Shhhhh. No need to drive the prices up .

Likewise, there were a couple items I saw that didnt get listed that I was interested in.

Not that I anticipated winning.  The prices of the previous 2 sets of auctions + some or alot of the current "silliest price of the year" auction ends makes me curious to see how absurdly high some of these items end at.

Should make for some interesting popcorn theater at least.

misterspock wrote:Two things jumped out at me,

a cigar box was mentioned but I didn't see it on the ebay ... did someone back out of buying the last one, or is this a 2nd box?

previous listing mentioned here...
viewtopic.php?t=11103&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

another orange B3 also mentioned but not listed on Ebay

There's a bunch of stuff that hasn't yet been listed, I think. The Star Empires and Star Probe still haven't appeared (at least not as of an hour ago). A few new items have appeared today, I'm pretty sure (EDIT: Nope, the WG4 was the last listed, late last night), so it's probably just a matter of time (EDIT: Next Sunday? tonight?).

Re: the cigar box, I imagine there are at least a few more of these waiting in the wings. The description for the first one stated that it was identical to the one EGG actually used for dice, etc., but not the actual one used for that purpose. I bet we'll see one of these every time a round of EGG auctions comes around. When empty cigar boxes with no gaming-associated history go for $130+ (or whatever the 1st went for) apiece, you've really gotta wonder why they don't auction off individual pencils from the Gygax household   .

mbassoc2003 wrote:... and eventually, after all the cataloging/digitising, I'm hoping we'll see papers, manuscripts and other ephemera.

That'll be a feeding frenzy of unprecedented savagery.

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:
That'll be a feeding frenzy of unprecedented savagery.

if there are such items still in existence, yes it would be. however, Gail Gygax told me that Gary did not have a brown box, and i doubt there is a treasure trove of original d&d material that will be forthcoming in these auctions. i would be thrilled to be proved wrong, and i would further love to hear from Paul what artifact level treasures ( if any ) that will be forthcoming.

stratochamp wrote:if there are such items still in existence, yes it would be. however, Gail Gygax told me that Gary did not have a brown box, and i doubt there is a treasure trove of original d&d material that will be forthcoming in these auctions. i would be thrilled to be proved wrong, and i would further love to hear from Paul what artifact level treasures ( if any ) that will be forthcoming.

Yep, well for the rest of us, I guess we'll just watch you fight it out with Kynan, Mike, and Bill. If a set of author's notes for the remaining levels of Greyhawk, or an edited prepub MS for Keep of the Borderlands does go up for auction, it'll be out of everyone else's price range.

What is the highest price paid so far for a unique item? Was it Bottle City? Makes Planes of Existance look like the bargain it truely was, and I was so close to throwing in a $2K bid on that.

Blackmoor wrote:Sure would be nice to have some "real" Gygax collectables.  Most of this stuff (which may ot may not have belonged to Gary) are generally easy to find common items.  Nothing special at all.  

I find that this whole process is flawed.  Common items offered with a certificate from Paul saying that Gary owned the item.  I just do not trust humanity enough about the authenticity of these items.  Paul already misdirected the collecting community by offering at least one item (Upper Works to be specific) that Gary never could have owned; it was released after his death.

Tread carefully here!

Ooh, I missed that  
I was disappointed after buying the only known copy of the City of the Revenant manuscript to see Paul auction another copy six months later with bonus material.
I see what you mean. This stuff could be from anywhere in reality, but let's hope Gail will put her signature to authenticate the stuff at least.

faro wrote:*g* Which of the two "original maps"?

[ Image ]

... or the other one?

I think he meant mine. But yes, yours is the original map for the game, unless you count the original original from the '30s by Mrs. Fischer, which I assume is no longer extant.

BTW, I know next to nothing about the Lankhmar game. Who drew the map?

oops... almost missed that (edit?)

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:BTW, I know next to nothing about the Lankhmar game. Who drew the map?

The game map, above, was Gary's playtest map for a proposed Guidon Games release but wasn't published by them. IIRC Rob remembered a second playtest version for TSR closer to the published version, but I don't think I know who reworked/tidied that up for the actual production: Dave Sutherland would the obvious candidate, albeit not explicitly credited, unless that was carried out in part or in whole by Patch Press.

MetamorphosisSigma wrote:DCS would be my guess, too, in that case. Interesting that they chose to orient (literally) the map the way they did.

*nods* Always more questions that were never asked (afaik)...?

That's not mentioned in Fritz's correspondence with Brad Stock (albeit it sounded like Gary had pretty much free rein at that stage), and I can't recall any explicit statement in The Dragon. Will have to recheck, just in case!
There's quite a bit of shuffling around on the map between the "Guidon" and TSR versions, too, but given the above can only guess as to why/whether Fritz or Harry might've involved in any way at a later date.