Collecting log: Top 3 collectible acquisitions in 2019 (Part 3 of 3)

The final of the three parts of this subject reports last year's unexpected purchase of a U.K. 7-inch vinyl record which fellow "Boss" collectors often regard as a holy grail. So, this post may deserve the commemorable 150th to this blog which, since Fall 2014, has exclusively focused on Springsteen's official and unofficial collectibles, especially of vinyl pressings, in my private possession. There are still many missing, though, from my collection. If interested, here are links to Part 1 and Part 2.
 
#1: Sherry Darling / Independence Day U.K. withdrawn white label promo 7" vinyl (CBS 9568)

Unfortunately, the color sleeve is just a regular one, listing Be True correctly,
instead of Independence Day, as the backside track.

There is an old Japanese proverb "Early risers earn 3-mon" (where "mon" is an old Japanese currency unit), which has essentially the same message in English as "The early bird always gets the worm." This purchase was just like that and completely unexpected to me. One usual morning last November, I woke up early, just made a quick online survey, and found it being sold at an unbelievably low price. It was just 63 minutes after the seller had put it up on auction. So, luckily and most probably, I was the first and only one who ever saw it online. Needless to say, the copy was sent out here to the Far East, currently sitting on my record shelf.

The withdrawn promo disc has the A1/B1 suffix code
in the hand-etched matrix numbers (upper). On the
other hand, the matrix number is machine-stamped
with the suffix code B2 on Side B of the corrected
regular pressing (lower); the hand-writing number
on the right of the stamp is wrong and scratched 
out (for the details, see 12/25/2019).

Surely, no detailed information on this 7" vinyl is necessary for collectors visiting here. Briefly, in February of 1981, CBS in the U.K. prepared to release Sherry Darling as the latest and second single from THE RIVER. As first publicly described in the discography section of the Blinded By The Light book (P. Humphries & C. Hunt, 1985, Plexus, London), the printed-up, white-label promotional copies (only 100, reportedly) were urgently withdrawn and scrapped due to the irregular B-side track. The Lost In The Flood collector's web page reports on how the mispressing occurred. When this single was ready for pressing in the U.K., the master tape for Be True, the correct B-side which was back then an unreleased non-album track, was not available there. So, an album track Independence Day was chosen instead as the flip side.

Based on what I've seen over the past few decades, until the mid-2000s, this mispressing had hardly attracted outstanding attention from collectors, and unlike its current status, had not been regarded as an exceptionally high-valued collectible. In fact, I knew back then only two examples that wrote about this 7" in print: one was the aforementioned Blinded By The Light book and the other was the Warehouse Catalog #44 which I received from the Backstreets Records in Spring 1997.

The latter included the auction catalog entitled "57 Channels Of Auction Gems" where this record was introduced in the middle of the auction lineup, as the 29th item with a minimum bid set at $175. Thus, certainly not viewed and treated as something like a top gem or a holy grail. To my understanding, what made it so famous and widely known to collectors owes to Top 40 Worldwide Springsteen Rarities, the featured article in No. 329 issue of the U.K.'s Record Collector magazine (November 2006). In the article, it is ranked in the first place on the rare collectible list. Moreover, a mint copy is valued £2,500 and £2,000, respectively, with and without the equally misprinted color sleeve (for which, by far, only two copies have reportedly been confirmed to exist).

Mastering Maestro's signatures are commonly found
on the dead-wax space of all the U.K. singles off
THE RIVER (see 12/25/2019).

Like most of the copies in circulation, the record sleeve of mine is the same as that of the regular copy (not listing the wrong B side). As reported in four consecutive posts in this blog from late last year (12/22/2019) to early this year (01/05/2020), all the U.K. 7" and 12" singles cut from THE RIVER were mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Tim Young. This mispressing is not an exception to this fact and his signatures are clearly inscribed on each side of the dead-wax space (side A, timtom ; side B, Ty ).

Finally, although unlikely, I suspected the small possibility of this being a counterfeit. This was because, despite that the seller knew of the wrong B side [to quote item description: HOWEVER, it is RARE because it is backed with INDEPENDENCE DAY (not 'Be True') with 

Nicely done, indeed (not in my possession).
Is there timotom or Ty hand-etching on the disc?

a release date of 13th February 1981], the price was set extraordinarily low (the reason for which still remains a mystery). In addition, to me, this vinyl format has not been the main target of collecting and hunting. And importantly, you may remember that there have been precisely manufactured, but almost probably unofficial white-label copies of Two Hearts / Ramrod  7" vinyl in circulation, which suddenly appeared on collectors' market some years ago and claimed to be issued in the U.K. for promotion only with the catalog number CBS A1845. So, unusually I decided to ask for expert opinions on this particular copy I obtained, which I had seldom done before, and my thanks are due to Roberto in Italy for his generous help on the authentication.