Vanished Crusade

Last year I picked up three copies of the debut Forced Order LP, 'Vanished Crusade'... and then lost them in the mail before I even laid a finger on them. Over a year later and I've eventually got around to replacing all three copies...

First up is the rarest copy of them all, the record release show edition. As you can clearly see, there were only 50 of these made for the release show which took place almost two years ago. TWO YEARS! Time is absolutely flying these days, it's crazy. Anyway, grey vinyl is actually the SECOND press out of 228 copies. Quite how the release show copies are from the second press I don't get. I mean, who was selling the first press BEFORE the release show? In theory the band, but that doesn't make sense.

I picked this up from eBay only a couple of weeks ago. It had only been a couple of weeks before that when I last whinged about how I was still pissed that this would be really difficult to replace. I guess fate smiles on me sometimes.

The release show 'sleeve' is simply a single piece of paper placed in front of the regular sleeve. It's not overly exciting. But inside the sleeve were also a bunch of stickers and a poster, which helps make it into a more interesting item.

The other two copies I picked up are the 'regular' copies that Rev sold. These two colours are from the THIRD press. Clear vinyl (out of 329) and clear orange vinyl (out of a whopping 1200 copies).

So of course after picking up three copies, I still need more. Specifically, one of the first press copies on pink vinyl, and ideally about three more grey copies, as the 'grey' seems to range from grey to purple to blue to yellow. The problem is that the pink and grey copies were sold by the band on tour, so as well as being pressed in lower quantities, they don't pop up too often. So I could be chasing this one for quite a while.