New thread for discussion, rather than continuing elsewhere.

Here's an interesting personalized woodgrain featured in the GeekDad article on Wired:


(Paul's carpet not included)

Note the "Come Visit My Dungeon" sticker and Arneson's address label in the upper right hand corner.

Something about the sticker sounded familiar and searching dug up some 2008 discussion on the Acaeum of another woodgrain set with the same sticker. See here in the lengthy "Interesting Items Formerly on Ebay" thread. One member, spades1013, also reported having an unattached copy of the same sticker, on the next page of the thread. Is it a strange coincidence that there were two copies like this or is there some connection? There was speculation that the sticker was from the Dungeon Hobby Shop, but nothing definite was mentioned. Anybody else remember this sticker?

Zenopus wrote:Something about the sticker sounded familiar and searching dug up some 2008 discussion on the Acaeum of another woodgrain set with the same sticker. See here in the lengthy "Interesting Items Formerly on Ebay" thread.

BTW:  I am still expecting Warriors of Mars to go down in value any day now

HermitFromPluto wrote:

JasonZavoda wrote:That sticker looks very familiar, but I can't remember where I've seen one before.

I vaguely remember this same item being auctioned and people here commenting on the tragedy of someone putting a big sticker on the cover of a woodie!

Dont care what the story is behind the sticker; to place it on the top of that woodie was indeed a mistake and a tragedy.

Gnat the Beggar wrote:

HermitFromPluto wrote:
I vaguely remember this same item being auctioned and people here commenting on the tragedy of someone putting a big sticker on the cover of a woodie!

Dont care what the story is behind the sticker; to place it on the top of that woodie was indeed a mistake and a tragedy.

I agree, the cover illustration on the woodie is fantastic. I wonder if Arneson was given it with the sticker already on it.

So this is what Ernie and Heidi had to say:

Heidi Gygax Ernie will undoubtedly have more accurate and detailed info, but I remember that sticker from the Dungeon Hobby Shop and I think it was made when the store and TSR were in the house on Williams St. Ern...?

Ernest Gary Gygax Jr. We had stacks of them in our Shipping Dept of the Dungeon Distributors. I do not remember why we had them though. I think it is from the 772 Main St days rather than the earlier 723 Williams St.

From http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?s ... 1328337889

Howdy All,


That sticker has a bit of an interesting story. My research so far shows that they were available through the Dungeon Hobby shop circa 1975. Unfortunately, that conflicts with what Ernie says, as the Dungeon moved in about Oct of 1978  from Williams St. to Main St. However, I don't think it was very likely that Dave would have picked one of these up later than 1976 as he was pretty much out of TSR by then. Also, if Gary was at the shop affixing that sticker from the other set noted above then I think that *must* have happened at the Williams St. shop. If it happened in the basement - well that puts it at 330 Center St. Thus my contention that it was in 1975. I'll ask Ernie to clarify.

Gary's collection has one of these stickers as well but his was with, not affixed to his 1st print. Note, there is a smaller sign at the edge of the dungeon entrance in the illustration that says, "Lasciate ogni speranza Voi Ch'Entrate". Which is Italian and translates into:

Lasciate = (you all) leave
ogni = every
speranza = hope
Voi = you all
Ch' = that
Entrate = (you all) enter

In Dante's Divine Comedy, there is a sign at the gates of Hell with that inscription on it. I have heard translations of it as, "Abandon all hope, all who enter here" or "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here".

Note too, the direction of the DLA woodgrain is horizontal but that the label is not pasted on but affixed by tape at each of the four corners and that the side label is similarly affixed but is on the left side. Also, there is an errata sheet included with the standard first print reference sheets.


Futures Bright,

Paul

Thanks for the info everyone. Maybe this sticker will turn up on Ebay at some point now that it's more recognized. Perhaps DHS them as early as 1975 but still had a stack around at a later date that Ernie remembers?

I looked through SR1-7, and Dragons 1-25 or so, and found many interesting Dungeon Hobby Shop ads, but not any with this particular artwork.

The cthulhu is going higher than I would have expected.

cheers,
KAL

Why is Warriors from Mars going so high?