January 16, 2021 Sports, Rock & Roll and Americana Auction

Few albums in rock and roll history were as influential as The Beatles 1967 release Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the offered early white linen matte RIAA Gold Record Award was issued that year. The award's plaque reads: “Presented to The Beatles to Commemorate the Sale of More than One Milliion Dollars Worth of the Captiol Records Long-Playing Record Album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.'” Sgt. Pepper was widely perceived as the soundtrack to the 1967 “Summer of Love” during a year that author Peter Lavezzoli calls "a watershed moment in the West when the search for higher consciousness and an alternative world view had reached critical mass". Rolling Stone magazine's Langdon Winner recalled “The closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the week the Sgt. Pepper album was released. In every city in Europe and America the radio stations played [it] ... and everyone listened ... For a brief while the irreparable fragmented consciousness of the West was unified, at least in the minds of the young.” The album was released on May 26 and June 2 in the U.K and U.S., respectively, and spent 23 weeks at #1 on the English charts and 15 weeks at #1 in America. The RIAA certified the album gold only 13 days after its U.S. Release on June 15, 1967. The award measures 17 x 21 inches and presents with only very minor wear to the wooden frame. Near Mint condition.