A beautiful Near Mint/Mint to Near Mint 1965 UK mono first pressing of The Rolling Stones No. 2, with the scarce paste-over album cover.

No. 2 was first released in January 1965, with liner notes by Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham that proved controversial, reading in part ‘If you don’t have the bread,
see that blind man knock him on the head, steal his wallet and low and behold you have loot, if you put in the boot, good, another one sold!’

Very quickly Decca records edited out the ‘blind man’ line,  first covering up the offending text with a replacement back cover sheet pasted over the original, and then printing new covers with the revised text.  This is one of the first transitional covers, with the original text covered up.

The first pressing disc is in Mint to Near Mint condition, barely played, with 1-A stampers on both sides; it plays Mint.  The Near Mint condition cover is the first version with the replacement back cover pasted over, with a few lamination bubbles at the left edge of the front.  With the original loose shrink wrap and $4.49 price sticker, indicating it was sold in the United States as an import.

As nice a copy as you could hope to find.