Bruce Springsteen Blinded By The Light m/s PS RARE
  $   338

 


$ 338 Sold For
Dec 11, 2004 Sold Date
Dec 4, 2004 Start Date
$   25 Start price
28   Number Of Bids
  USA Country Of Seller
eBay Auctioned at
 
save auction  

Description

  

Mono/stereo white label promo with picture sleeve.  Columbia 4-45805.  Cover is EX to EX+, very faint ring front and back.  Top of sleeve is not quite even as if hand trimmed, see scan.  Record is EX+ with some light scuffs.

I cannot say how much of the following is accurate, I suspect much of it is but I also think the quantity produced may be higher than what he says.  The part about the "uncropped" sleeve top jives with what we see here in the bottom photo of the back.  I got this from the Lost In Flood site and is attributed to Australian super-collector Peter Bambini.

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 station program directors and music 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.


price rating