What were the first US pressings?
(credit for this addition has been lost, apologies to the original author)

Among Genesis collectors, there is a question about whether the first US pressings of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Live were on the Charisma "pink scroll" labels or the "large mad hatter" labels. This essay will attempt to answer that question.

UK Releases of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Live
The three albums in question had the following release patterns in the UK. As far as I can tell, the information below is not disputed by any collector.

Nursery Cryme:
1st Issue: "Pink Scroll" Label
2nd Issue: "Large Mad Hatter" Label
3rd Issue: "Small Mad Hatter" Label

Foxtrot:
1st Issue: "Large Mad Hatter" Label
2nd Issue: "Small Mad Hatter" Label

Live:
1st Issue: "Large Mad Hatter" Label
2nd Issue: "Small Mad Hatter" Label

US Releases of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Live
In the US, all three of the albums in question were released on “pink scroll” labels. This leads many collectors to believe that, like B&C Records in the UK, these were the first labels that Charisma's US distributor, Buddah Records, used. These collectors assert that Buddah followed the UK pattern of “pink scroll”, “large mad hatter” then “small mad hatter”, though Buddah would appear to have used the “pink scroll” labels longer than B&C did in the UK due to the fact that Buddah released Foxtrot and Live on the “pink scroll” labels.

Scrutiny
Unfortunately, this theory does not appear to hold up under scrutiny, for many reasons:

• The Nursery Cryme EP, a 3-song 7” sampler EP from Buddah Records, released shortly after Nursery Cryme, was released on the “mad hatter” label. No one is aware of any “pink scroll” issues. Around the same time period, “Happy The Man” was released as a 7” single in the UK on the “pink scroll” label.
• The promo LPs of both Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, which one would assume were released around the same time as the market LPs, were all issued on “large mad hatter” labels. No one is aware of any “pink scroll” copies of the promo LPs.
• The promo LPs of both Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot were gatefold. It does not make logical sense that the promo LPs would have gatefold covers and the first market releases wouldn't.
• The US “pink scroll” issues of Nursery Cryme were not released with gatefold sleeves. The “large mad hatter” issues were issued with gatefold sleeves, pressed on heavier vinyl than their “pink scroll” counterparts, and tend to be harder to find than the “pink scroll” releases.
• Though I am lead to believe that there were a small number of “pink scroll” issues of Foxtrot in gatefold sleeves, the vast majority of them were non-gatefold, and the one gatefold “pink scroll” copy that I have seen had a promotional Buddah inner sleeve showing Live as one of the albums available. The “large mad hatter” issues of Foxtrot were issued in gatefold sleeves and tend to be harder to find than the “pink scroll” issues.
• Having a non-gatefold sleeve as a first issue of Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot would not make sense from a promotional standpoint since the non-gatefold sleeves have no song listings, credits, etc. They are 100% artwork. In essense, Buddah would have been relying purely on the recognition of the name “Genesis” to sell the records, which would not have been a wise move in the early days when nobody in the US knew who Genesis was.
• Both the market (b/w Willow Farm) and promo (b/w Watcher of the Skies) singles for Watcher of the Skies were released on “mad hatter” labels. It is safe to assume that there were not multiple print runs of these. No one is aware of any “pink scroll” copies.
• The “pink scroll” issue of Live comes in a promotional Buddah inner sleeve showing Live as one of the albums available. Usually, first issues of albums which have promotional inner sleeves do not usually show the album itself as one of the ones available.
• The “large mad hatter” issues of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Live all have simple black inner sleeves with Buddah's logo and the words “Pleasure From the Buddah Group”. This corresponds to one of the inserts in the Nursery Cryme EP, a letter from Buddah's promotions department, which has the same phrase in the upper left corner. Granted, the promotional inner sleeves also have that sentence but I have not seen a promotional inner sleeve issued with a Genesis record that did not show Live on it. That says to me that the promotional inner sleeves were issued after Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot, and probably after Live's original release as well since the “large mad hatter” copies of Live have the all black inner sleeve mentioned above.

Based on the nine points outlined above, it is my opinion that the “large mad hatter” issues of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Live were the first pressings, the “pink scroll” releases 2nd pressings and the “small mad hatter” releases the 3rd pressings. The one outstanding question is, why would Buddah go from a “large mad hatter” label to a “pink scroll” label when that's completely backward from what was done in the UK? I do not have a definitive answer, though I have a plausible theory, assuming that I am correct that the “large mad hatter” was the first pressing:

Right after Live's release, Charisma changed their US distributor from Buddah Records to Atlantic Records. Selling England by the Pound (1973), the first US release distributed by Atlantic, was only released with the “small mad hatter” label, which did not appear in the UK until 1975. Both Selling England By the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway were released with the “large mad hatter” labels in the UK. Therefore, it appears that there was a pattern of the US using the “up and coming labels” before they were rolled out in the UK. Buddah was obviously using the “large mad hatters” well before they were being used in the UK, and Atlantic was obviously using the “small mad hatter” well before the UK. It is my theory that after the distribution change from Buddah to Atlantic, Buddah ran out of Charisma's “large mad hatter” labels and needed more for printing. Since Charisma was no longer actively doing business with Buddah, they may have sent them a batch of “pink scroll” labels which were not being used anymore and probably just laying around. After all, Atlantic was the distributor now, and Charisma's main marketing outlet in the US, so it makes sense that Atlantic would get the current labels and nobody would care what Buddah got. Then after Buddah had used up all the “pink scroll” labels, they were issued “small mad hatters”. By the time the “small mad hatter” issues of Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Live were released (probably sometime in late 1974), Genesis had already been signed to Atlantic and their albums were being released on Atco Records with Atco labels, not Charisma.

Here is how I break out the US releases:

Nursery Cryme
1st Issue: “Large mad hatter” label with gatefold sleeve and black inner sleeve.
2nd Issue: “Pink scroll” label with non-gatefold sleeve.
3rd Issue: “Small mad hatter” label with non-gatefold sleeve.

Foxtrot
1st Issue: “Large mad hatter” label with gatefold sleeve and black inner sleeve.
2nd Issue: “Pink scroll” label, few with gatefold, most with a non-gatefold sleeve.
3rd Issue: “Small mad hatter” label with non-gatefold sleeve.

Live
1st Issue: “Large mad hatter” label with black inner sleeve.
2nd Issue: “Pink scroll” label.
3rd Issue: “Small mad hatter” label.