Apologies in advance for huge pictures.

I was able to stay an extra week in Wisconsin following Gary Con X since I have family there and oh boy am I glad I did! I was able to visit both the Game Hole and Stratochamp's collection.  What a treat!  I didn't think to grab any pictures of the Game Hole, but I made sure to bring my camera over to Bill's collection.  He was kind enough to entertain me for a few hours as we regaled the past of fantasy roleplaying games and collecting them.  I wasn't able to capture everything that I saw but I grabbed some shots of a few gems.  Perhaps I can take a few more pictures on a future visit?



First up is the main collection.  I had seen pictures of it online before but was truly in awe of it in person.  What surprised me the most was the variety.  I had, wrongly, assumed that it was primarily TSR materials but woe to me it is actually a collection of nearly all pre-2000ish roleplaying games.  To someone with a meager supply of their own FRP materials it is difficult to ascertain just how much material was actually published in the past 40 odd years of the hobby.  Seeing Stratochamp's collection is one way to ground your sense of perspective.











As you may be noticing from the pictures, Bill is taking great care of his collection and is very dedicated to preserving these materials for the future.  For those of you that don't know me, I am an archivist by trade, and Stratochamp is doing all of the right things.  Humidity control, physical security, and UV protection, and potential deacidification (where appropriate) are all part of his collection strategy.  I was very happy to see all of these measures in place.  As an information professional it made my heart sing!

We didn't just discuss collection conservation strategies, however.  We also discussed Bill's history in the collecting field.  I was quite in awe of his luck in both will and timing to be at the right place in the 1980s and 1990s to grasp what it meant to collect this stuff at a time when most were ignoring it. To say I was envious would be an understatement, but I am quite pleased that someone with his preservation instincts and collecting interests was around during this period to gather these materials.




Grey Hawk Reference Sheets


Domesday #3



1st Print Chainmail


Original Bottle City Map

I was also pleased to see an array of Gen Con ephemera around the premises.  This is an under-shared area of this material in my opinion and I am always happy to see it preserved and presented in a responsible manner.  This is particularly interesting to me considering the Gen Con Programs Project I put together last year.




Aside from collecting I was also given a tour of Stratochamp's Dwarven Forge town and a dungeon from a module he is running.  I have some Dwarven Forge myself, but not enough to do a setup like this justice! If only we had the time to play right then.








I had a great visit overall and would like to use this post to remind us all about what a great community this is.  I know many of us do this already, but the more we can open up our own collections to others and help others in their collecting and sharing goals the better off it will be for all of us, especially as these materials become more scarce.

Only one copy of Fantasy Wargaming by Bruce Galloway?!! I would have thought that acquiring a collection like this should have resulted enough unwanted copies of it to build a fort. Maybe that's what the rest of the house is constructed from.

Beautiful!

I am always awestruck seeing those images. A constant source of inspiration. I am particularly impressed with the new Dwarven Forge set up. What an incredible add to a campaign.

Cheers,
Curt

Awesome as always!! Great to see new images and new additions. Truly amazing.
Thanks for sharing.



Mike

Thanks Matt for stopping by, taking the pictures and posting them! You're welcome anytime. We usually have 10-12 gamers stop by before, during and after GaryCon since I'm only an hour away from Lake Geneva. Last year Luke Gygax stopped by and this year Jayson Elliot brought Satine Phoenix by on Sunday and Erol Otus stopped by on Monday (in addition to my usual friends from out of town) so we love having folks visit. If Acaeum members are going to be in the Chicago area drop me a line.

Matt had time to take some pictures of a few things I thought folks would like to see, which included the Bottle City original map and notes that Improv just sold me.
The Chainmail is essentially perfect, and the Greyhawk ref sheets would be but for the staple hole. I didn't think there was a copy up of Domesday 3, but the really important point is that I really do have three copies of Fantasy Wargaming. Two can be seen in the first picture and one more is digest sized, so its on the top row in Bay 7 (there are no pictures of Bay 7 & 8 in these photos however). He didn't include photos of the Magazine room, but he did include one of the bookcase with the Call of Cthuhlu and a full run of KoDT. The Dwarven Forge layout is the complete Caves of Chaos from module B2. My seven year old daughter killed the Ogre with two mighty sword blows, so her character is now Rexana Ogre-Slayer.

stratochamp wrote in A Visit to Stratochamp's Collection: He didn't include photos of the Magazine room, but he did include one of the bookcase with the Call of Cthuhlu and a full run of KoDT.

Of course I missed something!  Here is a case from the magazine room.

Thanks for the kind words. My collection honors the creative people who've brought joy to millions.

As regards the Dwarven Forge set-ups, the three level town uses Mage Knight castle pieces around the exterior and the Dwarven Forge City buider in the interior (with a Grand Citadel on the top level). The buildings on the ground are Miniature Building Authority.

The Caves of Chaos layout used 5 Sets of Dungeon painted sets, 10 sets of unpainted, 5 painted Cavern sets, a lot of City builder wall pieces I didn't use in the town, a Lava set and various other bits.

For our 5e game, Mark (Bracton) our DM was sending us through G1. Last night I built the lower level of the Steading in Dwarven Forge in my dining room. I think Andy (Invincible Overlord) took some pictures, I'll ask him to post them.

I just have to say an amazing thank you to Bill and his family for allowing me to intrude on their time years ago to see this.  They were all gracious hosts and I have nothing but the highest complimentary praise for Bill.  I think I spent around 8 hours there and they made me dinner and even helped me reroute back home when my GPS went on the fritz!  It's quite the collection to see but also equally awesome is the stories Bill tells when he acquired the books or box sets, etc.  I could listen to that a lot as well!  Also Bill has my thanks for permitting me to add to his collection and trading me something I wanted for mine!  It's quite a thing for me with a miniscule collection compared to this to have worked out a cool trade that benefited us both.  As always it's great to see Bill at cons to see what he's up to and what small few things he's still looking for.  I hope I can track down another to add to this amazing exemplary collection!