Deadlord36 wrote:Except in one thing: First Print values don't apply to it, since it is incomplete. If I had a 1st print PHB, and 1/3 of the pages had been removed and replaced with pages from a 5th print, it is no longer a 1st print PHB. So the values don't apply.

You do have a point, Frank.
A hardline approach might suggest that it's not even worth as much as a complete 2nd printing, since it isn't even one of those!

I was trying to allow for the likelihood (90%+) that there are a sufficient number of people who would adopt a more optimistic outlook and bid against each other on the basis of such.

lol my $20 offer stands

I need a cheap wood grain

Aneoth wrote:

"Tragically, your set is much like the set of Wood Grain Set Books with NO box at all, which sold on E-Bay (Along with several other rare books included in the auction) for less than $150 less than a month ago. I know, I was bidding on it just for the woody books alone. Someone here (I forget who) can attest to this as he won the auction by sniping me!"

I was not purposefully inferring with that wording that Peter's partial box set is not worth much more than the $150 paid for that Woody box set with no box.

I actually feel that Peter's partial set is worth more than the ‘Poor to Excellent' Condition range listed on the Acaeum for a First Print of the woody set.

Perhaps it should get near $1200, as harami puts forth with his mathematics gymnastics, but I would truly be hard pressed to offer that much myself, especially knowing the facts that I now know. I could not justify doing that to myself, much less to the wife, even though I was ready to pay far more than that for what was then thought to be a complete first print woody.

More is the pity that, as I believe that a complete First Print Wood Grain Box Set is even scarcer than anyone here realizes.

Considering the fact that it would be easily damaged, and that 99% of people who bought one wouldn't shrink/poly it like they would a tourney mod (since when the Brownie came out, D&D was unheard of), I would suspect that a decent condition one would be VERY rare. Makes Scott's $700 snag a candidate for Best of the Year.
To be honest, I personally would have no interest in paying over $200 or so for it. UNLESS I owned a First print book 3. A wise collector would snag this set, and hunt for #3, since the number of first print #3 booklets is definitely going to be higher than the number of boxes. Look at it this way. It's 1977, you own a 1st woody. You drunkenly step on the box during a heavy-hitting Saturday night. The box would get tossed, and you'd keep the books, no? And since the boxes are relatively easily damaged, AND since the box itself has no useable reference material, most people would have considered it expendable compared to the contents. For example, if you take all the White box auctions this year (say 80 for testing purposes), and take all the unboxed booklet auctions (20), that would mean statistically that 20% of all whiteys are now unboxed. Hence, at least 20% of woodies would be unboxed. Assuming 1/2 of the unboxed booklets disappeared, that leaves 100 sets of unboxed books.
Obviously the numbers may be less, or even more, but I think you see my reasoning. Most people KNEW the tourney mods were a treasure. I think relatively few knew that the woodies would be. How many people wrote on their Black Lotuses when Magic the Gathering first came out?

Deadlord36 wrote:A wise collector would snag this set, and hunt for #3, since the number of first print #3 booklets is definitely going to be higher than the number of boxes.

Hey, but there were negative comments when I drove that also-sadly-incomplete 1st print up to $583, just over a week ago...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6932136508
(However, that volume 3 wasn't quite "mint"... and there's the rub: to get a /good/ match with the rest of an EX+ book set still ain't gonna be easy, and that's the only such partial set I can remember seeing for some time...).

Agreed with that comment on books vs. box though, of course!

PeterFedofsky wrote:

(oh, btw, was your woodgrain purchase from that same area??)

Oddly enough, it was purchased in Seattle, Washignton.

*lol*

Well, they could've moved, or else been into wargames previously...
(As per my previous comment that other woodgrains could've made it over to the UK on the back of the TSR connection, rather than as the start of a new range of games in their own right).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 5930601206

woodbox with more supplements than i care to name...

I am convinced that woodgrain boxes in good condition are much rarer than the books.  As someone who was playing at the time, I recall the boxes were excellent carrying cases.  The books didn't take up much of the box.  You could carry your dice, a few figures, character sheets, a pencil, etc. in the box as well.  This tended to degrade their condition quickly.  I did that very thing with my OCE, and the set of books is in excellent shape while the box is a little rough.  (Fortunately, I got my 2nd print from someone who was very careful with his possessions and the box is better than Peter's.)

dsaunders wrote:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 5930601206

woodbox with more supplements than i care to name...

What made me laugh is that now "financing is available" through paypal...