Expert: Elizabeth - 12/2/2009

Question
Hi, I have a small collection of The Beatles vinyl records that someone in my family gave me. I would like to know the rarity of a few, and the value of all. I'm just afraid that there are too many here for you to analyze, so any info you could sent would be great! I don't want to sell them, I just want to know the value.  I'll type the records now.
SGT pepper's lonely hearts club band
the beatles 1967-1970
white album
let it be
abbey road
rubber soul
the beatles at the hollywood bowl
"original motion picture sound track" the beatles a hard day's night
the beatles VI
yesterday and today
the early beatles
introducing... the beatles
the beatles second album
meet the beatles !
the beatles LIVE! at the star-club in hamburg, Germany; 1962

like I said, it's a lot, but anything could help.  I'm a pretty big fan, I just don't know about things like how rare an album is... thanks!
Mike

Answer
Most of these albums can't truly be called "rare."  They were all widely distributed at the time of their release, and millions of copies are floating around.  So they're not worth much.

However, some of these US albums were never released on CD, which makes them a little rarer than the others.  Those are The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl and A Hard Day's Night (yours isn't the same as the version on CD).

The Live at the Star Club CD is currently out of print, so the LP is still valued.

There are two that you have that could potentially be worth something.  It's unlikely you have the rare versions, but I'll point them out.

Many of what you have are the US versions of the original UK albums.  Capitol records took the tracks and made their own albums out of them.  They didn't stop doing this until Sgt. Pepper came out.  When the Beatles albums first came out on CD, only the UK versions were released.  Capitol finally released the first eight of their Beatles records on CD in 2006.

Some albums were released on other labels.  United Artists released the soundtrack to the movies in the US, that's why the US version of A Hard Day's Night (and Help) aren't on CD.  The first Beatles album ever released in the US was on the Vee-Jay label, and that's Introducing the Beatles.  Copies from the first printing are rare, but it's hard to tell if it's real or not.

I mentioned that only the first eight Capitol Beatles albums were out on CD.  The tenth is Yesterday and Today, which has a huge controversy due to its cover.  The Wikipedia article does a good job explaining it, but there are many more copies with the new cover only:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesterday_and_Today#The_.22Butcher_cover.22

So it's possible that you might have one of the rare ones, but they're rare for a reason.  I typed a lot, so let me know if anything's confusing or if you have a followup question.