Silver Anniversary Set
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Post Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:25 am 
 

burntwire brothers wrote: We are holding onto them as we feel they will keep going up in value over the next few years.


I'm sure they will, too.  This is one of the few TSR products produced after the early to mid 1980s that I really like.

  


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Post Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:37 am 
 

Deadlord39 wrote:So that's two. Anyone else? If not, it is officially rarer than Inverness, Tamo, Fazzle, etc. since the total number of known copies is far greater.

Come on Frank, that's flawed logic and you know it.   :roll:  

That set isn't old enough or interesting enough for most Acaeum members to collect it, so basing a rarity poll on "how many people have one" is pointless.  How many people own a d20 PHB, or a "War Drums" mini?  I rest my case.  :wink:

No doubt they'll continue to rise in value, but to put them on par with a Fazzle within the next couple decades is silly.

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Post Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:50 am 
 

I wouldn't be surprised if they got to $500 someday but that will be a while ( then again as soon as something gets posted here as interesting the price seems to triple/quad in a week anyways :) ).

  


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Post Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:41 pm 
 

mud2guard wrote:I've got one of the signed sets, bought from the collection of Keith Strohm via gal_havoc. But no longer in shrink! It cost about 102$ I
think.

If anyone is interested in a 1st edition games workshop players handbook
1st print (complete with phone number), its on sale in:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 8775465550

free postage to the UK.




I'd seen it was hoping no-one else had! ;)

  

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Post Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:19 pm 
 

I've got five of them.  Three in SW, one opened, and one incomplete set with L3, none with the signed print.

I would suggest that a lot more of these are still in SW than most other items you could point at, mainly because most were bought as collectibles by collectors.  Of course, there is the occasional seller breaking apart the set to attempt to make a few extra bucks.  That doesn't seem to be too successful any more.

  

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Post Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:47 am 
 

I'm not putting it on par with Fazzle in a few decades. I'm putting it on par now. As far as rarity, at least. The value will, of course, never get as high as Faz, but as it stands now, it is indeed rarer. You can't go on the assumption that there are 500 copies out there "somewhere". That was done with many items in the past, and it is an improper method. You can only go with what can be proven.

  

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Post Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 8:30 am 
 

I am with Frank on this one. We know exactly how many were made and that there isn't some secret box of 1000 of them is in some warehouse. In 10 years they are will be legit rares commanding higher end prices.

Just because several of us on this forum have one or more copies is not an indicator of how rare the item is. We all happened to read the writing on the wall and got ours while we could - many straight off the shelf. Most collectors did not have that option with many of the other rares.


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:26 am 
 

If you wanted to figure in unproveable hypotheses, I would point out that a large number of tourney players kept the modules, or sold them to other players/collectors. We can assume that many of the people who bought Easley sets immediately deshrinked them, and probably used the Easley print for a wall decoration. The reasoning behind this is that the tourney mods were obviously rare when they were marketed, whereas the Easley sets were not. Heck, even I didn't know the difference.

  


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Post Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 9:35 pm 
 

Deadlord39 wrote:If you wanted to figure in unproveable hypotheses, I would point out that a large number of tourney players kept the modules, or sold them to other players/collectors. We can assume that many of the people who bought Easley sets immediately deshrinked them, and probably used the Easley print for a wall decoration. The reasoning behind this is that the tourney mods were obviously rare when they were marketed, whereas the Easley sets were not. Heck, even I didn't know the difference.

Well, now we're getting somewhere.  You've made some excellent observations regarding the set's survival rate, it probably isn't as high as Fazzle's...but Fazzle has a lot more time to work with.  You're right -- I can't "prove" this hypothesis, but I can make some reasonable assumptions regarding the number surviving.

Given what we "know" about Fazzle, and I use the term loosely:
There were 300 in 1979.  Ten are listed on the Acaeum as sales.  I'm assuming none of those are repeats, and if anyone has better data feel free to pipe up.  I'm only too happy to re-crunch this stuff as more data becomes available to me.

Working with these numbers, Fazzle has an average annual survival rate of 87.73%:
300 * (x^26) = 10.  x = 0.8773.

In comparison, the 25th Anniversary Set with the signed print.  In 1999 there were 1000 printed.  Our formula is as follows.  (Please note 'Z' is a constant, not a variable.)

1000 * (y^6) = Z.  

You posited that there are also 10 in existence.  (I think you said two, but lets go with 10.)  So we define Z as 10.  Solving for y, we get an average annual survival rate of only 46.42%.  That's less than half.

If you're ok with that, fine.  You're done, wash your hands, walk away.  I'm not.  I don't believe that the rate could be that low for an item marketed as a collectible in 1999.  If I'm correct, the defined value of Z must be wrong.  

I'd believe as low as 60%, perhaps, but I don't think it's that low.  That value (60%) gives us about 47 out there, at a minimum.  I'm betting there are more like 100-150.

In short, it's survival rate would have to be truly abyssmal for it to be as rare as Fazzle.  I can accept that it would be worse, but not that much worse.

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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 2:22 am 
 

Nope, doesn't work that way, Deimos. As I said, people KNEW Fazzle was rare. I doubt anyone thought the Easley set was. Besides, you can't go by Acaeum sales for Fazzles or Easleys. I've sold 2 Fazzles privately that were never listed.
The only valid data that can be used is copies of either one that are DEFINITELY in existence. Since the only real collection method we have is polling, that is the data that has to be used. Ergo, STATISTICALLY, Easley is rarer.
But the end result is this: More people would rather have a Faz than an Easley, therefore it is worth more.

  


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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:58 am 
 

Deadlord39 wrote:Nope, doesn't work that way, Deimos. As I said, people KNEW Fazzle was rare. I doubt anyone thought the Easley set was. Besides, you can't go by Acaeum sales for Fazzles or Easleys. I've sold 2 Fazzles privately that were never listed.
The only valid data that can be used is copies of either one that are DEFINITELY in existence. Since the only real collection method we have is polling, that is the data that has to be used. Ergo, STATISTICALLY, Easley is rarer.
But the end result is this: More people would rather have a Faz than an Easley, therefore it is worth more.


I am going to disagree on this.  How can tThe Silver Anniversary set with the Jeff Easley signed print be considered more rare than Quest for the Fazzlewood?  Just looking at the straight facts doesn't support that theory at all and everything else is pure speculation.  We know for a fact that there were ~300 Fazzles printed and we know that there were 1000 signed Easley prints produced with the SA set.  Fazzle was produced 28 years ago in 1978 and the SA set was produceed less than 7 years ago in 1999.  I can not see any rationale regardless of what peoples speculatation on how "collectable" either one was.  The numbers just do not add up.  TBH over the last year I have seen a total of 4(maybe 3) Fazzles up on Ebay, and I have seen at least 5 SA sets with the Black sticker for the signed Easley print on it.  That obviously isn't the best indication of rarity, but it certainly proivides a solid back up to the already known numbers about the 2 of them.


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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 7:28 am 
 

Deadlord39 wrote:Nope, doesn't work that way, Deimos. As I said, people KNEW Fazzle was rare. I doubt anyone thought the Easley set was.


I agree with you in principle on your stand, Frank, but I'm not so sure that people thought that the tourneys would be valuable.  Since the Wintercon tourneys weren't marketed as collector's editions and/or in a signed/numbered limited edition (like Ghost Tower and Lost Tamoachan), and because their production values were non-existant, and because they were designed for tourney play and therefore not necessarily the most interesting of scenarios, I don't believe that most folks would have thought that they were "premium" items at the time of their release.  The hobby was just too nascent for anyone to have cared, IMO (I'm not even sure that Gygax, Arenson, and Kuntz's dungeons would have commanded a very high price, if sold before 1980).


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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 8:20 am 
 

Deadlord39 wrote:Nope, doesn't work that way, Deimos. As I said, people KNEW Fazzle was rare. I doubt anyone thought the Easley set was.

It's a mathematical model -- let me assure you that's precisely how it works.  If you have a low number of those sets, you need to justify that number with something.  There are only two ways to do so.

Either there is an extremely low survival rate, or there are more than we know about.  That's all I've shown here.  Nothing has been "proven" either way.  But don't say the math doesn't "work that way".  (Unless to tell me it's not 2005 anymore...I missed by a year.   Oops.  :oops:)

If you don't agree with my conclusions, as you clearly don't, that's not an issue.  It's trivial to change the parameters until you get something that makes sense.

Deadlord39 wrote:Since the only real collection method we have is polling, that is the data that has to be used. Ergo, STATISTICALLY, Easley is rarer.
Polling is the most basic of data collection methods, and assumes a reliable sample size and distribution.  If you're suggesting interpolation/extrapolation/modelling aren't real, then 87% of statisticians will disagree with you, 19 times out of 20.  :lol:

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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:21 am 
 

3.5 Easleys for every Fazzle, assuming 300 were printed, which is another unproveable. Were they all sold? Were any trashed? Where were they marketed? Was the regular set out at the same time for less money? There are too many variables to make an accurate assumption. Assumptions were made about ST1, and look how THAT turned out.

  

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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:43 am 
 

Something seems a little unclear in this discussion on Silver Anniversary sets.  It seems to me, that Deadlord is implying that Shrinked sets are rarer.  Is this the case Frank?

The reason I say that is that unshrinked sets with the signed print may not have the sticker (I am assuming the sticker was on the shrink?) but they are still sets.  It doesn't matter if the owners opened them immediately and "stuck the poster on the wall".   As long as the set is complete, it's still the same thing . . . only unshrinked and with a damaged poster.

So, 1,000 were produced.  Wasn't this only back as far as 1999?  Even if they were opened, they are still out there.  All it takes is for someone to loot at the poster to know if they have the signed and numbered edition.


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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:05 am 
 

Interesting discussion, guys.

Shouldn't the comparison of rarity be made relative to the length of time the products have been on the market?  Given enough time, an item will become rare even with a low attrition rate.

Assuming the survival rates of Fazzle and Silver Ann are what Tyson stated (approx 87% an 60%, respectively), this is what the remaining numbers look like after comparable periods on the market:

Image

Relative to length of time on the market, the signed Silver Ann is rarer than Fazzlewood.

  


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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:23 am 
 

Deadlord39 wrote:3.5 Easleys for every Fazzle, assuming 300 were printed, which is another unproveable. Were they all sold? Were any trashed? Where were they marketed? Was the regular set out at the same time for less money? There are too many variables to make an accurate assumption. Assumptions were made about ST1, and look how THAT turned out.

Fair enough.  We only know for sure that two exist, and there may be more.  To assume there are only two is an equally mistaken assumption.

Since I'm tired of fighting with DL39, let's assume that there are only two, as that's the information we can confirm.  Well, that's not in a vacuum; you have to get to this point from 1000.  How can that be explained?

1.  998 of these have been destroyed in the last 6-7 years.
2.  (There are more than 2, we're decided to ignore this option.)

If we assume that 998 were destroyed, the survival rate is a very low percentage.  But that "fact" makes no sense given other supporting information.

In order for the survival rate to be this low, these sets must have been destroyed in large quantities.  Which seems to suggest not many made their way into informed collector's hands.  (Collectors would presumably be less likely to destroy them, knowing their potential value.)  That's plausible, actually.  No problem so far.  They fell into the wrong hands and got wiped out.

So the people destroying these 998 copies aren't collectors who are aware of their potential value.  However, an uninformed "destructive population" wouldn't single out only the signed copies!

It's reasonable to assume they'd destroy with equal fervour the non-signed copies, and in fact not differentiate between them at all.  There's no reason to assume the survival rate of the non-signed sets would be significantly different, if anything, the signed copies should have a slight edge, if any fell into the "right hands" and were preserved.

So how can we explain this, given that the survival rate of the non-signed sets?  They were printed in much higher quantities, but the darn things are everywhere.  Whatever the actual survival rate of the non-signed sets, it can be comfortably stated that it is not morbidly low.

The two rates cannot be that disparate, unless people were deliberately targetting the signed sets for destruction.  Possible, but unlikely.

There is a secret option 3 which squares things up far too neatly: "There never were 1000 released to market".  I have no direct evidence to support that, and don't actually believe it myself, but it's possible and it is one way of resolving the issue.  

Barring that, it seems likely that more will be found.

 YIM  


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Post Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:32 am 
 

bombadil wrote:Interesting discussion, guys.

Shouldn't the comparison of rarity be made relative to the length of time the products have been on the market?  Given enough time, an item will become rare even with a low attrition rate.

Assuming the survival rates of Fazzle and Silver Ann are what Tyson stated (approx 87% an 60%, respectively), this is what the remaining numbers look like after comparable periods on the market:

[ Image ]

Relative to length of time on the market, the signed Silver Ann is rarer than Fazzlewood.

I pulled the 60% figure outta my ass, actually.  It's just for comparative purposes.  I think it's even higher. ;)  

There are many forces at work.  A rare item's "survival rate" should actually increase as it becomes rare and gains notoriety, pulling the average up.  The rates are variable and too hard to calculate with accuracy, so the average is just that, an average.  Unless 13% of the Fazzle owners out there are planning on lighting their copies on fire this year...what, no takers?  :lol:

It may well be the case in another 20 years or so that the Easleys are rarer, and it would seem maybe as low as 10.  Finding the "precise" date of crossover, given the numbers I used, is possible but extremely unlikely to be correct.

 YIM  
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