Well, here I am, back after three years... that sets some kind of record for not responding promptly. The Net-Nannies where i work blocked all access to "prohibited sites" (I think they think any site that mentions 'gaming' is an internet gambling site, but they don't explain these things). SO that cut me off from the Acaenum and a lot of other places. I have found a way to get back in her tonight (it may not last) but here is an answer for Zodiak and one for Ethesis.
Zodiak-
I'm sorry this is probably far too late to help with your dissertation
I think I can safely say that none of us knew anything at all about hobby gaming in Germany in 1966. I like your glass D100; it appears to be a rounded bi-truncated octahedron, one of the shapes that already existed when I was telling Lou Zocchi that it would be "impossible to make a D10, because the Ancient Greeks proved there are only the five regular polyhedra (D4, D6, D8, D12 and
D20 and there ain't ever going to be any others"
Boy was I smart!
Ethesis-
There is an episode of "The Good Neighbors" (AKA "The Good Life') a BBC TV comedy where Tom Good is using an ordinarly six-sided pencil for a dice in a solitare game of imaginary Cricket. It appears that British school boys have been doing this for at least the last 50 years... You make one dot on the frist face, two on the second and so on, to get a replacement for a D6.
There are many advantages to using pencils for dice:
1) If the teacher searches you, he doesn't find a pair of dice (a sure Caning Offense for gambling) but just two pencils
2) You can put different numbers on the six faces for special purposes, like averaging dice or messages like "sticky wicket" or "touchdown" or "50 GP" as needed for different games.
Pencils are cheap, so you can have a bunch of them labeled for different purposes (monster generation, treasures, hit dice, etc)
3) And they are very un-fair dice, but stood on the pointed end and spun, they are probably impossible to control.
-DAW
