Offering

The number I have is 1,700,000 worldwide for Ticket To Ride & Offering combined (but obviously the bulk of that will be from Ticket To Ride).

800,000 in the US
200,000 in the UK
150,000 in Japan
75,000 in Canada and also Australia


When Offering was first released it did only sell 18,000 - I'm assuming that is the US figure.

According to the Decade book, "Ticket To Ride" was certified silver twice (1973 & 1976) in the UK but there's no record of this on the BPI website.
 
If "Ticket To Ride" actually exceeded 500,000 units in the United States it should have been certified Gold if I'm not mistaken? Isn't Platinum awarded for one million in sales for an LP. I think the requirements (singles and albums) were changed in the mid seventies so I may be off base with the RIAA rules but I've never seen a Gold (US) award associated with "Ticket To Ride".
 
I’ve got a mint copy too that I was just looking at yesterday!
Mine’s close to mint, but not quite. The guy I bought it from years ago (for $2) put a small sticker in the upper right corner (not over the A&M logo) that says ‘1969-Page 182. (20-35)’. He told me (this was around 2002) that was the book value but he was not selling his records for book. I didn’t remove it because I didn’t want to risk tearing the cover.
 
If "Ticket To Ride" actually exceeded 500,000 units in the United States it should have been certified Gold if I'm not mistaken? Isn't Platinum awarded for one million in sales for an LP. I think the requirements (singles and albums) were changed in the mid seventies so I may be off base with the RIAA rules but I've never seen a Gold (US) award associated with "Ticket To Ride".

“Ticket To Ride” would also be Gold in Canada, as Canada only requires 40,000 for Gold. Of course in Canada, according to the 75,000, it is only 5,000 away from Platinum (which is 80,000).
 
...and I have one bought originally in 1970. So, the official count here is: three!
How do you guys have them in the frames? Can you see the vinyl disc itself or is it just the artwork? I’ve got the vinyl disc in the jacket in the frame so I can’t see the vinyl disc.
 
It’s definitely something for every fan to own if possible. It’s gotten kind of pricey over the years. I have a few, one signed by Richard after the Christmas Concert with Scott Grimes in Garden Grove 12/13/1987. It is one of my most prized Carpenters items for sure.
Never thought about framing the album covers. Great idea for a music room.
 
Isn't Platinum awarded for one million in sales for an LP. I think the requirements (singles and albums) were changed in the mid seventies

Yes, the original "gold record" award for for one million dollars in sales. But, when prices for LPs started going up, and sales tracking became more accurate, they changed it in 1976 to 500,000 units (copies) for gold, and a million units for platinum.
 
No site that I can find thus far. The 18,000 figure was footnote sourced in a web article as Schmidt's 2010 book, pg 56, 69.
 
If "Ticket To Ride" actually exceeded 500,000 units in the United States it should have been certified Gold if I'm not mistaken?
To expand on the gold-records thing a bit -- Gold and platinum awards aren't made automatically, the record company has to apply for them. There are hundreds of "old" albums that reached the milestone in sales to qualify for a gold or platinum record award, but if the record company doesn't submit the required paperwork, the award isn't given out.

At least that's the way it was when I was in the music biz... I've been out for close to 10 years now so things might have changed.
 
I've recently found these figures quoted on another (non-Carpenters) forum:

Carpenters US Album Sales
Album, year of release, year of recent RIAA certification, sales figure

RIAA SHIPMENT SALES
SOUNDSCAN
Alternative source: A&M RECORDS

Studio Albums
  • Ticket To Ride (1969) 450,000
    [*]Close To You (1970) (1998) 2,000,000
    [*]Carpenters (1971) (1998) 4,000,000
    [*]A Song For You (1972) (1998) 3,000,000
    [*]Now & Then (1973) (1998) 2,000,000
    [*]Horizon (1975) (1998) 1,000,000
    [*]A Kind Of Hush (1976) (1976) 500,000 1,000,000
    [*]Passage (1977) 400,000
    [*]Christmas Portrait (1978) (1998) 1,000,000 1,916,141
    [*]Made In America (1981) 500,000
    [*]Voice Of The Heart (1983) (1983) 500,000
    [*]An Old Fashioned Christmas (1984) (1998) 500,000
    [*]Lovelines (1989) 425,000
    [*]As Time Goes By (2001)


Compilation Albums
  • The Singles 1969-1973 (1973) (1998) 7,000,000
    [*]Yesterday Once More (1985)(1998) 2,000,000
    [*]Love Songs (1997)(2000) 500,000
    [*]The Singles 1969-1981) (2000) 445,360
    [*]Gold 35th Anniversary Edition (2004) (2004) 500,000
    [*]The Ultimate Collection (2006) 209,413






So looking at that, Carpenters have certified US album sales of 24,500,000 (24.5 million) units. Counting with all the other sources and we have nearly 28 million. Sources, including most recently in Randy Schmidt's An Illustrated Discography puts "The Singles 1969-1973" as topping the 12 million mark. This would push the album sales further to 33 million units. Add on the 10 gold singles and we're at 43 million. Add up the other singles and albums and what would you say? 50 million in the US? Bare in mind a few of the Gold singles actually exceeded well above one million and others must have come close to a million.
 
That was fun, so lets look at the same in the UK.

Carpenters Sales in Great Britain

Title, year of release, most recent certification, sales figure.

BPI Certified Sales
Alternative Sources (Carpenters books, online forums ect) unconfirmed

Album Sales

  • Close To You (1970) 500,000
    [*]Ticket To Ride (1971) 200,000
    [*]Carpenters (1971) (2013) 300,000 400,000
    [*]A Song For You (1972) 375,000
    [*]Now & Then (1973) (1976) £250,000 700,000
    [*]Horizon (1975) (1975) £250,000 650,000
    [*]A Kind Of Hush (1976) (1976) £250,000
    [*]Passage (1977) (1978) £300,000
    [*]Christmas Portrait (1978) 150,000
    [*]Made In America (1981) (1981) 60,000
    [*]Voice Of The Heart (1983) (1983) 100,000
    [*]An Old Fashioned Christmas (1984)
    [*]Lovelines (1989) 50,000
    [*]As Time Goes By (2001)
    [*]Carpenters with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (2018) (2020) 100,000

Live Albums
  • Live At The Palladium (1977) (1977) £300,000 (1990) 100,000 450,000

Compilation Albums
  • The Singles 1969-1973 (1973) (1974) £1,000,000 1,925,000
    [*]The Carpenters Collection (1975) (1977) £150,000 100,000
    [*]Singles 1974-1978 (1978) (1978) £1,000,000 625,000
    [*]Yesterday Once More (1984) (1984) 300,000 450,000
    [*]Only Yesterday (1990) (1993) 1,500,000 1,800,000
    [*]The Best of Carpenters (1993) (1997) 100,000 150,000
    [*]Interpretations (1994) (1994) 100,000 (2013) 60,000
    [*]Reflections (1995) (2013) 60,000
    [*]Love Songs (1997) (1998) 100,000
    [*]Gold (2000) (2013) 1,200,000 1,335,586 (as of 2016)
    [*]Singles 1969-1981 (2000) (2016) 100,000
    [*]The Ultimate Collection (2006) (2013) 100,000 150,000
    [*]40/40 (2009) (2013) 100,000 225,000
    [*]The Nation's Favourite (2016) (2017) 60,000

Singles Sales
  • (They Long To Be) Close To You (1970) (2020) 250,000
    [*]Yesterday Once More (1973) (1973) 250,000
    [*]Top Of The World (1973) (1974) 250,000
    [*]Please Mr. Postman (1974) (1975) 250,000

Albums and singles were not certified by the UK until 1973.
*Album thresholds:
originally it was based upon monetary sales instead of units (surely we can do the maths to work out units sold by dividing the monetary value by the general cost of an LP at the time)

Silver = £75,000 (raised to £100,000 in 1976 and raised to £150,000 in 1976)
Gold = £150,000 (raised to £250,000 in 1974 and raised to £300,000 in 1977)
Platinum = £1,000,000

When that was scrapped by the BPI, it was in units:

Silver = 60,000
Gold = 100,000
Platinum = 300,000
 
Same with Japan

Carpenters Sales in Japan

title, year of chart entry, sales figure

Oricon Sales

Singles Sales

  • (They Long To Be) Close To You (1970) 22,000
    [*]We've Only Just Begun (1970) 30,000
    [*]Rainy Days And Mondays (1971) 10,000
    [*]Superstar (1971) 271,000
    [*]Bless The Beasts And Children (1972) 16,000
    [*]Hurting Each Other (1972) 41,000
    [*]It's Going To Take Some Time (1972) 48,000
    [*]Goodbye To Love (1972) 36,000
    [*]Top Of The World (1972) 111,000
    [*]Sing (1973) 138,000
    [*]Yesterday Once More (1973) 592,000
    [*]Jambalaya (1973) 186,000
    [*]Top of The World (1973) 52,000
    [*]I Won't Last A Day Without You (1974) 87,000
    [*]Please Mr. Postman (1974) 315,000
    [*]Only Yesterday (1975) 236,000
    [*]Solitaire (1975) 54,000
    [*]There's A Kind Of Hush (1976) 104,000
    [*]I Need To Be In Love (1976) 27,000
    [*]Breaking Up Is Hard To Do (1976) 28,000
    [*]All You Get From Love Is A Love Song (1977) 11,000
    [*]Sweet Sweet Smile (1977) 20,000
    [*]Top Of The World / I Need To Be In Love (1995) 542,000
    [*]Top Of The World (1996) 11,070
    [*]The Rainbow Connection (2001) 14,170
 
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