Studies In Emerald

It's taken me a while to get around to posting this one as I felt that I needed to take a lot of photos to capture exactly how special this package is. This is a new 7" by Rot In Hell entitled 'Studies In Emerald'. Although these songs have previously been released, they were on two different CDs, so this represents their first appearance on the superior format of vinyl. And what a way to do it... although sadly, not many people will experience this as there are only 31 copies in existence.

It arrived sealed in a green (emerald) envelope:

For us nerds, this represents a dilemma, as straight away you have to consider whether you actually want to see or listen to the item you have paid for, or whether you want to leave it unspoiled. Well, to cut a short story short, I managed to open it without damaging the packaging. So here's what I found inside...

The envelope contains a 7" in a slip case. I don't think I have ever seen one of these before.

And of course, the record itself slides out of the slip case sideways...

The black acetate sheet above is actually an x-ray. I've seen a couple of these and it seems that all of the x-rays are different.

Underneath the x-ray is the 7", in an orange dust sleeve.

The 7" itself is a lathe cut thing which has an x-ray of a fly printed on it.

And behind the 7" is a small booklet which is part of the sleeve.

This is seriously one of the most amazing pieces of packaging I have ever seen on a 7", and believe me, that's saying something. I just wish more people could see (and appreciate) it in real life, but alas, that cannot be so. Overall I feel both lucky and honoured to be one of the 31 special few.