The rarity was found as the hit BBC show headed to Wales for a recent episode. When at Caerphilly Castle, a man brought in a copy of a seven-inch single, and told antiques expert Marc Allum about how he managed to get his hands on it.
The seven-inch contained the legendary group’s classic single ‘Whole Lotta Love’, which was certified gold in the US and had a rare single pressing of 500 copies made by Atlantic Records.
Led Zeppelin had a strict no-single rule throughout their career, and only wanted their music to be released as full albums. As a result, their manager Peter Grant ordered all copies of the single to be recalled and destroyed.
Not everyone returned the singles, however, and the man who brought his copy in on Antiques Roadshow had his copy since the early ‘70s.
“I was looking for records to start a disco and out of his bag came a couple of records and he went ‘you can have those’,” he told Allum, to which the expert said that the vinyl was only ever released in the US and “shouldn’t really exist” in the UK.
“There are a lot of myths and stories that build up around these things, and I heard that 500 were pressed and they went out,” he continued. “This came about apparently because there was a kind of disparity between the relationship between the band, the management and the record company, and Led Zeppelin the band hadn’t agreed to have any singles released.”
