Despite The Police short-lived career, which lasted from 1977 to 1986, not counting the 2007 reunion and numerous Greatest Hits releases, the band still managed to create a collector’s heaven for those who are passionate enough to dive deep into their discography.

Reggatta de Blanc

In October 1979, the band released their second album called Reggatta de Blanc. A fantastic album which features the hit singles Message In A Bottle and Walking On The Moon. Not many alternative variants have to date been released. The most notable ones are:

• A 1979 edition from Zimbabwe and Rhodesia with yellow titles versus grey
• A double 10″ US release from 1979
• A(n) (unofficial?) 1982 Turkish edition with an alternative orange cover featuring a different band photo

It is the 10″ US edition for which an unusual, though beautiful, prototype exists. Management company Fitzgerald-Hartley decided to experiment with this release in 1979 and pressed 100 copies of the first disc (sides A & B) with random colored patterns in an otherwise black record. They used the colors blue, pink, yellow and green for the random patterns as can be seen in the following photo:

The commercial 1979 10″ release at the top and disc 2 (side C) on the left, plus two prototypes on the right (sides A and B respectively)

One can furthermore see that the top disc features three random patterns, whereas the bottom disc shows four. There are also prototypes which feature just two patterns. Most of the discs contain the same number of patterns on each side (so i.e. two on side A and two on side B, etc), though there is at least one known copy which has three patterns on side A and four on side B.

Detailed A and B-side photos of each disc in my collection can be seen below.

I obtained the one with four patterns in 2013 from a US seller. This item was on my want list since the early 2000’s as this is my favorite album by the band. And who doesn’t want to have such a great item in his collection? The other one was purchased in 2023 from a Belgian collector, though I was initially hesitant to buy it as they are expensive and I already owned a copy. But since they are so rare, I could not pass on the opportunity and it is obviously a different variant (three patterns versus four). I am now of course on the lookout for a copy with two patterns 🙂

When Fitzgerald-Hartley showed the experiment to A&M, the band’s record label at the time, they said thanks but no thanks, and the project was cancelled.

These prototypes do not come in a sleeve. Of the 100 copies, 33 are known at the time of writing. 29 of these can be seen on the Follow The Leaders Police website. They tend to sell for anything between €1000 and €2500, depending on how lucky you are.

Message In A Bottle

A few months later, early 1980, the band released Message In A Bottle as a special badge-shaped picture disc in the US with a live version on the B-side. The disc was housed in a cardboard folder.

Around this time, Pic-Veu Records was working on test pressings or prototypes for their Pic-Veu Clocks picture disc series. This was a short-lived series in the US with railroad (and possibly other) related images on side A and information about side A on side B. A clockwork was attached to the disc on side B (with the hands on side A) so you basically had a nice picture disc clock. Most of these clocks did not feature any music on either sides of the disc.

As it happens, while making these test discs, the record plant was pressing the badge-shaped picture disc for The Police. It is assumed that an employee randomly used the stampers for this The Police release while creating a few test discs for this Clocks series. It is however also possible that they forgot to remove the Police stampers while starting to create these picture disc clocks. And thus a rarity was born!

The commercial 1980 badge-shaped picture disc with folder at the top and two related prototypes at the bottom

There are currently three variants known of which two are shown in the above photo.

The first one is a picture disc with a Union Pacific Railroad Company shield logo on side A. The flip side is white with a brief description about the image on side A. From a music point of view, the A-side contains the full album version of Message In A Bottle, as per the A-side of the badge-shaped picture disc. The B-side is blank and contains no music. This is in my opinion a beautiful disc, made of thick heavy vinyl!

The second variant contains a nice black and white image of a train, dubbed “U.P. 3985 Cheyenne, Wyoming” on side B. The A-side of the prototype contains the B-side of the badge-shaped picture disc, meaning this A-side contains the live version of Message In A Bottle.

The B-side contains five songs by an unknown band. I have done extensive research, but could not identify the band. The matrix number is PD-9162-A L-5368 which points to a two-track 7″ release from 1981 by Rufus, but those songs do not match with any of the five songs on the prototype. One of the five songs can however be identified as Cold Hearted Woman, written by Marty Conn. A band called Streets released an album in 1983 with a version of Cold Hearted Woman which sounds fairly similar, though that song is track 2 on side B whereas the prototype has the song as track 1. Could side B maybe feature an early (demo) version of that 1983 album?

The third variant contains a different black and white image of a train which also features the live B-side on side A. Side B contains no music. An image of this pressing can be found here.

The number of copies per pressing is unknown, but expected to be 5-7. It is said that there are two further variants, but details about those pressings have to date not been made available. There may also be variants of the current three versions where i.e. the aforementioned version 2 with train image has a blank B-side, but this is all speculative. Due to its rarity (they only emerged in the last year!), the estimated value is €1500-€2500 per disc.

Don’t Stand So Close To Me…

Moving forward one year to 1981. The band releases another picture disc. This time in the US, and exported for sale to the UK, for the songs Don’t Stand So Close To Me and De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da. Unlike the previous picture disc, this one only comes in a clear plastic sleeve with a printed sticker on the front and a clear sticker on the back to seal the plastic sleeve.

As with the Reggatta release, Fitzgerald-Hartley were experimenting with this release: this time they tried to make a glow in the dark/fluorescent disc! The effects unfortunately aren’t that noticeable in the dark. The prototype discs were 12″ in size, whereas the playable area was 7″, just as the released badge-shaped picture disc and the previously discussed Pic-Veu Clocks prototypes.

The commercial 1981 badge-shaped picture disc at the top and a related prototype (side B) at the bottom

Unlike the Reggatta disc, this prototype is far more limited. It is estimated that only 25 were made of which 10 are known at the time of writing. As with the Reggatta prototype, each disc of this 1981 pressing is unique in terms of the alignment of the patterns on sides A and B. 8 of the 10 known copies can again be viewed on the Follow The Leaders website.

Just as with the Reggatta prototype, A&M were not willing to proceed with this idea. Probably because the effects were not that obvious and production costs may have been higher than usual.

It is unclear to me whether some pressings used the small chequered design on the A-side versus the B-side on my copy. Images on the Follow The Leaders website however seem to suggest this.

This is a prototype which is on many The Police collectors their wish list and is deemed a holy grail within the community. It is for this reason why it fetches high prices when sold: the most recent registered sale is from February 2022, at a staggering €6600!

It may be clear, based on these examples, that there is plenty to discover and collect for this band. In fact, there are a few more known prototypes for releases such as Roxanne (in the form of a CBS logo and a black rose picture disc), one for disc 2 of the Reggatta 10″ as a picture disc or a beautiful Ghost In The Machine picture disc with custom LED’s which will light up when put on a turn table! If time, luck and money are on your side, there is a chance that some of these may be in your collection too one day.