Collecting log: AS REQUESTED AROUND THE WORLD U.S. promotion-only compilation album with great cover artwork (Part 2 of 4)

From the Summer 1998 Backstreets
Records Warehouse Catalog.

Back in the early 1980s when I started collecting, it was impossible to find promotion-only releases from legitimate sources, whether domestic or imported (CBS/SONY or Columbia Records), at local record stores in my hometown and nearby areas. So, to me, mail order was the only practical option to obtain these official rare collectibles (it was way before we used the internet!). I remember that a copy of this promo LP was generally sold around between $40 and $60 (plus international postage) when ordered from the U.S. dealers. On the other hand, once imported into Japan, it usually fetched prices over $100 when becoming available at the collectors' market. As I wrote in the last post (05/10/2020), I got my first copy on my occasion to stay in the U.S. a few decades ago.

Several recent editions of Goldmine's price guide have kept listing a mint copy of this record at $50 (for example, Standard Catalog of American Records 1950-1990, 9th ed., Thompson, D., Krause Publications, 2016). According to eBay or the Discogs database, however, most copies in circulation have been purchasable at less than what the authority guidebook has suggested (although, of course, the actual values largely depend on the conditions of disc and cover). The relatively low actual market price means that the pressing number of this promo LP must have never been strictly limited, especially compared to other promo-only releases of that time like Japanese LAST AMERICAN HERO FROM ASBURY PARK, N.J. (CBS/SONY YAPC 95; 09/19/2015 and 01/28/2017) and The Killer Tracks From The River (CBS/SONY XDAP 93030; 09/17/2017 and 09/19/2017). Indeed, the circulating copy number is much more like that of readily available promo releases such as Born In The U.S.A. 5-track sampler (Columbia AS 1957) or several editions of single LP excerpts from the LIVE/1975-85 box set that include the U.S. version (Columbia CAS 2543) and Japan-only THE "LIVE": THE LEGENDS COME ALIVE (CBS/SONY XDAP 93165; 12/04/2020). I had not been aware of this fact before the internet became widely used for web-based transactions, including net shopping and auction, and until I saw that several copies continuously turned up for sale online in the early 2000s.

In 1987, an issue of a popular weekly comic magazine published in Japan featured a 3-page full-color special article on Springsteen in commemoration of the premiere of Light Of Day, an American film of music drama for which he wrote the title song. Interestingly, a small section of the article entitled "The Premiere of the Premium Jackets" exhibited a showcase of his promo-only LP and 12" EP titles released in Japan and the U.S., from mega rare to relatively common, although LAST AMERICAN HERO ... is not included. According to the brief description, THE "LIVE" was initially priced at 50,000 Yen (more than $500 value) in the U.S. There are serious errors in the descriptions for The Killer Tracks and BITUSA sampler EPs. 
 

Not all 1980/81-era releases are mastered at Capitol.
My copy of Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town (Columbia
AS 1329), another promo-only 12" released in 1981,
does not bear dead-wax signatures characteristic to
Santa Maria pressing or THE RIVER-related releases.
Instead, it has a STERLING stamp on both sides.

Then, I just wondered how many different pressings of my favorite promo LP have been circulated. This could be known by examining and comparing the dead-wax matrix inscriptions of the existing copies. As shown in the last post, currently, I own four copies all of which carry a machine-pressed MASTERED BY CAPITOL stamp and a hand-etched KP inscription on each side, indicating that mastering was done at Capitol Records by Ken Perry, just like the early U.S. pressings of THE RIVER LP, two 7" singles therefrom, and promo-only Fade Away 12" disc, all issued in 1980-81 (see the following posts: 09/08/2014, 09/10/2014, 06/18/2016 and 12/23/2017). Each copy also has a 1S handwriting inscribed on both sides of dead wax, which signifies the Santa Maria-plant pressing (see 11/23/2016). In addition to these commonalities, I found small differences in the dead-wax matrix of the four copies that show the existence of different pressings of this promo-only LP.
— To be continued to Part 3 / back to Part 1.