone opening a signed version and I could read the font better than my own copy!  I wouldn't have thought anyone would try to bootleg an Al Jardine LP.  It looks like a badly photocopied cover, a bit like my 'fake' butcher Yesterday and Today Beatles LP. 

Thank for any info!

I don't know, I'm still waiting my copy. But, I had a bad experience on ebay years ago when I bought a Beatles boxset of 9 cds... I thought it was original... when it arrived I knew there was something wrong, pictures weren't detailed, gatefold cds were broken and.... when I read the credits there was a big surprise, all Beatles names were typed wrong, like Faul McCartney, Pingo Starr and so on... So check the names if everything is correct.
I was totally pissed off!!!

My copy came with a postcard...

Thank you for the replies.  I have contacted Friday Music to see what they say. Here's hoping!

It's very possible that your copy isn't bootleg, but someone just took the postcard from it and shrink-wrapped it again. My official copy (with the postcard) has blurry artwork. Pretty sure it's  just due to the original image edits being in a low resolution made only for CD. They scaled it up fairly well, but I get the feeling that they were working with a low res image to begin with.

Does yours have the blue vinyl? I agree that someone may have removed the signed postcard and resealed it.

It has the lovely blue vinyl and sounds better than a bootleg vinyl.  I thought it may have been resealed, but the shrink wrap seems to be consistent with an original.  It was sealed about an inch down from the top of the back cover.  Other originals seemed to have been sealed in the same place.  I haven't heard back from Friday Music yet.

Did it have stickers on the shrink wrap? My copy had some from the label mentioning that it was on colored vinyl and limited to 1000/ first time on vinyl or something of that nature.

The label may have just missed inserting the postcard. As much as I love Al, I'm highly skeptical that there is money is bootlegging his LP...

It didn't, it only had a barcode sticker.

That's what I thought.  They got back to me saying they couldn't do anything as I didn't buy it from their vendor!

Surely consumer protection law means it doesn't matter who I bought it from, the record company should be liable, as it is in the UK?

I noticed the album was being sold at some of Brian's Christmas shows so I'm wondering if maybe additional copies were pressed beyond what was delivered for Record Store Day and excluding the signed postcard.

And to be honest, it's a cool piece, but there's not much you can do with it. Not really a good thing for framing since you'll either miss out on the signature or the side with Al's mug. My autograph is even smeared a little bit. It's just stayed in the case