<Attached image is the 2nd and 3rd> Sorry for the poor quality of the 2nd print but it is from my first D&D purchase (Basic Holmes set)

cgould42 wrote in Printing Difference Research – B2:Sorry for the poor quality of the 2nd print but it is from my first D&D purchase (Basic Holmes set)

Congratulations on your first D&D purchase!  I think you'll find this hobby quite addicting.  

... and yes, I'll add that info in!

Foul

I've had this information in an old Excel file it seems and didn't think anything of it.  Course it also seems I don't have a first print either.

ShaneG.

In the Production department, in early 1980 we received a new manuscript from Gygax called "Keep on the Borderlands". Though I was a new editor, and cautioned to proofread only (not really Edit), I noticed that there was no Chapel for the clerics in the Keep. I wrote one in my best imitation of Gygaxian, submitted it (via interoffice routing envelope), and everyone was amazed that it was approved, and that Gary admitted the accidental omission.

So I am still perplexed by the "Pre-production 1979 version" detailed ambigiously in the Acaeum notes, which is not history and is pure speculation. There may indeed have been a mockup cover in late 1979, anticipating the manuscript turnover still to come, but there was certainly not a completed (or printed) version before I 'edited' the brand-new manuscript in 1980.

I always thought the B1 photo on the back of Holmes box was a mock-up. At least since I worked at a small ad agency for a couple of years back in the '87-'88-ish timeframe. We probably used many of the same types of production methods TSR did some years earlier (we were behind the times a bit, what using cheap old equipment and all). We did that quite a bit. Actually had one of our mock-ups used in a local TV commercial.

The giveaway for me was the black upper left corner. We somethimes used something called rubylith (or amberlith) for masking overlays, so the people shooting the paste-up and doing the negatives knew what was underneath was getting knocked out of the paste-up board. In the case of B1, the corner getting removed from the yellow underneath. Thing is, if you put the paste-up with the mask on a copier, the ruby or amber would show up as black. So for B1, the upper corner black instead of white could easily indicate a photocopy of the whole thing.

So, the B2 on the back of Moldvay Basic being a mock-up would not surprise me at all. For both the B1 and B2, it would cost extra time to have the mod, rulebook, and box lid printed, then do the photography and work on, and then print the box bottom. In this case, using mock-ups saves time and gets the final product out quicker. The box and rulebook on the box bottom could possibly have been mock-ups as well.

Cool stuff!

chromaticknight wrote in Printing Difference Research – B2:As I’m going thru my collection I thought I would add these pics here:

Images of beauty.
Does your hole-punch version match the Acaeum fifth-print data?

Cheers,
Curt

Those picts would make Barney blush.  Very nice.

-SKA