Featured Essay: Chasing Frosty the Snowman: From Indonesia to My Own Backyard

by Vincent T. Ciaramella

Remember that old TV show, Dragnet? Remember that iconic piece of narration that went “The story you are about to hear/see is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.” Well, this holds true here…to a point. I am changing one name, and I don’t think he was innocent, more like someone pulling a scam that got caught. But I digress, we’ll get to that later. Anyway, this story has a Christmas flavor at its core but it’s so much more than that. It’s the search for an elusive 45 that spans from the temperate deciduous forests of Pennsylvania to the tropical rainforests of Indonesia. Well, digitally. I didn’t actually travel to Indonesia but bear with me. I’m trying to set a mood. Let’s begin now with the backstory of this saga’s MacGuffin.

Back in 1993, an unlikely band recorded two songs for a holiday single. The band, the Scottish Dream Pop pioneers, The Cocteau Twins. The two songs. Frosty the Snowman and Winter Wonderland. Strange bedfellows indeed. The CD single Snow was released on Fontana Records, with an estimated 5,000 copies printed. If you read my previous article on Dark Mark’s album Dark Mark Does Christmas, you know that I love unique takes on Christmas songs and The Cocteau Twins do not disappoint. I honestly have never heard a more beautiful song than their version of Frosty the Snowman. Don’t believe me? It’s free to listen to on Youtube. Go ahead, take a few minutes and give it a go, I’ll wait. (Insert intermission music here). Done? I hope you find it as haunting as I do. Elizabeth Frasier could sing the label off of a can of Pledge Dust & Allergen Multisurface Cleaner and I’d be captivated. Now, here’s the part that will interest the vinyl nerd in you. They released the two songs on a 45 single labeled “For Jukeboxes Only”. This red vinyl contains the two tracks mentioned but is rarer than rocking horse crap. I have been looking for one for quite some time and have always come up empty handed. Then on Feb 3, 2026, on a site that I am sure you all are familiar with, Discogs, it surfaced…in Indonesia.

Now, you would think I am a frequent shopper on that site seeing as it contains tons of rare vinyl. The truth is, I’m not. For me, the thrill of the hunt and finding that rare gem out in the wild is what I live for. However, when you’ve been looking for years and everyone tells you that they have only heard of it but never seen it or “don’t waste your time, you’ll never find it,” one starts to think that maybe looking farther afield isn’t cheating. Well, when I saw it, I knew that this was my one shot to grab it. Two issues though. First, it was expensive, like over $200. Second, the seller didn’t have a lot of feedback, and it was sporadic. The seller, let’s call him Mr. X, was based out of Indonesia. Where in that country? I have no idea. But I thought about it for a few minutes and I came up with the rational that “why would anyone put this album up if they didn’t own it?” I mean, it’s rare but it only appeals to a very small audience of collectors. If you were going to fake something, why not a fake listing for the Beatles Yesterday and Today with the babies on the cover? You’ll have more people looking for that.  But then again, maybe that’s the beauty of it? Let’s pump the breaks here, I’m going off course.

I decided to roll the dice and I pulled the trigger. YES!  I got myself a copy of this obscure pressing from the early 90’s and I am on cloud 9. Mr. X sent me a message thanking me for the purchase and said that he’d get it out within the next day or two. Cool! Sounds good to me. Well, that’s where this tale takes a turn from an elated buyer to a frustrated shopper who was on the verge of being scammed, or so I think. 

I waited and nothing. I kept checking my email every few hours and nothing from Discogs or Mr. X. By February 7, I’m getting a little worried, so I sent a message asking when he planned on mailing out my record. He got back to me a few hours later and said he was out of town and that on Monday, he’d mail it out. I felt relieved. But that would be short lived.

That communication was the last time I heard from him until the evening of February 17th when I filed a claim via Paypal. Let me back it up. I sent him another message on the 12th and got no response. Okay, I am done being nice. I then started getting suspicious and I filled a “Seller Not Responding” claim. That gave him 96 hours to respond. Well, those hours came and went and all I got was pure digital silence. The next step was to file a claim with Paypal. Well, guess who appears out of the woodwork once they got involved? He gave me this sob story about being unable to ship at this time, but the story made no sense. Honestly, I am not sure if he thought I was an imbecile that wouldn’t follow up but I got a weird vibe from his message like “Yeah, I was going to ignore you but now that you dragged Discogs and PayPal into this…” I know, “innocent until proven guilty.” But I am going to just go with my gut and say that this dude was trying to pull something. He refunded my money and I will never do business with him again. So, this tale should have ended there but the Good Lord smiled down on this poor soul and gave me a second chance.

On the morning of February 17, hours before the PayPal message from Mr. X, I woke up and checked my phone as I usually do. My emails are usually junk or the occasional eBay notification that something that’s on my watchlist is available that I can’t afford or even care about at the time. I bet you can see where this story is going. There it was! And here is the best part, the seller is based in Pittsburgh. Guess who lives just outside of Pittsburgh? Well, I bought it for a hundred dollars less than the one that was on Discogs and it came on Feb 18, the next day. Enzo was home sick with Influenza B and he and I popped it right on and WHAM…there was that ethereal voice echoing from the speakers singing one of my all-time favorite songs. What can I say? Maybe it was divine intervention or just a coincidence but regardless, this Holy Grail found its forever home. As for the seller on Discogs, I did some digging and other buyers have run into very similar issues with products advertised from this part of the world. It seems that thieves hijack derelict accounts, change some information, and start the scam process. Was this guy one of those? You be the judge. I should also mention that his February 7 email was flagged by Discogs for a “suspicious link.” While I didn’t see one, I made sure to run a virus scan. 

To finish this off on a positive note, Walter “Jack” Rollins, one of the two men that wrote Frosty the Snowman was born not far from where I live and is buried about an hour and a half away in Keyser, West Virginia. I think this Christmas season Enzo, Erika, and I will take a drive down to visit him and give this a spin at his graveside. Until next time…

Vincent T. Ciaramella is a high school Psychology teacher by trade, Vince is also a published author with ten books and multiple articles under his belt including published works through SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), IBRO (International Boxing Research Organization), and History Magazine. His latest book is “A Shooting Star Across the Silver Screen- Olive Thomas: A Biography. When not writing or teaching, Vince and his vinyl hunting partner and vinyl collector himself, Enzo Ciaramella are out looking for some more titles to add to their collections.