Sunday 20 February 2011

Coalesce 7" Mystery Colour

So as I have mentioned before, it wasn't until only about 5 years ago that I started buying up multiple versions of records. I guess that my lack of ambition to own multiple copies was firstly due to lack of money, and secondly because it always seemed unneccessary to own more than one copy of a record. However, that said, there were a few bands for which I made an exception... although I don't really know what my logic for this was.

One such band was Coalesce. They were one of the first bands that I got into from their first release, and they seemed to have something really unique about them. Plus they seemed to be getting significantly better with every release. I just latched onto them.

The record I am featuring today is a copy of their third 7", 'A Safe Place'. This was a split release between Second Nature and Edison. Back when this came out I was ordering from Very Distribution quite a bit. One thing I always liked about Very was that their catalogs & lists actually mentioned the colour of vinyl of the stuff they had in stock. This was rare at the time. But for a young trainee nerd like me, this was essential information, and when they started their own label (Edison) it was obvious they would make limited colour vinyl since they too were clearly vinyl nerds. One thing they did from the start which was quite unusual for the time was to make two colours of vinyl - one super limited colour and one more common (but still way rarer than black) colour. The Coalesce 7" followed that pattern, having 100 copies on green and 300 on tan. I guess this was the first record that Coalesce brought out for which there was more than one colour vinyl edition available. And even though I wasn't interested in owning multiple versions of records as a general rule, I can imagine that it was probably difficult for me to actively pass on a limited colour vinyl record by a hot new band that I loved, so I bought both. And then, wouldn't you know it, they used the (now familiar) trick of knocking out an additional limited colour (white) when the time for a second pressing rolled around. Like the old fart that I am, I got them all when they came out & they have waited faithfully in a box ever since.

Anyway, this latest entry is interesting because, technically, this record does not exist. As I have just mentioned, the colours pressed were green, tan and then white. So what on earth is this one that I just got?

I can tell what you are thinking. "Clearly, that's green". Well, I thought you would say that. So what I did was get the other copies out and photograph them together so that you can see that the real green one is a completely different colour. In fact, next to the real green one, the one above looks like a yellowish brown:

I searched around a bit and found a complete Coalesce Discography. However, this version of this 7" is not listed. It is also not listed in the pressing info on the Second Nature site. It is, however, pictured on Ohiopride's discography, which suggests that there were 100 made, although I'm a little sceptical as I can't seem to validate that anywhere else. So for now I'm still regarding this one as a mystery.

6 comments:

Ben said...

I believe the copy you just acquired is 'olive green' out of 100 and the other green copy you have is much, much rarer with only a few copies in existence.

mcs said...

Thanks, Ben. However, what I am actually saying is that there seems to be no official record of an 'olive green' colour existing. The only references I can find online refer to 'green'. Plus, I bought this direct from Very when it came out on their advice that there were 100 on green.

Anonymous said...

what this probably is was one of a few pressed in between the colours, as the older colour and newer colour mixed and made this batch. I had a copy of Kid Dynamite's Shorter, Faster Louder on Baby Blue Marble, which wasnt a colour that existed, we came to a conclusion that this was how the variant came to being. Also I traded it to some guy named Adam and now wish i still had it.

Unknown said...

Anonymous is right. I'm in the band and handled the records when they came in. Out of 1000 I got maybe 2 of the most of those. Dudeck from very records said that he did not order that color, so the only logical explanation, since it's in the same color family as the ordered press, is that it was an inbetween. Super rare regardless.

Mike said...

Cool, looks like I have an inbetween as well!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v510/epicake/records/coalesce7s.jpg

Anonymous said...

i have it on black.