I was wondering what you were getting at there.. then I looked at the pic..

Brette:)

SimperingToad wrote:What of that third module on the product list? Was that ever put into production?

From the Research section of the Acaeum Library:

Daystar West Eye of the Dragon.  Another Daystar West module, Eye of the Dragon[/b], was planned but never produced.  The Hickmans did, however, run off five hundred copies of the planned cover, which put them in a significant financial hole -- prompting them to make arrangements with TSR for the sale of Pharaoh, Rahasia, and Ravenloft.  The Hickmans apparently still have all copies of this module cover in storage at their home.  Thanks to David Smith for this info.  This research item is closed, but will remain here for trivia purposes.

Ah, another place on the Acaeum I saw once a time ago, and forgot about. Thanks!

mbassoc2003 wrote:IIRC Tracy posted a while back in his DF thread that he'd come across the original cover and artwork in a drawer.

Soon to end up in Tharizdun's collection, no doubt.  

Just a look at it would satisfy my curiosity.

I'm glad the contents survived, but those poor boxes!  

SimperingToad wrote:Aaaannnd...

Yet another one. $1800 BIN. Someone was watching.


** expired/removed eBay auction **

the problem with such an edition is that literally anybody can make it -- the binding, the cover you can get where i live in any copy shop.



correct me if i'm wrong, because i don't collect the "ancestral" rpg modules, but weren't all 1970s / very early 1980s third-party publications effectively photocopies (one master script and the retail copies [bleh, pun] copied from it)?



my point being that you can produce a "mint condition" specimen at very low cost -- i'm not saying that this is the case here, but it would be less of a problem than, say, copy some earky d&d product with color cover art etc. not to mention the possible profit, so caution is advised.

cameosis wrote:
the problem with such an edition is that literally anybody can make it -- the binding, the cover you can get where i live in any copy shop.

correct me if i'm wrong, because i don't collect the "ancestral" rpg modules, but weren't all 1970s / very early 1980s third-party publications effectively photocopies (one master script and the retail copies [bleh, pun] copied from it)?

my point being that you can produce a "mint condition" specimen at very low cost -- i'm not saying that this is the case here, but it would be less of a problem than, say, copy some earky d&d product with color cover art etc. not to mention the possible profit, so caution is advised.

There are some past threads here on this topic.  Although it might appear that it is easy to reproduce a duplicate of some of the early modules, the forger would find that they would have very little chance of getting away with it, especially multiple forgeries.  Very few of these modules exist so to pull off a forgery at least the following conditions would need to exist:

1. The would-be crook would have to have access to an original in good enough shape to duplicate.
2. The would-be crook would have to have a fairly extensive knowledge of the module's provenance in order to duplicate.
3. The would-be crook would have to have access to papers and materials which are probably no longer produced or at least are hard to obtain.
4. The would-be crook would have to reproduce a copy using technologies that are not easy to come by today.  A simple photocopy would more than likely be fairly obvious.
5. The would-be crook would need to have some skill at antiquing, since a fresh, spanking new copy would be very suspect, especially if there was more than one.
6. The would-be crook could not easily mass produce, since it would be diffucult to "launder" the resulting goods to a very small, fairly knowledgeable, and skeptical group of people.
7. The would-be crook would probably not make a lot of money on the endeavor and the risk would probably outweigh the effort spent.  Testament to this would be the fact that virtually no *discovered* forgeries have popped up over time for any of the rare items.

That being said, it is always best to purchase a rare collectible off of someone who is known to the community, reputable, and has some provenance on the item.  That will increase the odds that an authentic original has been acquired.  If there is any doubt, or if an individual wants to feel more secure in their purchase, it would be advisable to have the item "authenticated" by experienced role-playing community members, such as those that frequent The Acaeum.

It's a scam best worked with an accessible mid-range collectible like The Phantastical Phantasmagorical Montie Haul Dungeon, from Gamelords, as we have already seen happen.

Even Noble Knight Games was innocently selling these fakes not all that long ago.

There is less initial outlay and it is easier to produce a good number of the fakes.

Hell, we've even seen fakes in the miniatures market. Remolds of the original RP Battletech mechs have been being knocked out by some guy in the US for years now. They're crap quality in terms of sculpture and the alloy quality, but second hand miniatures are hard to come by, and the new ones from Iron Wind Metals just don't compare to the original Ral Partha sculpts.