I suspect that, and being that this would make the most sense, is there is only one real "version" of the second print. The best way to tell would be for someone who actually has shrinked copy of a 2nd printing to verify where the ISBN number is located. If my feelings are correct, then the "Real" Second printing would have the ISBN number located on the back and the Seventh printing has it on the lower left hand corner of the front cover. Although the one I have is not shrinked (and I am not even sure what printing it really is), I will check it out versus the Return to the Tomb of Horrors Box Set and follow up a little later.

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Another thing that supports my theory on this is if you read through where the ISBN number is located on later printings of S1, with the exception of the third printing, they always appear on the back cover with the exception of the 7th prinitng. Off to check mine.

Here is what I found looking at my copies:

The second print is two seperate booklets, the 7th is stapled together as one.
The pictures on pages 16 and 17 of the illustration booklet have been reversed.
The second print has number 25 and 25c on page 16, 25d and 27 on page 17.
The seventh print has number25d and 27 on page 16, 25 and 25c on page 17.

Hope that helps.

Mike

chromaticknight wrote:Here is what I found looking at my copies:

The second print is two seperate booklets, the 7th is stapled together as one.
The pictures on pages 16 and 17 of the illustration booklet have been reversed.
The second print has number 25 and 25c on page 16, 25d and 27 on page 17.
The seventh print has number25d and 27 on page 16, 25 and 25c on page 17.

Hope that helps.

Mike

Hey Mike & Paul , out of curiosity, where is the ISBN on your 2nd printings?

As theorized above, the ISBN on the rear cover might be a feature of the Seventh print only (and people were confusing their Second prints with this).  If anyone finds a Second print with the ISBN on the rear, please let me know directly.  I'll update the S page with the next site publish.

Foul

Whoops.  Well, there goes that theory.  There very likely *is* a Second print with the ISBN on the back, then, unless the contributor in question had totally goofed in figuring out which print he had.

Foul

If someone has a S1-mono with the ISBN only on the back cover, than wouldnt  that tend to indicate a completely seperate print run?  I would find it hard to beleive that TSR would have changed the print format of the ISBN right in the middle of a print run.  Anyone else have thoughts on this?

beyondthebreach wrote: If you want to make a change for the next update though . . . I think (as chromaticknight pointed out) that the fact the 7th print is only one booklet should be mentioned. This is a good was to distinguish them from the earlier print "two booklets".

We should be careful with the single booklet as a designation, becasue if someone really had a mind to, an although the effort may be better spent someplace else, but converting 1 booklet to 2 booklets would not be that difficult.  The other info about the illustrations provided by Mike though would be a better, although harder to determine, indication as it would be almost impossible to manipulate that.

rosenkav wrote:We still have to separate the booklet from the cover - they could actually belong to different print runs as TSR could have filled some with spares of earlier ones... we have seen they have already done this in other cases.

That is true, although in this circumstance only one of the possible mono printing that is known so far indicates that the ISBN may be on only the back cover. If that is the case and there really is modules out there with the ISBN only on the back cover than that to me would indicate a seperate prinitng run. Other evidence may suggest this as a possibility is looking at S2 there are at this point 10 confirmed printings and even S3 which was not rereleased with the Silvery Anniversary editions has 7 confirmed printings. S1 with the additional 1999 release of Return to the Tomb of Horrors Box Set only "now" has 7 printings. Bear in mind that I know that obviously that is not a definite indication that there are more than 7 prinitings, but it could be an indication of a trend. We definitely need some more input from folks.

beyondthebreach wrote:How do you tell for certain the difference between a 2nd print (mono) S1 and a 7th print (mono Silver Anniversary reprint)?

I have one, and can't tell if it is a really nice 2nd print or just the Silver anniversary one.

How about looking for the Silver Anniversary logo, which appears on all the reprints, if I'm not mistaken.  Or are we referring to booklet only, and not cover?

The silver anniversary I6 does have the silver ann. logo on the front cover.
At least mine does  :D

Mike