A new edition to my collection is this beautiful Canadian promo poster for the limited edition slipcase cd's that were available in Canada for a very short time period. The poster features Derek Rigg's great painting of Eddie dressed in the uniform of the Canadian mounties. The painting was first used on the cover of the Canadian heavy metal magazine, Metallion during the 80's.
Of course, these slipcase cd's are now quite rare as the mounties were apparently not happy about the unauthorized use of their trademarked image. When they first came out, I was lazy grabbing them thinking they would be around for awhile, but just as fast as they appeared they were pretty much pulled off the shelves. Luckily, I managed to get the one below because of a friend who bought two.
The limited reissue cd's came out in 1998 and at that time the mountie image was under the ownership of Disney. Control of the trademarks had been given over to Disney when the RCMP hired the company to promote their image and protect them from being abused in the commercial marketplace. Thus, if anyone wanted to use the image to put a Mountie on a T-shirt, a mug, or in this case cd's, they had to pay a licensing fee or be charged with stealing "intellectual property." It really is too bad they were not around a little longer as I would have liked to grab more. Someone has also bootlegged up some shirts with this design, there may have been a few official ones made up for A&B Sound employees, as I seem to remember them wearing one around this time, in fact I got one off of someone claiming it to be such, but the price was cheap, they look great, so what the hell. Whatever the case, the local market seems flooded with obvious fakes. Thanks to my friend Jason for giving me this poster to add to my collection. I think this one will be next in line for a nice frame job.
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