Until mid-1969, Capitol manufactured their own tapes. By the time Abbey Road was released, Capitol had sub-contracted the tape manufacturing to Ampex Tapes, who produced tapes and packages for Capitol for many years hence. The reels themselves may be clear transparent or pink opaque plastic. It was numbered one digit below the commercial release and is extremely rare. Beatles tapes released from Abbey Road on were issued in blue boxes with clear transparent reels.
Later ones have green transparent reels.
This, of course, made for twice the tape length and a heavier reel for the same amount of musical material. There were at least fourteen reel tapes issued commercially of solo Beatles and related titles, including the promotional Broadstreet . All of the Ampex releases were issued in blue boxes. This was a first in a series of Audio Press Kits put out by 20th Century Fox. Pepper's Reel tape.