I hate to sound all curmudgeon-y, but isn't an item like that easy to, you know, fake?

Seems like I could run off a bunch of copies of that on some orange paper, add some wrinkles and rub in a few drops of coffee to make it look old.

How do you prove they are real?

Agent Cooper wrote in TSR Dungeons and Dragons Character Record:I hate to sound all curmudgeon-y, but isn't an item like that easy to, you know, fake?

Seems like I could run off a bunch of copies of that on some orange paper, add some wrinkles and rub in a few drops of coffee to make it look old.

How do you prove they are real?

Current copying technology uses toner. This will create raised lettering that you can feel with your fingertips. If you can feel the print it is fake. That said, it could be possible to print these with an offset printer, however laws have changed and the inks used today are soy based, so a chemical test is needed to determine of the ink is modern. As the proud owner of five of these(i had many more 10 years ago), I would put my money on FAKE. The copyright change was probably made in order to make the forger feel more legal about selling these. All the ones I have possessed had the proper copyright line as displayed on the examples from this site.

One final note, the paper itself is darker and heavier than your standard kinko's Goldenrod. I doubt this exact shade and weight of paper still exists. Though, NOS may exist in a shuttered business somewhere.

All that said, I hope that whomever buys this is from this site and reports whether the ink is raised toner or offset.

FoulFoot wrote in TSR Dungeons and Dragons Character Record:I don't think you can feel toner printing, unless your fingertips are much more sensitive than mine!

Copy machines all use toner, but most home printers use inkjet.

The original 1975/76 Character Sheets were probably produced with a mimeograph, not an offset press.  The cost to spool up an offset press for these evidently-cheaply-made sheets wouldn't have been worth it... and would have resulted in thousands, not dozens, of copies printed.

Under a microscope, the printing process can be identified.  That would answer it definitely.  However, in the absence of that, I'll stick to my assessment that these are not fake, for the reasons identified in my post above.

Foul

Fair enough. And yes, with a jeweler's loop or microscope you would clearly be able to tell. Upon further review, I am now realizing that the print runs off the bottom edge(bleeds). This could not be done with a standard printer or copy machine. So mimeograph or offset printer would be the most likely method of production.

Hopefully they are not fake, though I have no intention of finding out on my own. Either way, let this thread serve as possible enlightment to those who have never considered forgeries may exist.

Cheers!

-mr breaddoughrisng

FoulFoot wrote in TSR Dungeons and Dragons Character Record:Someone faking it this well would make the effort to have it look identical to a real copy.  In other words, they wouldn't have used a copyright line that nobody's ever seen before.

Also, making a good fake is going to require a hi-res scan of an original.  That means you have access to an original... which lowers the possible group of suspects to a handful.

Foul

Unless they wanted to make one that "looks" more rare than the known ones. It's been done before in other areas of collecting.

Also, since this particular item lacks artwork or anything else that would be difficult to reproduce. I don't think a Forger would need an original, just the correct font and pretty good idea of how the spacing is on an original. If you could have both (this and an original "known authentic" 1975 Character Record Sheet) in hand to check for watermarks in the paper, paper type, ink, the pad gum, the word spacing to see if it is an exact match and anything else. Then you would have a good idea if this is authentic or not.

I think the best clue without having it in hand is the "TSR HOBBIES", maybe increment or someone could weigh in on that. I really think that wasn't used in company until later on (around 1979).

Breaddoughrising wrote in TSR Dungeons and Dragons Character Record:Current copying technology uses toner. This will create raised lettering that you can feel with your fingertips. If you can feel the print it is fake. That said, it could be possible to print these with an offset printer, however laws have changed and the inks used today are soy based, so a chemical test is needed to determine of the ink is modern. As the proud owner of five of these(i had many more 10 years ago), I would put my money on FAKE. The copyright change was probably made in order to make the forger feel more legal about selling these. All the ones I have possessed had the proper copyright line as displayed on the examples from this site.

One final note, the paper itself is darker and heavier than your standard kinko's Goldenrod. I doubt this exact shade and weight of paper still exists. Though, NOS may exist in a shuttered business somewhere.

All that said, I hope that whomever buys this is from this site and reports whether the ink is raised toner or offset.

As a former Copier Tech I can shed a little light on that.

For machines that use a drum and powdered toner, if you can feel the toner on the paper usually the drum voltage is set too high, or the bias or a combination of the two. This causes too much toner to be used and the fuser is not able to melt it completely into the page. Sometimes it can be the fuser not being hot enough even if the toner amount is correct, more likely to happen on high speed machines.
There are very old copiers that did always leave the image raised on the paper because they didn't use a modern fuser.

I'd be wary of putting too much faith in the paper alone to prove but not to disprove. There are mountains of NOS paper stored away and color of paper can vary from batch to batch. Though thickness or watermarks would be a good indicator.

I do agree that a chemical analysis of the ink would be good proof since the ink of the last decade or more is significantly different from what was used then. But that would be pricey and destroy a page of it - no longer a complete pad then.

I notice the word 'AND' in the title is set a little lower than the rest in both the pics here at the Acaeum and the article in question. Possibly made with press-type BitD. This one seems to follow the features of established known copies, so if it is a fake, it appears to be a direct copy and not just set to match.

Breaddoughrising wrote in TSR Dungeons and Dragons Character Record:

I do agree that a chemical analysis of the ink would be good proof since the ink of the last decade or more is significantly different from what was used then. But that would be pricey and destroy a page of it - no longer a complete pad then.

Has it ever been determine what constitutes a complete pad? As I stated earlier, I used to have a LOT of these. I purchased a couple of boxes of "gaming store memorabilia" nearly 20 years ago, when I was just buying to buy. While mostly flyers and fanzines, there were also nearly 20 of the 1975 character sheet pads, a few of the game reference pads, and dozens upon dozens of loose character sheets. I was very green at this point in time, (for instance, I didn't even know that "Woody" box versions existed), so I just packed them away. When I finally realized their rarity, I sold more than half. What I can tell you from this story is that some pads had as low as 23 pages, one pad had 29-30. I made a point of selling the ones with the fewest sheets, and keeping the ones with the most. I just assumed that they were hand assembled and they were aiming for 25 per pad, but were not consistent or accurate.

A lot of things that are produced are done by weight instead of count with measures being very approximated. Even though the item will have a count on it instead of a weight. The boss says 25 pages per pad and some were 23, he comes back and says "hey make sure you have at least 25 pages in these" so now the guy adds an extra one to be sure. End of the run and there are a few extra pages left and they get added to the last one and now one has 30. This is all speculation of course. But especially something that was made to use "in house" - who knows? Probably the number they were aiming for is the one you most often had, those low count ones too could have had the first page or so damaged after making and they just ripped the damaged pages off and sent it out since no one was probably going to count a full pad up at the time and hold the printer accountable for it.

FoulFoot wrote in TSR Dungeons and Dragons Character Record:I'm not throwing aspersions, but stratochamp has been seen hanging around unsavory characters at conventions.

....

First name looks like Gerald and the last name begins with the letter R....

I sent the picture and the auction link to Ernie Gygax to see if he can help out with the cardboard mailer and/or the character sheets.

The seller's story makes sense.  The items were sent from TSR to an individual, not a store, and included a bunch of early D&D stuff.  I'll bet Gerald was an early playtester or perhaps an author, who was getting materials for review.  Andre Norton received a similar pack of materials from Gary Gygax back in the mid-1970's; I had a few of these things in my collection (a Rob Kuntz dungeon map, a letter from Gary to Andre, etc).  TSR in 1975/1976 was of course very interested in getting the word out about D&D and expanding beyond the Twin Cities area.

I've never owned an example of these early character sheets, but for those who do: Is the copyright line done with a different printing process than the rest of the sheet?  I'm wondering if (mimeography? is that a word?) had the resolution to print such small characters; I bet it didn't, and the copyright line had to be manually put on the sheets, perhaps by a hand stamp.  Is the copyright line in the same exact place on each sheet, or is it slightly moved?

If the copyright line was put on later, it helps explain why they changed it.  We know they changed it at least once, from 75 to 76.  Perhaps "TSR Hobbies" was something they were kicking around that week, before settling on "TSR Games".

Foul