One DMG with barcode, one without . . . • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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One DMG with barcode, one without . . .
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Lance Hawvermale
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:43 am

In an effort to nail down the exact versions of my many copies of the DMG, I am left with only two that perplex me. Both bear the "DM" cover rather than the "efreet" cover, so they are at least Eighth printing. There is no printing info on the copyright page, which leads me to believe that these hail from 1983 to 1985, after which time the printing details began to appear. Based just on this, I would say that these were both of the Eighth printing. However, there is one discernible difference between the two: One of them sports a barcode on the back with the number 46363 02011. At what time did the barcode begin to appear?

I've studied intently the book's research on this site, but I still can't quite nail this one down.

misterspock
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 6:57 pm

Lance Hawvermale wrote:In an effort to nail down the exact versions of my many copies of the DMG, I am left with only two that perplex me. Both bear the "DM" cover rather than the "efreet" cover, so they are at least Eighth printing. There is no printing info on the copyright page, which leads me to believe that these hail from 1983 to 1985, after which time the printing details began to appear. Based just on this, I would say that these were both of the Eighth printing. However, there is one discernible difference between the two: One of them sports a barcode on the back with the number 46363 02011. At what time did the barcode begin to appear?

I've studied intently the book's research on this site, but I still can't quite nail this one down.

I'm not sure how much work was done on the forum here to figure out later printings with the Easley art covers/orange spine. There's probably many more printings past the 8th one that's listed.

Printing info most likely began to be added to the copyright page around 1985; discoveries of print info lower than 9th will throw our sequence above into chaos. The 9th printing was in August 1987, 10th printing was in 1987, the 11th printing was in April 1988, the 12th printing was in November 1988, the 13th printing was in July 1989, and the 14th printing was in July 1990. The description on the copyright page of the rear-cover artwork was never corrected. (Thanks to Michael Deaton and Gordon Richards for help with this info).

Lance Hawvermale
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 8:23 pm

Thanks for your reply.

I had read the info you quoted, and I was quite content to list both books as Eighth printing, as printing info began to appear on the copyright page by the time the Ninth printing rolled around. So the Eighth certainly seemed logical, since neither had such information included.

However, only one of the books has a barcode on the back, which leads me to believe that they're not, in fact, of the same print run.

misterspock
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 8:28 pm

Yes, I'm sure they're a different print run. If they're something that you're putting up for sale, I would say that no one (aside from a couple people on this forum

) would really be a stickler on the specific printing with the orange spine.

Lance Hawvermale
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 9:50 pm

Nope, not selling, just finally getting around to taking an accurate inventory of everything.

Based on other indicators, I thought they were both Eighth printing, but now I don't think that's entirely accurate. Isn't the Ninth edition supposed to bear printing info on the copyright page? These books have none . . .

I understand that having the Easley cover makes these books not quite as interesting to some folk, but I was just trying to get everything logged properly, anal retentive dude that I am.

Lance Hawvermale
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Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 2:10 pm

Hmmm. Still no insight on the barcode/no barcode printing of the DMG?

misterspock
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2012 10:34 pm

Lance Hawvermale wrote:Hmmm. Still no insight on the barcode/no barcode printing of the DMG?

I'm not sure if anyone's done much research on how many printings exist after the Dave Sutherland cover versions.
I did see a DMG with the Easley cover that had a barcode today at a used bookstore. I personally have two copies of other Easley cover printings, but I'm really not sure if they are "eighth" or somewhere beyond that. The copies I have both have on the title page that mentions "Revised Edition - December 1979", along with the ISBN, and credits the cover to "David C. Sutherland III" (obviously not updated). The credits are in a single column. They also have an advertisement on page 236 showing a picture of the mono S1.

However, the DMG with the Easley cover and the barcode that I saw today had the title page crediting Jeff Easley with the cover and the credits were in a small two column format (if I'm remembering correctly), as well as an updated logo below. There is still mention of "Revised Edition - December 1979" and the ISBN. The advertisement on page 236 now is for an RPGA membership that mentions having it sent back before December 1985, and there are some copyright notices towards the bottom with the 1984 date.

I don't know whether other printings with the barcode started before 1985, and whether the advertisements were changed even years afterwards.

misterspock
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 3:00 pm

I've been trying to track down a supposed thread on some printing research for the orange spine DMG in the forums but haven't had any luck. The only thing I came up with was something that another member (chromaticknight) had mentioned thinking that there were something like 8 printing variations of the orange spine DMG that had been discussed. So your barcode DMG printing could be anywhere from a 10th printing to an 18th printing.

edit: here's the links I've found, but I still think there's no official thread on the printings...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10976

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9371

deimos3428
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Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 5:19 pm

Older Acaeum threads on the subject may be quite confusing in that the 9th was at some point an efreeti-cover with the TSR face logo; the 10ths were the earliest orange-spines:
viewtopic.php?t=1607

Nowadays, the 9th is the orange-spine version that states "9th printing" on the copyright page; the 8ths being the earliest orange-spines. So if they're missing printing info on the copyright page, I'd count them as some variant of the 8th (alpha/beta, etc.). There are several such variants, none very well documented as far as I am aware.

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