BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN Blinded By The Light Picture Sleeve

$

392

One of the "Holy Greil's" of Springsteen collecting. This has been in my collection for over 20 years and it's time to pass it on. Here's the scoop on this rare item...

The legendary “Blinded...“ picture sleeve was a stock sleeve created for a promotional purpose. The sleeve was designed and manufactured by Columbia Records in a quantity of 500 copies at the request of Laurel Canyon Management (the company run by Mike Appel & Jim Cretecos), who wanted sleeves as part of a targeted marketing campaign in which Bruce’s debut 45 would be sent to influential DJ’s, radio program directors and critics.

Columbia Records’ Production Department shipped the entire lot of 500 sleeves to Laurel Canyon “uncropped” (top of sleeve was not put through CBS’s factory sleeve lip rounding machine) and “unglued” (flat slicks). Someone at Laurel Canyon folded and hand-glued the sleeves and slotted in the discs.

Approximately 150-200 of the 500 sleeves were distributed with a disc inside. A combination of promo label and stock label discs were utilized, with stock labels having a tiny “For Review Purposes” sticker attached. These are the sleeves that usually turn up in worn condition and show the obvious signs of a disc having been stored inside the sleeve. A proportion of these sleeves almost certainly haven’t survived the ravages of time.

Approximately 150-200 sleeves were folded and glued but were never utilized. Most or all of these survived and most or all of these came into the hands of a buyer in 1978 following the settlement of the Appel lawsuit. None of these sleeves were hoarded - all were quickly dispersed among the dealer and collector community. These are the sleeves that usually turn up in Near Mint or even Mint condition.

Approximately 100-200 sleeves were not folded or glued and remained as flat slicks. These apparently were thrown out sometime in 1974/75 and are not believed to survive today.

Columbia Records never shipped any stock or promo label discs with the picture sleeve - they had no sleeves to ship.

The lyrics to “Blinded...“ are printed on the rear of the sleeve. The sleeve lyrics are missing an entire middle verse, the same verse that was edited out of the stock and promo label version on the debut 45.

There has been no attempt, at this stage, to counterfeit this sleeve.

This is almost certainly one of the 150 to 200 sleeves that were assembled but never saw a 45 record inside. As you can see from the scans, there is absolutely no ring wear or vinyl impression. Aside from some very light creasing along the top edge, this sleeve is near-mint.

A Mono/Stereo white label promo of the BBTL 45 is offered in a separate auction. Shipping will be combined is one bidder wins both items. I'll pay for insurance in USA. Good luck!

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