Zenopus wrote in J. Eric Holmes collection:Alexander: FYI, the cropped version of that photo of Holmes in the L.A. Times is captioned "Holmes with a few of his D&D Figures", and is credited as "Times photo by Tony Bernard". It was part of the article "Fantasy Life in a Game Without End" by Beth Ann Krier in the Los Angeles Times on July 11, 1979 (page H1). A scan of the article was originally posted on the Acaeum but a slightly cleaned up version can be read here.

That's really interesting  

Will be another week or 2 before I am going to have time to get anything out there.

Really looking forward to the details, the last couple of years have been great for game history.    Thank you for contributing to our collective awareness and not turning into a Gollum with Precious like ... oh, never mind.

Please let us know if you find anything really cool on Pellucidar, Burroughs correspondence (either estate or especially John Coleman), Peril or other drafts, notes on D&D psychology, the Conan draft, char sheets (Zereth?), Lovecraftian/Smith bits pertaining to Zenopus, Mythos variants, homebrew dungeons, mini battle maps, comics with possible inspirations 1974-1977, Skull Mountain bits, or (holy grail) clues on the nature of the Holmes Basic edit that might indirectly shed insight on the PHB draft and early AD&D design.

So much good stuff that might have survived.  And all the minis too!  

cabala wrote in J. Eric Holmes collection:I have to ask, but how in the hell do you even get a chance to purchase the "Holmes Collection" from his family. That in itself is interesting to me. Very cool.

I am a vintage toys & collectibles dealer in the same town where they live.

cabala wrote in J. Eric Holmes collection:
I design and build rockets for a living, which is very fun, but sometimes being a Vintage Toys and Collectibles dealer just sounds more fun!  :wink:

We get that in the shop quite a bit. Doing it on a professional level is much more work than most people realize. To me designing rockets sounds fun!

No idea.  I'm seeing a few interesting old minis on their eBay store though.
eBay listings

Any progress to share, Billy? How about some pics of whatever is sitting in those vast piles of miniatures? I'd love to see what resides in Holmes' lead collection! Also, any chance we'll see some eBay listings? Thanks

See my recent blog post:

At long last!

Part 1: "Dungeons & Dragons For Beginners", with an overview of the document & covering the title pages.