serleran wrote:The number of copies is not less than 500.

Care to put an approximate figure on it?
Greater than 600?

Well, it seems to be greater that 500 and less that 700.

Grognard wrote:When the news broke that GG had pulled the license from TLG, I figured there would have been a mad rush by both casual gamers and collectors to get as many copies as they could, considering the price was really low compared to the quality and quantity of material included in CZ:UW. I would have guessed at least a few thousand were snatched up before the deadline for TLG to pulp the rest came and went.

However, I'd think if there were thousands of copies they'd be more widely available (at whatever price). Not everyone is a reseller, and there are always people who aren't impressed with any given product and simply want to get their money back on it, or who don't know that the thing might actually be a bit valuable. But it seems pretty scare to me over the last few months, with comparatively few copies available for any price.

Serl already indicated less that 700 in an earlier post.
Now he's indicated greater than 500. That's how we're narrowing it down.
That already makes it rarer that Rappan Athuk Reloaded for a remarkably recent publication. Your purchases, damaged as the boxes are, are probably worth over $100 each at the moments. Of those  reading this thread, we are probably accounting for maybe 70-80 copies stock piled in small quants (well, except for JZ). If the bulk of the balance went to GH fans and C&C fans as earlier adoptors, I doubt we'll ever see many of these on eBay in the future. A couple of dozen a year at the moment as people cash in on the early price hike. But they'll disappear quickly enough. I agree, we could see $500 a piece on mint copies within 5 years. Only a reprint will cap the price of this boxed set in the long term.

Are you Grognard of 'Castle of the Mad Archmage' blog?

Imagine if CZ:UW was published with Necromancer Games' quality and production instead of TLG's.
As a collectable, TLG's poor manufacture and cheap printing make for a good price spread eventually between mint and non-mint copies.

Quantity that sells is in my interest to stay low as I am an investor.

Runs contrary to the ethos of gaming though, as the majority of these end up with people who will either not use it due to rarity or not use it as they are just investors/resellers. Be willing to bet that of the hundreds sold, only 10-20% will be plaid with, and less that 40% will ever be read.

That's a damn shame, and one an official PDF would remedy.

. wrote:Quantity that sells is in my interest to stay low as I am an investor.

Runs contrary to the ethos of gaming though, as the majority of these end up with people who will either not use it due to rarity or not use it as they are just investors/resellers. Be willing to bet that of the hundreds sold, only 10-20% will be plaid with, and less that 40% will ever be read.

That's a damn shame, and one an official PDF would remedy.

Well, count me in the 10% list then.

I read EVERTHING I buy.
Unless its SWed, in which case I either already had one opened, or plan to soon.
Well,  almost never buy SWed items anyway so that does not matter much and seldom affects my choices.

I hope to play with everything (Gaming related) I buy too.

And I will either PLAY with my only copy of Upper Works or PDF the stuff and then play with the PDF copy.

I stumbled onto two copies.  I opened one, which I'll read, and hopefully use.  The other I'll hold and look to trade for something else juicy that I want.

Rather than start a new thread I just though I would hijack this one to point everyone to a very interesting article by Gygax that mentions the original Greyhawk Castle.  James over on his Grognardia blog points to this old European Wargaming zine called Europa:

http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/oldzi ... opa6-8.pdf

Be patient as it is a little slow.

Anyways this is from April 75, and Gygax's article on running a campaign is found on pages 18-20.  Related to this thread is that he describes the original 13 levels of Castle Greyhawk as it existed at the time.    I was just wondering since I don't have Upper Works if anyone could comment on a comparison.  Is there anything mentioned by Gary in the article that bears any resemblance to Upper Works?  For example it is mentioned that lvl2 contained a "Nixie Pool" & "a Fountain of Snakes", so is there anything like that on lvl2 of Upper Works, or on any level for that matter.

The info in the Europa article aligns with the materials I've read about the original Castle Greyhawk, although there are several new details in there that I hadn't read before (yay! ).  

The first level in Upper Works also matches the original level 1 map pretty well:  it's larger, but is pretty close in design to the original level 1 map, just made a bit less boring (Gary commented in some of his pieces that the original level 1 map wasn't a really good design, and I agree).  

So, based on that, I'm hopeful that the other level maps would have been at least clearly-based on the originals in some cases.  Pure speculation on my part, of course....

Ak'Ptui wrote:I was just wondering since I don't have Upper Works if anyone could comment on a comparison.  Is there anything mentioned by Gary in the article that bears any resemblance to Upper Works?  For example it is mentioned that lvl2 contained a "Nixie Pool" & "a Fountain of Snakes", so is there anything like that on lvl2 of Upper Works, or on any level for that matter.

The Upper Works only includes level 1 of the dungeons, Stephen.  Level 1 does include a room with a giant snake, but not the fountain of snakes, for example.  A few details were mentioned in Upper Works about deeper levels/side levels, but I'd have to go back to remember what they were (I probably mention them in my review, or at least I hope I did:  that'll be a lot easier to read than the box set over again ).