Holmes or CP dice?  Or some mish mash of the two? The color of that d6 seems to be halfway between pink and orange.  They all seem to be the lighter shade of CP dice, but some of the numbering looks Holmesish.  I need someone who doesnt wear $3 amazon reading glasses to set me straight.


https://imgur.com/a/dCBAbxS

I had almost convinced myself they were indeed holmes dice, but one thing is bothering me about it so I'll ask another question.....

Any chance there were print runs of "holmes" dice?  Specifically that changes were made to either the die or where they were made at some point?
The more I look at the cp and holmes sets, the more I think that something changed with the way holmes dice were made and that there are versions of the dice....

Have I looked at too many dice?  Do I need a padded room?

If anyone has several sets of holmes dice, can you take a look at them and seem if the shapes of the numbers themselves seem to change(I happen to be 4000 miles from mine right now).  The one I see is the "2".  It would appear some holmes dice have a 2 that is very close to the shape of the CP "2".  Particularly the shape of the bottom half of the 2.  Then I see other holmes dice that have 2s on them where the bottom half of the 2 is a completely different shape.  There are two distinct shaped 2s on holmes d8.  There are also several version of the 12 on the d12.  You could say the die didnt get stamped properly, like a mis-stamped coin, but some of these dice look like perfect stamps and the numbers are still different shapes.

It would seem difficult for the same machine and the same mold to make the same number on the same die appear in such unique and distinct shapes.  This is a terrible slapped together image of holmes dice from ebay where you can clearly see the differences.  But I am not a tool and die expert so maybe someone who is can explain how this could happen using the same mold and machine throughout the run of the dice.

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

I dont disagree with the inking issue.  There are grooves cut/stamped into the dice.  Those grooves are then inked, and the inking is inconsistent at best.

What I am hypothesizing is that the grooves cut into the dice are different because they are different molds.   Look at the number 2 in the 12 on both dice.  Think in terms of fonts.
Note at the bottom of the 2 at the junction where it is turning vertical into horizontal.  Version A of the 2(that looks like the old CP 2) clearly runs nearly parallel to the 1 for the last 1-2mm before creating the bottom of the 2.  Version B of the 2(which looks a lot like the 2 in the font used for this post), simply comes to a point at that juncture, it does not have that area where it actually run parallel to the 1 next to it for the last bit.   This difference creates a difference in the square area contained between the middle and bottom of the 2 in the right bottom area that an eye can clearly see even if it cant see the small difference in the path to that corner.

Maybe it is an optical illusion due to photographing/shadow etc.  That is why I asked if someone with several sets could take a look and see if they see these 2 versions of a "2" on d8 and d12 dice.

The ultra simple explanation would be that there were two machine making the dice, each with a slightly different mold.  These machines could have ran at the same time next to each other.  They could have been in two different factories.  Or just one machine that had its mold replaced.  I just find it difficult to believe that a machine one day was making grooves for a 2 that looked like version A, then just on its own starting making grooves for an entirely different shaped 2. BUt maybe that is why I dont own a dice factory


https://imgur.com/a/TMBBuw5