THE RIVER Gate-fold sleeve 2LP: 1980 original Mexican release

Unfortunately, a white round sticker (apparently not coming originally) is not
removable without deterioration of the surface of the front sleeve. Insets show
CBS logos with the catalog number printed on front and rear sleeves.

It took 20 days since the order placed late last month and finally I received it across the Pacific Ocean, from a seller in a Central American country.

Recently, I obtained an original Mexican copy of THE RIVER (CBS LP2S-103) that had long been put on my want list of vinyl collectibles. Long since interested in this gate-fold release, I had had hard luck with getting it: outbid on eBay a few times, experienced once the lost during international delivery (according to seller's excuse), unable to accept offers due to overpricing or unacceptable conditions (e.g. torn and/or with lots of blots and spots) and so on. Released in 1980, this particular copy I obtained is found to be overall in very good condition with the exception of a couple of defects such as a price-tag (?) sticker and ring wear slightly developed on the front cover.

THE RIVER gate-fold sleeve variants: (from top) Israeli, Hong Kong,
South African and Mexican issues (still missing Venezuelan)

To my knowledge, the original Mexican copy is one of the seldom-seen regular releases of THE RIVER LP, and the second hardest-to-find among the five gate-fold variant releases of this double album, following the impossibly rare Venezuelan counterpart (CBS CS-10378). What makes this Mexican release special and distinctive from the other gate-fold sleeves is its interior design that features the lyrics, rather than reproducing images from the inner record sleeves, as done in all the other releases (see the picture shown here and also refer to the previous blog article). So, among these gate-fold issues, the Mexican release is the only one that comes with two inner sleeves (for individual vinyl discs) that are commonly included most of the album (i.e. single pocket sleeve) released worldwide. As you can see, however, the interior of the gate-fold sleeve recreates only the inner side of the fold-out lyric sheet, and the lyric sheet is not included (most probably) originally, as is the case for the South African and Venezuelan issues (Note that at least the initial pressing for Hong Kong and Israeli releases does contain the lyric sheet). Missing the front and rear pages of the fold-out lyric sheet is an inexcusable production error. Despite this flaw, its completely different and unique interior looking alone makes it worth collecting.
— To be continued.