Collecting log: Brilliant Disguise Japanese custom promotion-only advanced 7" vinyl

Two major Brilliant 7" rarities: Promotion-only pre-release in Japan and Italian jukebox pressing, both coming with a unique custom insert sleeve. One of the Japanese copies I own is in fine condition (center) while the other has cellotape removed on the insert sleeve (left), as generally observed with Japanese promo 7" singles leaked and floating around from radio stations. The Italian single contains a colored title strip with a misprint (Brilliant "Disguide").

Brilliant Disguise continues. Speaking of the 7" single release of this title, the most sought-after collectible is probably the Japanese promotion-only advanced pressing (CBS/SONY XDSP 93095) released with the unique black & white picture insert. Alternatively, some collectors may mention the Italian jukebox 7" (CBS JC 152095 7) which also comes with the custom insert sleeve and is seldom seen; however, others are skeptical to its authenticity (I have no idea as to the authenticity of this very nice-looking release). By the way, about a week ago, I found a copy of the Japanese issue being auctioned at Yahoo! Japan although it was the picture insert only. I was just interested in the final result and so followed the auction to the end.

It's a custom sleeve insert only without the 7" vinyl. The auction
ended with a total of 10 bids.

It ended up selling for 2,600 Japanese Yen (roughly $23.50 at the current exchange rate) as shown on the right, which in my opinion is reasonable taking into account that it represents one of the only two unique promo sleeves available to Springsteen's 7" records released in Japan [another one is, needles to say, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town live (CBS/SONY XDSP 93026)].

Two examples of "date" stamped insert sleeves of the
Japanese promo 7": I Wanna Marry You/Be True
(CBS/SONY 07SP 525) and Atlantic City/Mansion On
The Hill (CBS/SONY 07SP 657)

The auctioned INSERT must have originated from a radio station, as it has a couple of scotch tape marks on front. In fact, many Japanese promo 7" issues in circulation suffer from such yellow-colored glue traces as a result of removing index tags that had been taped on the sleeve by radio station staff. The sleeves are also frequently stamped with the date of acquisition or on-sale date (see the picture left). Thus, generally, the fully intact copies are hard to come by. One of the two copies in my possession has indeed such unwanted modifications (tape marks) as seen in the image on the top of this page.

On the rear side of the insert sleeve are mainly Japanese writings, such as a few lines of advertising copy notes for this single release that are found on the top, and the bottom half of the sleeve is devoted to three small sections that include the largely abbreviated biography (which wrongly describes that LIVE/1975-85 is released in the end of 1985), the highest chart position on Billboard Hot 100 of the seven TOP 10 singles released from his then last studio-recording album BORN IN THE U.S.A., and the brief introduction about the then-forthcoming new album TUNNEL OF LOVE to be released on October 21st (reporting that besides the E Street Band, Springsteen might employ Nashville session players for the album recording).

Although the A-side labels of my two copies are pink-stamped, the label variant exists without stamp markings. As usual for the CBS/SONY releases, the matrix numbers are stamped but not hand-etched on the trail-off area. The JIS acronym (for Japanese Industrial Standards) is found only on Side A.

As the Lost In The Flood collector's web site briefly reports, there is a discrepancy in the catalog number for this custom promo release: XDSP 93095 on the sleeve and XDSP 93096 on the white labels. The machine-typed matrix numbers on the dead wax are consistent with the latter (XDSP-93096A1 on Side A and XDSP-93096B1 on Side B). A google search resulted in another promotion-only Japanese 7" vinyl with the catalog number XDSP 93095 for We Are Music performed by a US female singer called Martika. These indicate that the catalog number on the sleeve is a typographical error. There are label variations on Side A, with and without pinked stamp markings noting track name (both in English and Japanese) and length (4 : 15), release date (October 10th), and artist name. No variation has been found on the Side B label that is totally free of stamp markings, only with the catalog number, side indication and sample notification (with three Kanji characters) in black.

It's translucent bronze or amber upon exposure to a LED light
luminary. Note that this is a common feature to both promotional
and regular Springsteen 7" pressings from CBS/SONY JAPAN.

Finally, although the disc normally looks black, it turns transparent when exposed to high-intensity light. This, however, is not specific to this particular promotional pressing. As far as I examined, all the Springsteen 7" records from CBS/SONY JAPAN are the same in terms of light-dependent transparency. As mentioned on this blog previously (for example, see here or here), most of Springsteen's 7" singles are translucent red on the US Columbia label. Although both the US and Japanese 7" singles show the transparency under strong illumination, the main difference lies in the material and method used to make the disc, as the US records are styrene-molding whereas the Japanese ones are vinyl-pressing.

Collecting log: Brilliant Disguise/Lucky Man US45 with no large hole

Unplayable garbage or highly collectable?

Been busy lately, and that has made me completely away from blogging for more than a month. To give myself a short break (BTW, which was and still is the initial intention to start this blog), I made a quick note on a recent acquisition of a rare, one-of-a-kind erroneous 7-inch item. Shown here is a US stock copy of Brilliant Disguise/Lucky Man (US Columbia 38-07595), the first single from TUNNEL OF LOVE released in 1987. At the first glance, it looks like a small-holed Australian copy with the yellow/red sunburst CBS labels. As you find, however, glued on the 7" record are the US Columbia labels with NO LARGE HOLE!  So, this record is unplayable on any turntables, which makes it totally useless as music medium but appeals to curiosity seekers like me. As occasionally shown in this blog, I own several erroneous products of single and LP releases of Springsteen titles. This type however is never seen before.

The error disc comes in a generic Columbia sleeve rather than in the picture sleeve.

One thing that seemed odd was the fact that there is no small center hole punched out on each side of the paper label, even though it is there on the disc itself which is visible through the labels (see the image below). Why is this odd? When the clump of hot vinyl is pressed with stampers, it is held by a spindle on a pressing machine and sandwiched by a pair of paper labels. So, before setting on the pressing machine, record labels must be small-holed so that they are pressed together with the vinyl clump right on the center of a resultant disc ...

When the record is held against strong light, a small center hole
appears as yellow on the paper label. The disc is translucent red,
which is a proof of a styrene-made Columbia 7" single (the
filaments of a light source on the opposite side is visible as
figural red on the upper part of the dead wax area).

While writing this post up to this point, I recalled that it was not vinyl pressing but styrene molding! As I did mention previously, most of 7" discs from the US Columbia Records in the 1970s and 1980s are made by polystyrene which is injection-molded, not pressed like vinyl, and paper labels are glued on afterward. Then a styrene disc is punched out to make a large center hole, together with the glued labels. Obviously, this particular copy has escaped from this final step of the production, which explains why the paper labels remain intact without a small spindle hole.

Note that in the case of vinyl pressing (yes, relatively the small number of vinyl pressing does exist for Springsteen 7" releases by the US Columbia Records in both promotional and stock forms), the labels should have a small hole on the center even if the final step is skipped. Thus far I have never seen such an error disc, though.

Thoughts on My Father's House on NEBRASKA LP (Part 4 of 4)

Track and time information found on a two-page stapled
fact sheet for a Japanese sample copy of NEBRASKA LP

As I wrote in the last blog, both the UK and certain US pressings of NEBRASKA LP are issued with the misprinted Side 2 label that lists the incorrect play times for the three of the four tracks on this side, notably for My Father's House as clocking 5' 43" instead of the actual 5' 03". This set me to examine whether there were more examples of copies bearing this erroneous label out there. Besides the  UK and US copies, currently, I own the LP pressings from Holland, Spain, Greece, Ex-Yugoslavia, Hong Kong and Japan. The survey of my collection revealed that the misprint was not limited to the US and UK copies, and the Hong Kong release (CBS/SONY 25AP 2440) was found to be the case (see the image below). This result was rather unexpected to me, as the Hong Kong branch of the label had an obviously closer partnership to CBS/Sony Japan, in terms of at least geography and operation, when compared to the US Columbia or UK CBS. As I reported previously, as far as the CBS/Sony label was concerned, the Made In Hong Kong LPs were actually pressed in Japan and then exported there. Although the Japanese pressing does not print play time for any tracks on the record label, the accompanying linernote/lyric translation insert (and the fact sheet included in the sample LP) provide almost correct time-length information (for example, 5' 05" for My Father's House). Then I wonder how this error could happen with the Hong Kong LP but not with the Japanese one. Even if assuming that the paper labels were prepared in Hong Kong independently of the vinyl disc, how the wrong information has come to be used?

The Hong Kong (left) LP shares the same catalog number (25AP 2440) and the identical matrix stamp with the Japanese copy (right), which shows where it is pressed (see here for the relevant blog).

In order to gather more information, I extended the survey beyond my collection and checked the label images found online. As a result, in addition to the US, UK and Hong Kong, I confirmed that the LP copies issued in the following countries carry the same track-length misprints on the label: Canada (Columbia TCX 38358), South Africa (CBS DNW 2804), and Zimbabwe (CBS DNW 2804; most probably S. Africa-pressed; see here for another blog article on Zimbabwean records). Although I am still not sure if the LP is the officially licensed product, the South Korean pressing also has the error (many thanks D.B.M. for sending the scanned images for the white label promo copy in response to the previous blog).

UK insert included in repressed copies of pre-BITUSA
albums such as NEBRASKA to promote album sales

Note that, like the US pressing, both correct and misprint label versions exist for the UK and Canadian releases. Such a variation must have occurred from the very first of the release (i.e. the error is pressing plant-specific) or as a result of the correction (i.e. misprint LP issued first then corrected edition followed). As for the UK releases, the correctly printed sunburst label pressings often include an additional insert advertising the albums up to BORN IN THE U.S.A., indicating that these are in fact repressed copies. The red label reissue edition also carries the correct information. So, the UK album probably contains the misprint only for the initial run of LP pressing and the error was fixed for later pressings. As for the Canadian release, Google search suggested that there was only one vinyl disc pressing plant in this country (Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario, 1971-1988), which also supports the latter possibility. Regarding the Hong Kong, South African and Zimbabwean LPs, I am not sure whether the error was fixed or remained uncorrected throughout the vinyl pressing like the "Held Up ..." misprint inner sleeve for various European issues of THE RIVER (see here).

Misprinted NEBRASKA Side 2 label on Canadian and South African pressings (middle and right, respectively). Shown on the left is the Canadian label with the correct track lengths (not in my possession).

On the other hand, as far as I examined, I couldn't find any misprint label release from the following countries: Holland, Spain, Greece, Ex-Yugoslavia, Portugal, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and India. However, because of the small number of sampling, this does not necessarily eliminate the possibility of the erroneous label in these releases, and more investigation is needed to avoid biased conclusions. Like the Japanese LP, certain releases such as Mexican do not bear the track length information on the record labels (On the Mexican release, correct playing time for each track is printed on the rear sleeve).

Finally, what is the implication, if any, of these misprinted label releases?  The points listed below summarize what I saw as facts and told here.

• The measurable number of the misprinted edition on the Side 2 label exist from various countries (counting at least six).
• Three out of the four tracks on the label (Used Cars, My Father's House and Reason To Believe) are misprinted for their play time.
• The erroneous track time (5' 43") for My Father's House differs considerably from the correct one (5' 03") but is comparable to the length (5' 35") for the alternate take that is inadvertently and officially released on the early CD edition of the album pressed in Japan.

From these facts, I think it is not irrelevant that the erroneous Side 2 label does not result from inadvertent manufacturing error or careless printer's typo, but rather reflects what could have been the very first Side 2 arrangement including the alternate take of My Father's House which was eventually not adopted in the final version. Maybe wishful thinking, but it seems unlikely to me that the above facts took place independently as casual incidents. Anyway, over these nights, listening to what is the most suitable among his entire albums for deep-night listening, I enjoyed ruminating about a sort of "behind the scene" thing on it. And thanks once again D.R. in England for providing me with the UK label pictures that worked as catalyst for me to write about this topic.

→ Read three consecutive posts starting from here for the updated information.