PM-Knight wrote:
Deimos,

I have a fair 4th print DMG that I would be willing to send you, but the spine "edges" have separated from the book itself. The actual back spine is still there, but is somewhat "unattached" as well. In fact, I can see the stitching and the two staples, but no evidence of yellow-orange paper. I will PM you to see if you want me to send you this poor, sick, and dying creature .

Hope this Helps,

It does indeed!  The very fact that it has staples (are you sure there aren't three, by the way?) would suggest it's been rebound.  I feel sort of silly that I hadn't thought to check for staples.  

Considering that the only printing in desperate need of being rebound at this point would be the "Third Alpha", and it adds weight to the theory that the current 4th is truly the "Third Gamma".  Still, the only way to tell for certain is to find bits of the original yellow endpapers.

More importantly, it's easier to find people willing to check their copies for the existence of staples.  If several 4th-owners can run a bar magnet over their spines (or whatever) and confirm their presence, that'd be useful.

Is the trivial amount of information you get from destroying multiple DMG's more important than new players (or even old players) being able to more easily acquire a DMG?

It seems a bit frivolous, but no one's going to stop you. And you have every right.

But purposeful destruction of a book, no matter what book, seems wrong. It's like throwing trash on a beach or chopping down a rare tree in the forest. At least the tree might grow back. A tragedy of the commons.

Brickman wrote:It's like throwing trash on a beach or chopping down a rare tree in the forest.

Um ... actually, it's not like that at all.    

Xaxaxe wrote:Um ... actually, it's not like that at all.    

So if there were 500,000 of a particular tree left -- there are enough to chop down still. Ah. I get it.

You gotta crack a few eggs to make lemonade...

Edit: Nevermind. Point already made. Next subject, please ...

deimos3428 wrote:If I thought anybody could use them, yes.  I imagine that's highly unlikely.  I don't think anybody would be willing to pay the cost of postage after they've been so repaired, but if there's interest, I'll offer them to the community.  Also, I'm not skilled in the art of book restoration, so it'll be an amateur job.  

I'll even autograph them if you like.  

There must be thousands of 1st edition DMGs still floating around...Deimos could feed every copy he ever found to his pet goat, and it wouldn't dent the world supply at all. I still see shelves full of these things whenever I shop at Half Price Books.  There are probably three of these to everyone still playing 1st edition out there...

Mike B.

deimos3428 wrote:Also, I'm not skilled in the art of book restoration, so it'll be an amateur job.  

I'll even autograph them if you like.  

Mark them "Test Subject xxx, Experiment yyy" so they can be tracked once they are released into the wild.  

gyg wrote:Deimos - when you're done you can still selling the scraps bit by bit - like this chap is tring to do


** expired/removed eBay auction **

The man's a genius, I tell ya.



I suppose the project is due for an update, for those curious:



Prep:  I obtained one suitable subject and dissected it carefully over a large sheet of white paper (to catch anything that might fall out -- and there was a lot!.)  Deconstruction was fairly simple and neat, as the spine had already taken some heavy wear.



Method:  Despite this, the stitching was still very solid and I de-looped the stitches one-by-one, very carefully.  These books don't go down without a fight, it took perhaps two hours to completely take it apart.  There were also two staples which were extracted, made of some ferrous metal.  (These were much smaller than those found in the rebound 2nd.)



Conclusions:  I was rather disappointed in that I can't conclusively state anything.  Considering that I'm looking for something that might not exist at all, it's not all that unusual that I didn't find it -- but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.



I did learn that one of the previous owners had an orange cat.  A lot of "debris" came out, but nothing resembling yellow end-paper bits.  A few interesting fragments and fibers of undetermined origin, and a lot of dust and hair.  I learned a lot about the book-binding process, as well.



Further Analysis:  I intend on obtaining a small microscope and analyzing the fragments I did recover, to see what leads that might provide.  I'd also like to take a look at the stitching itself.  There appears to be several strands of fiber unrelated to the stitching.  The stitching itself went through the endpapers neatly, (unlike on the rebound 2nd beta? where it dodges them entirely) and it's difficult to ascertain if it might have gone through the pages themselves twice, as would have to occur with a rebinding.  (The holes looked slightly larger than those through the endpapers, but not much.)



A lot of measurement remains to be taken for reference, when I can find the time.  I regret not taking photos throughout the process, something I'll remember for the next subject.  I feel at this point, less subjects will be required to abandon the theory.  Perhaps 2-5 more.