I guess I fancy myself as one, although I do collect TSR items mostly.  I think the underlying reason why you don't see many of these items is as you mentioned, they were not popular in most cases, and quite honestly not well written or pictorally presented a lot of the time.  In addition, just like in the early days of TSR, there usually isn't a lot of cash floating around to produce mega quantities.  I myself grabbed up a few things in the early day primarily out of curiosity at various hobby shops that would bother to carry them (another issue - distribution!!!.  Most of these obscure products were localized to one particular area).  In my case some of these items were either disposed of to make room for more "important" items or, if they were decent, stuffed away into some dark recess and forgotten about.

Early White Dwarf!  Starstone!

I don't see how what NN briefly posted early white dwarf and starstone is relevant to a topic about non tsr collectors......  Feel free to introduce yourself nn and tell us about yourself.

Starstone by Northern Sages is the best non-tsr adventure ive found.

 The best non tsr adventure? I'm going to have to pick up a copy then and see how it is.  Do you have CH2 Seren Ironhand? I hear that its very well written and James Sinks wrote on Afterglos Non Tsr page that its the best adventure. Perhaps pick up a copy for yourself and let me know how it compares to Starstone.  3000 is a fairly small print run and as you can guess its pretty hard to find in the US. I'd bet there are much less than 3000 copies now due to age, wear and tear, people throwing away collections, etc.

Seren Ironhand was made by Challenges International. Search for a copy, it shouldn't be too hard to find or perhaps maybe someone can lend you a copy or their could be a pdf file. Either way when you get it, let me know how it compares to Starstone.  I'm going to get starstone just to see what the fuss about it is

White Dwarf was an awesome magazine. It introduced me to a few other UK magazines: Adventurer, GameMaster Publications, Imagine, and Tortured Souls!  I ended up collecting WD 1-99 and the specials.  Issue 100 and beyond, WD became a "house" magazine for Games Workshop  I miss the Thrud the Barbarian cartoon.  Not sure what issues Thrud was published after 100??

Although inactive at the time, I still would call myself a non-TSR collector. It is both interesting to see that one can a) locate very rare items for a good price (ever got a 1000-print-run-TSR-thingie for 10 dollars?) and b) wait an eternity or two until a specific item is auctioned.   I agree that White Dwarf before #100 was the best magazine around. Curiously, these are (were?) not that expensive in the UK, I got almost  all of my WDs, Imagines and so on from various sources in England,  and the only Imagine issue I spent more than $5 on was #1... maybe searching Ebay UK can be of help.

well his web page address is and hangover is also his nic  Good to see you back Matthias   Brette:)

No, not hiding.   I just never really felt comfortable with Ebay and when   a) the newsgroup auctions vanished  b) the exchange rate to the Dollar worsened every week (at peak prices last year I would have had to pay 60% more in German currency than in 1995/96) and c) prices for almost everything went through the ceiling,   I took a little time off this hobby. However, I have not lost interest, and will stay among you.   I even promise you to do some updates to the page over the coming weeks. There is a little bit of interesting stuff in my e-mail...