Led Zep Reissue on vinyl

Nice job by Mr. Fremer. You have to give him credit for telling it like it is. Darn, if I could only afford the 45 set. I have the Stairway to Heaven 45 that came w/ the 200gr box, and it's fantastic. If the other 45's sound as good, the box must be fantastic! In the mean time, I will have to keep my eyes peeled for a UK first press. Does anyone know how one distinguishes these MONARCH presses?

Fjn- easiest way is to look on the label of the record- the Monarch's are distinguished by an 'MO' suffix after the catalog number. There are other indicia as well. There are several places on the web that discuss how to identify a Monarch, which is more common on the West Coast. Occasionally, you'll see the pressing plant identified in the ads. The 'hot one on LZ1 is actually not a first press, but a remaster by Piros, done circa 1974, with various indicia including matrix info, described in detail on the Hoffman site. That's a very nice sounding copy. I'm hoping to compare it to a Monarch first press of LZ1 that a friend has soon, which, as mentioned, sounded spectacular on my system, given that the recording itself just isn't great.

I apologize if the question is inane, but is LZ IV part of this reissue undertaking as well?

Act, no not yet. The releases are in batches, the first, released at the beginning of June 2014, was the first three albums in various formats and combination packages with optional extras, bonus tracks, etc.
Page had announced all this over a year ago, if memory serves, promising that all the Zep albums would be re-released as remasters during 2014. Not sure what the next milestone date is for the next wave. Obviously IV will draw a pretty big audience. I saw somewhere that Zep is now 'charting,' at least in the UK for the first time, probably, in decades.