Collecting log: Dancing In The Dark Mexican colored 12" vinyl

Dancing In The Dark 12" remix collectibles:. Clockwise from
top left: Japan-only promo and the vinyl disc, US promo,
and regular Mexican and Portuguese releases.

More than 30 years ago, in a total surprise to his die-hard fans, Springsteen released special dance mix version of the first three top 10 singles (Dancing In The Dark, Cover Me and Born In The USA) from the album BORN IN THE USA, all of which are pressed in 12-inch format and remixed by Arthur Baker, then one of the most fashionable hip-hop producer. Music-wise, I believe that many of hardcore fans ignore, or are not interested in, these 12" releases. However, there are a few vinyl pressings worthy of collecting for Dancing In The Dark. Although I had refrained from collecting these for long, recently, I got a copy each for Mexican and Portuguese releases (CBS BS-35051 and CBS A 12.4436, respectively) at relatively cheap prices on eBay.

Official colored disc looking really nice!

The Portuguese release comes with the uniquely designed jacket that is completely different from those released in other countries. On the other hand, being translucent red vinyl is what makes the Mexican copy rare and valuable. Indeed, the Mexican vinyl looks simply brilliant, which I like very much! There are many colored edition of bootleg vinyls. To the best of my knowledge, however, among the officially released Springsteen records, translucent or colored vinyls are much rarer than other special pressings such as picture discs (for example, check the very first post on this blog).

From actual auction

One related note: Before Dancing In The Dark, late last year, I won another Mexican red 12" vinyl for War / Fire // Born To Run / Incident On 57th Street from a different seller in Mexico (I own the black vinyl version but not colored one). This seller, who is no longer registered, seemed reliable as he had received, since 2003, nearly 1,900 feedback ratings with most being positive. However, what turned out to be was that he was a real cheater. In order to provide me with the tracking number as a proof of shipping, he sent just a registered letter that was wrongly addressed (so, not to me) and without sender's name and address. I was waiting for the package to arrive for more than two weeks, after which the tracking system suddenly reported that, due to unconfirmed destination, the mail with that tracking number has been returned to Mexico. In response to my inquiry, the delivery company told me that it was a letter but never be an LP package. I finally found myself scammed. I've been a registered eBay member since 1997 and this was the ugliest experience among hundreds of transaction. The case was covered by eBay buyer protection and refunded, though.