It actually looks like a valuable lot.  But then, the prices on fanzines are hard to figure out....why are some valuable while others are not?

Mark  

They are definitely worth picking up - Had a load of them 'back in the day' and they were generally very good stuff (Beholder was streets ahead of most of the UK fanzine stuff, and the UK produced a LOT of fanzines!).
As for value - who knows - The only thing I'm sure of is my current bid won't be the winning one (Though I'd be happy to be wrong! )

An interesting part of the collecting psychosis....

If someone else wants it, that makes me want it.  This must be the way that women feel about each other's boyfriends.

Mark  

MShipley88 wrote:I wonder why Britain produced so many fanzines?

Smaller...closer community?  (A Londoner might buy a fanzine made in Devonshire, for instance...while California is impossibly far away from Washington?)

Was there already an established small-press market?
I wonder....?

Fanzines were certainly very well established in other fields over here (music, soccer, SF&F - including fanzine editors such as Arthur C. Clarke from the 1930s onwards, wargaming, etc.), so it was an obvious tradition to continue.

Perhaps the surprise is that they took so long to become established for RPGs in the UK. In that context, it's difficult to determine whether TBH acted as a deterrant to others, or as an inspiration eventually (to challenge).

Yes, I think geography is a factor. There were definitely local 'flavors' but the whole was sufficiently tightly-knit and had a ready co-ordinator in the form of Games Workshop/White Dwarf; not just for ads, but also on distribution.
Of course, the prozines backstabbed us in the end.

faro wrote:

MShipley88 wrote:I wonder why Britain produced so many fanzines?

Smaller...closer community?  (A Londoner might buy a fanzine made in Devonshire, for instance...while California is impossibly far away from Washington?)

Was there already an established small-press market?
I wonder....?

Fanzines were certainly very well established in other fields over here (music, soccer, SF&F - including fanzine editors such as Arthur C. Clarke from the 1930s onwards, wargaming, etc.), so it was an obvious tradition to continue.

Perhaps the surprise is that they took so long to become established for RPGs in the UK. In that context, it's difficult to determine whether TBH acted as a deterrant to others, or as an inspiration eventually (to challenge).

Yes, I think geography is a factor. There were definitely local 'flavors' but the whole was sufficiently tightly-knit and had a ready co-ordinator in the form of Games Workshop/White Dwarf; not just for ads, but also on distribution.
Of course, the prozines backstabbed us in the end.

i think another thing might have been that these kinda zines were established around the colleges and universities. as they are all pretty close together too, you always had a good "client" base so to speak and easy to sell them, whereas the US is far more spread and so zines prb couldnt be established to the same degree as they could in the UK.

Al

I think distance had something to do with it.  Gaming groups at the University of Washington and Washington State...even though in the same state...are hundreds of miles apart and large sections of regional culture apart.  Oxford and Cambridge, by comparison, seem to almost share a campus (from an American point of view).

What I have seen of British gaming products also leads me to suspect that UK consumers were more likely to buy amateur publications that were less professional and more open to content that seems wierd to Americans.  I suspect that the slicker, professional publications just appealed more to American teenagers.

Mark  

faro wrote:And had the run been less complete you might've picked them up for a reasonable price: single copies of TBH are still going for a couple of pounds whilst other stuff has been getting silly; and many of these will be later reprint copies, too, judging by the #1.
However, that run is nearly complete (judging by previous auctions, people pay a premium not a discount for that, as they might with Dragons, say!) and does have 26,28,29 which are rather sought after, regardless of condition.

OK, I've received a reply from the seller: unable to post that on the auction, apparently...
As expected, they're almost all reprints and the condition is so-so at best. A bit of mustiness and water-spotting on quite a few in addition to some annotations in pencil, biro on one cover, etc.

(Even if I might need one of the TBH/TAS issues and research into the reprints would be interesting, I'm passing).

Mars wrote:Not knowing much about these fanzines ... are reprints all that terrible?  It seems to me that auctions for originals or reprints are rare.  Is there a large difference in number printed or the actual printing dates (between the originals and the reprints)?

TBH is relatively common: I'd suspect that the total print runs for many/most/all core issues (1-25) was into four figures.
First print runs alone for later issues were 700-800ish, IIRC, with a high ratio of survivors.

IMO, reprints are still worth noting even if most people probably aren't too bothered about any difference from a 'value' p.o.v... although I do recall at least one late reprint #1 go for way too much. i.e. at least two people followed the usual 'earliest is most valuable' idiom, unaware that the actual print date was actually after #29.
Reprinting went on for several years after the run finished. I can't recall the actual date I dug out (?1983/4ish) and the 'search' function isn't finding my previous post on that.

So long as the water damage and mustiness isn't anything more than that, those currently up will make good reading copies. And plenty of decent content therein.
60-70 pounds would be about max. 'value', IMHO, despite those TBH/TAS issues being rarer.

Fifth Frontier War.  6 days, 10 hours.
Traveller GDW: Science Fiction | eBay

The Lonely Mountain, *unpunched*.  14 hours.
1984 Candyland Game | eBay