I've seen the general pricing info on the site. I'm interested in figuring out what grade this is (I'm always terrible at that).

I was just looking over the printing info for the Player's Handbook, and realized I have what is called a 'true first' copy here. No corner banner, title in the lower-middle of the cover, white endpapers.

It's in really bad shape though. The corners are all worn white (i.e., no ink left), with three getting down to the cardboard. Also, there are 'bubbles' under the surface of the cover material. The spine is in good shape (other than the corners). I can provide scans/photos in a bit to better show what shape it's in.

There's also another thing: This is a misprinted copy. there is no printing at all on pages 2-3, 6-7, 10-11, and 14-15. Presumably one side of the first signature didn't get printed. I don't know if that makes it more or less valuable.

How I have this: My dad (Don Lowry), had a small game wholesale business in the mid-70s (Lowry Enterprises), that handled TSR (among other companies like AH). Since this copy was a misprint, it was never sold; I'm not sure why it wasn't returned or something. When I got into AD&D in the late '80s, I inherited it (getting photocopies of the missing pages from other people).

It's tempting, but I have plenty of other memorabilia from that era if it comes down to it. (Like a well-loved copy of Fight In the Skies that you're not even going to pry out of my cold dead hands.) I'm not much of a collector when it comes down individual printing matters. I'd rather have a copy that had all the pages printed, frankly.

No writing in it. Any writing would have been done by me, and I just can't do that to poor innocent books.

I think my dad still had a number of Ironclads and a few Grand Armys until a few years ago, when he sold some and pitched the rest in a move. So, no real 'spares' of anything anymore. Just a number of oddities that the both us still have.

faro wrote:*lol* That's a cue for a dozen offers, no doubt?

Well, I'm figuring to buy a more recent copy with part of the proceeds of this, but if someone made an offer that included one, that'd be fine.

faro wrote:Never even tempted to color in that Monster Manual, eh? ^^

Nope. All the coloring I did was in my DMG (which is a yellow-spine, no real collector value there), which was my favorite volume.

Sorry for the delays, been busy.

First, some answers to Mars' questions. I was too young to remember Guidon Games (we were down to the magazine and mail-order business in my memories), but my dad had a few things to say:

Don Lowry wrote:Aaron Leeder is the guy that got most of our remaining inventory not long before we moved here (which was in '01).  I have had a request or two for Ironclads since then but only have my personal copy.  Think I have 2 personal copies of Grand Army -- one I used and 1 primo.

Re Fight in the Skies -- as I recall, we did it in boxes for a while, then ran out of boxes and went to envelopes or bags.  I don't remember the order of things.  Don't think the content was ever changed, tho.

I don't recall doing more than 1 version of Tractics, but maybe we did.  Too long ago.  I do remember it was a constant hassle keeping all the data sheets in print.  Those were the days when I printed everything myself in our basement in Evansville.  Maybe his later edition is a TSR version?

I recall him mentioning that Fight in Skies had a mounted board at one point, but it was hard to do and expensive, so it was dropped along with the boxes.

One thing to keep in mind, is that my dad had his own printing press. (I have no memory of it.) So, issues 53-56 (or 7 or 8 not sure) of Panzerfaust, and all the Guidon products, were done on that press. So as one component ran out it would get reprinted, and then the next component, when that ran out. I can remember him commenting that no matter what he did, there would be spares of some component.

The exception would be the maps for Atlanta (and maybe the other games, but that's the only one I've seen). Those were not done on the press, and after everything else was gone there was a stack of those left that were put to various uses (like using the backsides for Star Web maps).