burntwire wrote:We recently found a previously unknown TSR product. It is a pad similar to the TSR in-house Character Sheets but is titled "DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS* GAME REFERENCE SHEET". It has the same copyright date(1976) TSR GAMES and has the "TM applied for" at the bottom. We also have a single character sheet(used) that is white with blue printing and states "DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS CHARCTER RECORD and is copyright 1975 Tactical Studies Rules.



If someone can host some photos let us know. We will be listing the pad of Reference Sheets but wanted to get some feedback first.

I can put them on photobucket  for you if you guys if want, or if you want you can sign up yourselves(its free). The site is here: Photo and image hosting, free photo galleries, photo editing.  :)

Thank you for those scans. Looks good.

burntwire wrote:Anyone else seen these before? The pad has 21 unused sheets(probably came with 24 or 25) and has a price tag for $.59 from the DUNGEON Hobby Shop on the back.

No, not seen.

Just a couple of observations and a query, however: very cheap (!) and good to have confirmation as to "official release" nature, if so. But why aren't any of these early character/reference sheets on the stock lists (afaik)?

(Possibly just sold out of the front door, but that's a strange way to run a business! )



How far back have you managed to trace these items from your acquisition?

Sounds like a good degree of consistency across the items in that bundle.

Always good to have further possibly-traceable hooks but that's still a lot better, IMO, than just turning up one or other "loose" without any other material.



Very early supps, then?



No woodgrain to go with those? (Although that could've just as easily been another 4th(-), I suppose...).

burntwire wrote:2 of the 3 goldenrod Greyhawk reference sheets(see thread)

Hey, has everyone got these nowadays?! Interesting.



(presume you're meaning 2 of the 3 "known thus far"?)

That fits!  Robert Kuntz, in a moment of mnemonic inspiration, stated that he definitely remembers sending them (GRS) out in OD&D box/Greyhawk orders.  The boxed set I have had a 2nd print Greyhawk in it.  I could not tell you if the sheets originally went with the 3rd Woody or the Greyhawk, but they did go out.  The upshot of this, of course, is that TSR issued different versions of OD&D/Greyhawk, those with the sheets and those without.  The time frame for the Greyhawk Reference inclusion--based on what we currently know--would be mid 1975.  Time may show us that the goldenrod sheets only went out with the Greyhawk supplement as an addendum to the regular reference sheets already in the OD&D, kind of like the new monster sheets in FRCS are supposed to be added to the MC.
In any event, good catch.  I would keep the goldenrod GRS with the Greyhawk supplement, just in case.  What is the print date for 3rd Greyhawk?

tfm wrote:That fits! Robert Kuntz, in a moment of mnemonic inspiration, stated that he definitely remembers sending them (GRS) out in OD&D box/Greyhawk orders. The boxed set I have had a 2nd print Greyhawk in it. I could not tell you if the sheets originally went with the 3rd Woody or the Greyhawk, but they did go out.

A very limited number of orders, it would seem.



The breaking of the old T1st GH text block across the page to form the ref sheets is distinctly rough-and-ready and still feels better in the context of Rob's comments re. tourney use, perhaps (or other ad-hoc/trial use). If so, any GH ref sheets that were sent out might have been "spares" from this process rather than "regular issue".

They certainly don't appear with anything like the frequency of the regular OD&D ref. sheets or early supps., nor were they continued beyond that initial issue, (presumably) printed locally.

(c/w the OD&D correction and ref sheets which were reprinted elsewhere and should be present in 100% of sets issued by that time)



(just thinking out loud)

tfm wrote:The upshot of this, of course, is that TSR issued different versions of OD&D/Greyhawk, those with the sheets and those without.

?

tfm wrote:In any event, good catch. I would keep the goldenrod GRS with the Greyhawk supplement, just in case. What is the print date for 3rd Greyhawk?

Very good to get more context, with that 3rd GH (1/76) and those character sheets/records.

The dates on the later printings are hopefully firmer than the firsts where the intro text dates aren't a particularly good guide.

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That 2nd Swords & Spells in Burnie's bundle seems like a rogue (later purchase).

tfm wrote:The upshot of this, of course, is that TSR issued different versions of OD&D/Greyhawk, those with the sheets and those without. The time frame for the Greyhawk Reference inclusion--based on what we currently know--would be mid 1975.

It would be worth pinging Rob to further clarify his hire dates and when he stopped working in warehousing/shipping for TSR:  IIRC, he only did that for a year or perhaps two at most.  That may help to narrow the range of printings, based on previous research already done.

Of the sheets you do have, how are they folded?  Sheet #1--the first image on the GRS thread--has Attacker/Defender matrix inside top left.  Sheet #2 has the second half of the Potions table inside top left.  Sheet #3 has the Triton/Bugbear listing from the Attack/Damage Monster Table inside top left; at least, that's how they came stapled to me.  The staple has now been removed and bagged for preservation purposes.  Thank you P.S.!

Grodog,



Same thing I was thinking about the character names.



How about the maps?

burntwire wrote:The character names are goofy(Fred, Mata Hari). However I did locate 3 names I missed before(John Reed, Chuck Higgins, J.W. Cejka III). One was on a University of Florida notebook. Anyone recognize any of the names?

Those don't ring any bells, but it may be worth running them through the Dragon Archive search (or google desktop search, etc.) to see if they show up in the lists of DMs and players from the early days of TD.