There is probably some info here about it too since it looks like it is from the Steve Marsh auctions held by The Collector's Trove.

Reading through the related forums, I think there has been enough light shed on this item and it has been determined what it actually is - not the American Gothic manuscript.

It is also another item from the InvincibleOverlord collection that was initially purchased for $178 which is probably a bit high for what it is.

mbassoc2003 wrote:I seem to remember signage reaching the market in a similar way. Anyone know what's going on?

This is the same seller that sold the TSR sign so I would guess the seller is legit.  As to how clueless he is - no idea.

mbassoc2003 wrote:The real question is, is the product deffinately from IO?

It is an item that IO won (back in 2005) and like the sign seems to have gone to one of the members of his group.  I'm guessing IO didn't give the info for each item as they were dispersed.

Seller has a lot of Runequest items with no bids so far at 9.99 ending in the next hour or so. Might be some decent buys for someone on here.



eBay listings?

Faster, Pussycat wrote:
This is the letter in the pic I think:

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/docs/ms-amer ... cation.pdf

Looks like Paul Stormberg incorrectly thought this was something much more than what it actually was.  Subsequent discussion here and at Y-S.com cleared the matter up - but his letter remains and may have misled the seller.  Or, (to be cynical), he knows full well that this is something different, but is using that letter to try and dupe a buyer. Though I see no reason to assume an ill motive.



This may be the text... (?)

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/docs/ms-amer ... re-coc.pdf

I would say so.  

Maybe worth $30. This is a random MS with no relation to anything of any import, a description written by a school girl, a photo taken on a mobile phone, and a free PDF of the whole auction available in the public domain. $300 is just a fantasy. Maybe they could get it to $80 or so if they read a few books on selling stuff on eBay and buy a $100 camera.

Some people have no idea.  

Well worth downloading and storing away for those who have never bought an unpublished manuscript. It's a good freebie seing as the original sold for $175. It gives you a good idea of what you get when you buy manuscripts (all be it a small one), and should put all but the most scholarly and rich off venturing into that domain.

For Improv, if you're still lurking, here's a good little titbit addon for your copy of City of the Revenant (Cupric Text and all that). Probably not worth buying  the original even with the tie in tou your existing manuscript(s), but the free PDFs are well worth archiving along with them.

ScketreWhisp® wrote:I know it's not worth $300, probably not even $50.00

But it needs to be taken off the market... the "provenance" page needs to be destroyed and the pages sent to the person that has the rest of the documents it goes with...

That is my intent.

Please don't bid on the item. I placed a bid and hope it goes for the $300.00 so it can be done with. Yes the seller gets more money than it's ever worth, but it's for a good reason.

I am not even a Cthulhu fan, but I don't see anyone else willing to throw $300.00 at it to get it corrected so I'll see what I can do ...

Good idea. Destroying the provenance page will solve the problem for future collectors, and we can have Steve authenticate it himself if he has the time (Since he's still up in Plano I believe)...perhaps it will end up at the NTRPG auction next year (unless Doug wants it for himself) with the "new" authentication.

Mike B.

Howdy All,

Faster, Pussycat wrote:Looks like Paul Stormberg incorrectly thought this was something much more than what it actually was.

Actually, it was the Cthulhu fanbase that thought this was something much more than it actually was.

I had this original, typed, partial ms. from Steve, along with 1000's of other sheets all jumbled together. When I asked Steve what this was he told me about American Gothic and how the manuscript contained many of the original concepts of the game, many developed hand-in-hand with Sandy Peterson. He also told me it was pre-Call of Cthulhu. All of that is accurate. However, that is not the whole story.

The manuscript is actually an installment of his ongoing mini-fanzine, The Cupric Text (a nod to Steve's City of of the Revenaunt campaign), that ran in The Wild Hunt (IIRC).

The ms. sold for about $40 and was water under the bridge for the D&D collecting community. Then a few days after, the Call of Cthulhu fanbase discovered the ended auction and were bemoaning the fact that they had missed out on something they thought was "important". They talked it up quite a bit and even tendered some buy-out offers to Invincible Overlord in the hundreds of dollars range.

Then it came to light what the original ms. really was: a fanzine article by Steve containing some concepts of American Gothic. Still, the ms. is pre-Call of Cthulhu and it does contain developmental concepts from American Gothic. The critical missing bit of information is that it is an original ms. for Steve's The Cupric Text, mini-fanzine.

It turned out that the 1st page of the ms. was accidentally mixed into another collection of mss. Thus, the discovery of my oversight. The error was mine and I failed to connect the dots on this particular item. Had I pressed Steve further, or had a collection of The Wild Hunt, I may have come to a more accurate identification.

When I offered to buy it back from Invincible Overlord he politely declined and said he would hang on to it, feeling the purchase price was equal to it's value. Simply adding "from Mini-fanzine, The Cupric Text 1977" to the Letter of Authentication would clarify the matter.

You'll note that the Authentication Letter has my contact information on it so that these sorts of things can be verified. To date no one has contacted me about this item, although I have sent a note to the seller.


Futures Bright,

Paul

I remember when that item was discussed on the Yog-Sothoth forum.
The excitement was fueled when Sandy Petersen commented on the item with the following quote:

So you could consider this the alpha version of CoC.