Bruce Springsteen — Born to Run: How to Identify a First Pressing

• Cover: The album title on the original cover is rendered in handwritten broad-nib pen lettering rather than typeset print — an important visual clue for identifying the original sleeve design.
• Other: On some early pressings' tracklists, 'Meeting Across the River' is still labelled under its original working title, 'The Heist', rather than the title used on the official release — a tracklist clue for identifying a very early pressing.
• Cover: On the first-pressing sleeve, producer Jon Landau's name was misprinted as 'John'; Columbia Records subsequently printed roughly 400,000 stickers to cover up this error.

• A sticker covering the 'John/Jon' spelling error on the sleeve is a direct sign that a copy is from an early batch that received this official correction; roughly 400,000 stickers were reportedly printed for this fix, indicating the error affected a fairly large proportion of the early pressings.

• Mistitled-track variant ('The Heist'): A small number of very early pressings' tracklists mislabel 'Meeting Across the River' under its original working title, 'The Heist' — a rare early printing variant.

discogs.com returned a 403 this time and could not be accessed; the English Wikipedia entry was used instead. A 30th-anniversary expanded edition (including concert footage and a making-of documentary) was released in 2005, clearly distinct from the 1975 original vinyl, but the specific vinyl-reissue catalog number was not verified.

• Read the runout (the smooth area between the last groove and the label) with the disc tilted under a lamp: matrix numbers, stamper codes and mastering initials are the strongest evidence.
• Label details change between pressing plants and years: rim text, logo style, address, "Manufactured by" wording.
• Cover printing shows the plant and era: printer credit, catalog number position, barcode presence.
• Match all three. A first-press disc in a later cover, or the reverse, is common.

Shoot the label straight on in even light, then the runout with the disc tilted so the etched text catches the light (a phone torch from the side works). Add the front and back cover, the spine, and any inner sleeve or insert. The app reads the label and cover; the runout photo is what confirms the pressing.