Monday 26 December 2011

In Contrast Of Xmas

I don't celebrate xmas. No tree, no cards, no gifts. I try to ignore it as best as possible. But this year I did buy myself a gift, which arrived in the mail on 24 December, and which I didn't get around to opening until the next day. So I guess it almost qualifies as a xmas present.

Integrity 'In Contrast Of Sin' 7" test press. This is a test of the original from 1990 (or thereabouts) on Victory Records. This copy was owned by Ati Moran from when it came out until a few months ago when he sold it on eBay and Dobek bought it. But then Dobek needed some money to fund his crack habit so I helped out.

As with most tests, it's not much to look at, being in a plain white dust sleeve with regulation United labels:

Although there is a homemade cover that Dobek knocked together which I'll probably keep:

I got my other copies out to take a family photo.

Made me think I should probably get serious and pick up one of the later black vinyl copies with the green cross on the sleeve, and also one of those copies with the promo sleeve.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You surprise me that you don't have copies of the red or yellow promo sleeves, or the joker sleeve, or a 1st press...

mcs said...

Yeah. I never got around to it. Never saw the point of the promo sleeve back when I used to only want one copy of each record. I wanted colour vinyl instead. But I think that promo sleeve comes on green card too.

The joker sleeve I don't want. It's impossible to tell an original from a bootleg.

Isn't the red the first press though?

Dobek Ohashi said...

I still have a copy with green cover/yellow labels if you want haha

jeff said...

Just curious, what is it that makes test pressings so desirable? I've just never gotten into collecting them myself.

Is it the rarity factor above all else? It seems most of them, especially for older releases like this one, are not all that exciting aesthetically. I'd take a nice colored vinyl pressing with a lyric sheet and regular cover over a black vinyl test and a dust sleeve any day...

mcs said...

Jeff - I know how you feel. I was never bothered about tests for the same reason. They look kinda boring. It changed at some point though. The way I see it, it's just something else to collect. You collect every possible record by your favourite band and then your collection is complete & there's nowhere else to go. So then you go after tests just for something to do and to chase that feeling of completeness. And because they're so elusive and rare, it adds a little more challenge & fun to the game. That's pretty much it.

jeff said...

mcs, thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. I'm a little OCD so I think trying to track down test presses would have driven me crazy, that's probably why I never started. Plus they seem inordinately expensive but that's just me. Nice score with that Integ nonetheless!