A 10″ acetate with a 5:12 alternate version of Bob Dylan’s “Days of 49″, previously owned by Dylan and used during the making of his 1970 album Self Portrait.  This one-sided acetate was cut directly from the master tapes, and features a version of the song without the overdubs present on the album version.  In 2013 a different mix of this version, 3 seconds longer, was released on The Bootleg Series Vol 10: Another Self Portrait (1969-1971).  This acetate was part of a collection of Dylan acetates discovered in 2014 in a five story brownstone at 124 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village.

From approximately 1969 through 1972, Dylan rented the ground  floor of the building for use as a studio (at the time, he lived two blocks away at 94 McDougal St.)  When the owner of the building died in January 2014, her executor found the acetates in two boxes labeled “Old Records,” in a a loft closet above the bedroom. The discovery of these acetates by Recordmecca’s Jeff Gold received extensive media coverage in publications including The New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Rolling Stone, and Billboard (read the complete story and see more photos on the Recordmecca blog.)

The West Houston St. Studios acetates originally belonged to Bob Dylan, who either discarded them or left them when he moved out of the building in the early 1970’s. For more than 40 years, they were carefully stored by the building’s owner, and only discovered by chance by before the building was put up for sale earlier this  year.  This acetate is in Excellent condition and sounds great, probably having been played no more than a few times (by Dylan!).  The label has a slightly different version of the title, “The Days of Forty Nine” and the notation PD, indicating the song is public domain.

Included is a copy of a letter of authenticity from the estate’s executor detailing how he discovered the acetates, and a letter of authenticity and written lifetime guarantee from Recordmecca’s Jeff Gold, an internationally recognized Dylan authority.  A remarkable Dylan artifact formerly owned by Dylan himself.