Hello,

I was wondering how many of the forumites collect foreign publications of TSR material, and what they feel the rarity or value of this kind of thing has been. I just started to delve into the foreign editions element of collecting and I think the stuff is really quite neat! I just picked up a GW Players Handbook and GW Holmes Basic set w/ B1 in absolutely perfect condition (box was a bit crumpled on one corner but otherwise the materials had not been read let alone played). I don't have a lot yet, just a GW MM1 (poor cond), a 5th print Mentzer Basic in the pocket book size, and I am waiting for some Italian sets I bought off Sotteraneo, which I am quite excited about!

I guess what I mean is non-north american publication as this forum is quite global. Anyway, how hard is it to find these items and if you have any really weird ones, let's hear about them. I am particularly interested in getting one of those elongated Dutch Basic sets, with the funky dice tray.....

"...a collections of bratwurst recipes with a few shopping lists thrown in..."

That pretty much sums up a bunch of post '86 mods anyway!!
And I am super happy with that 5th Mentzer I won from you; anymore cool treasures like that on the horizon?

Absolutely a shame- it's too bad those neat little ideas inevitably are killed in the shell. It would have been just too cool to have the whole colour coded library of rules as such....the rules cyclopedia just isn't for me. When I was predominantly a player and not a collector/ wistful nostalgia buff, those book sized numbers would have been perfect! Although the boxes were great for all the paperwork...

Has anyone translated, or reviewed, the Israeli modules?

I could be wrong, but I think most of the interest in foreign collecting is strictly in the UK and Australian mods and books.  I'm one of the few freaks who seems to go for lots of the foreign language releases.  I've currently got in excess on 200 items including UK, Aussie, French, German, Japanese, Hebrew, Finnish, Spanish and Italian editions.  (I have a lot of it listed at http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/inindex.htm for those parties who might be interested.) For the most part, I've picked up the foreign language stuff relatively cheap, although shipping can be a big factor.  German, French and Italian items generally aren't as hard to find, presumably because there are quite a few active collectors there, as you can tell by looking around the forums.     Of them all, the Hebrew and the Japanese have been the hardest to track down for me and in some cases I've been willing to pay a pretty hefty amount to get them.  (So yes, if you have some you'd like to sale, drop me a line... I have "SUCKER" written across my forehead when it comes to this particular field.)  As far as real collector value goes?  I tend to think probably not much, since there aren't too many folks interested in them, aside from the previously mentioned UK and Aussie material.

I wonder why they never printed the Al-Qadim campaign setting into Israeli. 'You and your friends can run around killing Arabs...'

Radagast the Brown wrote:Italian version started from Mentzer's sets.

Quite so, as did many others. I was translated into about a dozen languages, and I remember well the degree of stress that this put on the whole project.

Most North Americans find all the other editions to be quite rare, but of them all, those of my works are probably the most common.

Despite the complacence of our UK neighbors, we Yanks do have a fascination for the British and other versions of those products released before 1983. Amongst the pastels/monochromes, for example, those with the GW logo always bring more at an American auction.


-- the Mentzer

guerret wrote:Are you sure the Master set was produced by EG? It came out a long time after the previous three (over 10 years later), and I'm not sure EG still had interest in D&D at the time.

My two copies are both produced by EG ...
Nevertheless, you're right: it came out a long long time after the previous three ...