bclarkie wrote:Everytime you masterbate, Deimos3428 kills a DMG, please think of the DMG's...

DungeonDelver wrote:That's insane.  Despite the going opinion people actually still, y'know, PLAY 1st edition AD&D and I'd like to be able to point those who are interested in doing so at online resources where they can buy a physical copy of the book still.

Not everyone is in this for rares to vacuum seal and put into a safety deposit box where it will appreicate to one meeeelion dollars.

bclarkie wrote:
This isn't in the name of money at all.     This is simply a research item to find out the print sequence of the DMG as it was.  If Paul's suspicions are confirmed through further research, then the monetary value of a fourth print DMG(or 3rd Gamma or whatever it ends up as) is likely to increase the value of it to the princely sum of......$0.  Since EGG's memory is unreliable at best, particularly in this type of situation, things like this need to happen in order to find out the facts, unless of course you offering a better way to handle it.

deimos3428 wrote:If Frank (or anyone else) has any information on the subject, I'm all ears, of course.  However, I don't think Frank was at TSR when this printing was made.  In any event, 28 year old anecdotal evidence isn't very reliable or sufficient for this sort of thing, regardless of the source.  Memories fade.

I'm not surprised that the majority of Acaeum members polled would cringe at the thought of ever opening the spine of a book to gather information.  That's precisely why I'm doing it -- nobody else will, and I want to know.  If anyone knows of another way to resolve the matter, I'm definitely open to suggestions.

To specifically address DungeonDelver's highlighted concerns:

1.  Nobody's making a dime on this one.  I expect to be out of pocket $100-150 USD, perhaps more, and I may not even find out what I want to know.  Such is the price of research, sometimes.  I'm not asking others to contribute, but if they choose to do so, great.  I'll post whatever I find out when I find it out.

2.  There's no shortage of 1E DMGs out there.  Using admittedly quick math, 40,000 copies x 14 printings, we're talking 560,000 copies.  That's probably low; later printings would be greater in number, as the game gained in popularity in the 80s.  So there are likely millions of DMGs out there.  The effect on players, online resources, and available physical copies of the DMG will be unnoticably small.  I'm sure more perish in basement floods each month than I'll ever destroy -- and those ones don't give us any useful information, they just get soggy.

3.  If the hypothesis is proven, there may be a momentary rush for a newly verified "3rd Gamma" -- but it won't last long, given the number of available books involved.  A similar rush on the "True 1st" DMGs occurred when it was made known, and it has definitely subsided.

FormCritic wrote:What about...like...X-rays...like they use on mummies...or something?

DungeonDelver wrote:Let me ask you something, Demios - how "destroyed" will the books be once you're done?  And how distressed are they now?  Are we talking about volumes missing pages, whole sections colored in or stained beyond readability or what?

deimos3428 wrote:Well, its currently hypothetical as I currently have only one copy -- and it's in approximately "VG"; far too nice!

The ideal candidates would be trashed to begin with, except for their spines (which obviously need to be present and somewhat intact.).  I'll be opening the spine as surgically as possible, but it's unlikely they'll be of any future use once that's completed.  Being the packrat I am, they will be kept until Mrs. Deimos makes me recycle them, or I use the pages as packing material.