randomluck wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:

webrik33 wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:

Are the prices listed on this site for originals or photocopies?

The prices listed on the detailed Domesday Book page for the 9/12 auctions are all for Dave Arneson's personal copies.  I'm not sure about any of the other prices listed on the site.

The "estimated values" as currently given are presumably an extrapolation from the Dave Arneson copies (with some silly numbers in there) rather than including any of the other sales in the $600-2000ish range in recent history. Take as you will.

Grug Greyskin wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:

increment wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:I wouldn't be too hard on the seller. He's selling the estate of a guy who probably picked these up forty years ago from a few different sources, maybe buying the hole-punched ones all as a lot at some early GenCon, purchased from a guy who got a photocopy from someone who got a photocopy from Gary. No one attached any importance then to the distinction between an original or a copy, nor did anyone have the slightest inkling of the potential valuation of these items decades later. I certainly would not accuse the seller of dealing bootleg items.

I don't think he is intentionally trying to cheat anyone, as he clearly did not know what he had and could not have realized the value (the listing started at $9.95). At this point, however, I think he has some degree of obligation to make sure he is accurately listing the item. You can't stand behind "AS IS" on a potentially $10K auction lot.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Whatever their value maybe now, I do question what their value maybe in say 20 years time. What happens when the little knowledge of these types of items disappears?

faro wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:Just in case anyone recently splurged a few hundred dollars on Traveller 'zines, or was tempted to do so, heracleides on eBay is back to selling his (expensive) forgeries yet again. A couple of their most recent listings appear to have been rather too tempting...

They probably won't smell as new this time around.

I posted about this in the general discussion forum. I messaged him and he claims they are original but I didn't believe him.

webrik33 wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:So my dumb question of the day is which issues are the originals? And estimated value thereof? would the hole-punched copies carry any value at all?

my last minute bid didn't register!!!  
Congratulations to the winner    

How much is that per page?

grodog wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:

TheHistorian wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:How much is that per page?

I can't tell you that, since I don't know page counts, but at $1585.33 per issue, that's not too bad, really

Rob and I were discussing the issues at lunch, and I commented that I thought that they'd sell for about $14K ---good to see that my estimation skills are still on the money

We discussed how most of them are fakes. How can anyone ascribe values in the thousands of dollars for photocopies?? I see $14k for two real issues and old copies of the rest. No idea how you'd valuate these, your estimation skills aside.

Zenfinite

Bracton wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:I don't think it's fair to call them fakes.  I think three of them are likely "originals", meaning that they are as originally distributed, with an original cover.  The others appear to be vintage photocopies.  

Now, are the copies worth less than an "original"?  Sure.  But worthless?  That doesn't make sense to me.

My rough guess?  $3000 for each original, $1000 for each photocopy.  That takes you to $15,000.  So the buyer paid about the right price (though still more than I was willing to pay).

Vintage photocopies?
What is that?
So then the buyer could now photocopy all of them and sell a few sets of them for... umnnn..... lets say a bargain price of just $500 each issue (being modern copies instead of vintage photocopies, makes them worth half price perhaps?) and get all his money back and then some....
I say no to valuating ANY photocopies at $1000 each or modern copies at high prices either.
SLIPPERY SLOPE!
So then I could print copies of the Ultra Rare Greyhawk Papers (I scanned them before selling them) that I sold to a fellow member a few years ago and sell them for 1/4th of what he paid?
Seriously?
The implied justification that they MIGHT be really old (vintage) photocopies flys in the face of the ideals and practices of almost every collector here.
How many times have the leaders and high end collectors on this site blasted e-Bay sellers for doing that?
How many times have auctions been ended through the work of collectors on this site for that very reason?
IF that listing featured only 2 true originals, then the buyer paid $7,000 each for the two true original copies and the shipping costs was for the photocopies.

Gnat the Beggar wrote in Interesting Non-TSR Items Formerly on eBay:Vintage photocopies?
What is that?

Bracton's point is that the distinction between a photocopy and a distribution issue is not as clear as we would like it to be, for early periodicals. The means of photocopying and the means of production might not actually be different in some cases, and thus you have to rely on other forms of evidence to decide whether or not something is "original." We didn't make the slope slippery, it was slick enough to begin with.

As I said above in this thread, there is a very small set of people who have the expertise to make these judgments. I wouldn't be too hasty to denounce something as a worthless fake, as I do think it matters how and by whom the copies were made. There are a lot of anomalies and corner cases when you evaluate works produced as informally as the DB.

I will however concede that the eBay auction format pretty much deprives us of the information we need to make that evaluation before bidding, and thus going big on items like this is something of a coin toss. I don't know how much that uncertainty affected the outcome of the auction, though certainly some people sat this one out because of that doubt. I could imagine this having gone higher.

Unsurprisingly, Jon put the point far better than I did.

It is certainly possible that the copies were made by the subscriber, to just have extra copies.  That would indeed be, in my view, an item of very little value (other than the novelty of being able to read something where likely ten or fewer copies are in existence).  And, if that is how these copies came to be, Zen's and Gnat's objection to giving any real value to them absolutely makes sense.

That, however, was not my assumption, based upon the fact that duplicate originals were not being sold, along with Jon's earlier posts and the opinion of another Acaeum member much more experienced in evaluating these types of items than I.

As Jon suggested, the original distribution of the Domesdays often appear to have been done via photocopies, made by Gary or others in the C&C Society.  IF that is the case with these copies, then they are in effect originals, just without the color paper cover.  It is impossible to tell from the pictures in an eBay auction whether this may be the case, and without provenance it may be forever impossible to be sure either way.  That being said, a few members on this forum (myself certainly not included) may be able to look at the copies and make an educated guess as to whether they were in effect part of the original distribution.

If they were, then I stand by my valuation.