Dang...  Did y'all catch the 3rd edition items today? Most brought in at least $100. Obviously the most expensive 3rd edition items from what I have seen.  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 3126839766  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 3126840614  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... egory=2545  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 3126841384

WOW! Some crazy prices! I see that scott bidded on some items but yet he didn't update the website.......  Now I know why Devon isn't interested in buying my items.....he spent all his money on those!

So are those pre pub 3rd ed items the "holy grails" of 3rd edition items??? I've never seen any 3rd ed items go that high though I shouldn't be surprised when burnie bids! He always goes high.

I was thinking about this string and which 3E items might obtain some collectable status and came up with the oversized 3E adventure game (TSR11951).  This item almost is exactly like the smaller version of the 3E adventure game (TSR11641) but was sent to stores for mostly display and demo purposes. This means it had a small print run, most were opened, and because of its larger size it is more prone to damage  (box size: 28.5cmx40cmx4.5cm)  Thoughts? Any others that someone can think of?   Cheers, Curt

One other which I had forgotten is the spcially printed copy of the 3E player's handbooks which indicated their owner's name in gold. This was a limited print as a gift for those people directly involved in the creation of 3E. Probably only around 100 were printed and each is unique.  Cheers, Curt

Yes Curt is correct. Anyone with direct process with the creation of 3rd Edition recieved one. I can't remeber if it was only the PHB that was monogrammed with the name or the DMG too.
I didn't get one of these, but I did get a monogrammed SWRPG. It was a very nice gift for all the hard work we did for these products.

I have a set identical to yours.  I also have an unbound set consisting of 15 chapters.  Pages are numbered "1 of _", each chapter is numbered individually and the following statement at the bottom of each page:

"CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION   PROPERTY OF TSR, INC.  (C)1999 TSR, INC.
DISSEMINATION TO UNAUTHORIZED VIEWERS IS A VIALATION OF LAW"

Chapetrs are as follows:

Chapter 0  Character Creation Summary - last page 1 of 1
Chapter 1  Glossary  -  last page 5 of 5
Chapter 2  Ability Scores  -  last page 7 of 6
Chapter 3  Races  -  last page 6 of 5
Chapter 4  Classes  -  last page 45 of 42
Chapter 5  Skills and Heroic Feats  -  last page 57 of 51
Chapter 6  Character Details  -  last page 5 of 5
Chapter 7  Equipment  -  last page 24 of 23
Chapter 8  Rewards  -  last page 6 of 5
Chapter 9*  Combat Basics  -  last page 35 of 32
Chapter 10  The Enviroment  -  last page 11 of 11
Chapter 11  Magic  -  last page 16 of 15
Chapter 12  Spells (Spell Lists) -  last page 10 of 9
                 Spells (Spell Descriptions)  -  last page 179 of 165
Chapter 13  Monster Manual  -  last page 45 of 38
Chapter 14  Magical Items  -  last page  7 of 6
Chapter 15  Sample Characters and blank character sheet  -  10 unnumbered pages
Errata 30 March 1999  -  64 unnumbered pages

*2: Combat Basics is the heading for Chapter 9 but the headers for each page of the chapter is "Chapter 9: Combat"

My copy of the PHB seems identical to Cernunnos's but dated one day earlier, 5/3/00. It has the light blue cover indicating "PLAYERS HANDBOOK 0". All the books (PHB, DMG, & MM) were created with both the black tape binding (what ever it is called) and spiral bound.

Copies that have illustrations were basically final drafts before they went to print and should have very little if any difference from the final print copy. The non-illustration versions are older and will have variations from the final print copy as rules were modified and the documents were edited.  

As these were all draft documents you will find that there is quite a lot of variation between copies (printing dates, printing styles, etc.).

Cheers,
Curt