Since no-one else is offering a reply it might be worth trying this link, Lennon. The 1972 PC magazine scan noted further down in the thread is also rather interesting, I thought.

You wouldn't happen to be able to dig out that KoDT article by any chance in order to check on Dave's precise wording?
The main problem reconciling that with what might actually have been distributed by TSR is that he appears to be linking dice manufacturers to specific OD&D prints. This cannot be the case as those sets were not supplied with dice.

The date ranges implied would, however, appear to tally broadly with a "change" of some nature given those stated dice sources. Whether that holds out for other sets known to originate within the 1972-80ish timeframe, I don't honestly know. Any dice "researchers" over here?

"Bubble gum pink" colour (for that other die "variation") also got a smile. Haven't seen any like that in a long time!

I am a little confused what was the first D&D box to ship with dice?

Lennon wrote:I am a little confused what was the first D&D box to ship with dice?

http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/basic.html as far as I'm aware.

Ah, a return to form.

Lennon wrote:So the name of the company that provided the dice is "Edmund Scientific Supplies"?

No. I'll address this in more detail asap.

FWIW, I have a shrink-wrapped set of Tractics (white box TSR) with a die inside, since you can clearly see it out-denting the lid.

faro wrote:Thanks for the reminder, Tim. Was there only one supplier as a result, and does that swap-over tally roughly with a late 1975/early 1976 date, if you can recall?
(And any idea about those "bubble gum pink" dice mentioned on the other thread, by the way? Oops, sorry, too many questions!)

Guys, it has been 34 years, but I'll tell you what I remember and how…

Before D&D, there were three ways to get polyhedral dice; through a company that dealt with scientific stuff, a company that was a teacher resource, or from the Japanese Standards Assn., which sold a "Patented Random Number Generator". The RNG was three icosahedrons manufactured to very exacting standards made of very high impact plastic packaged in a clear plastic screw-lid cylinder. They were as expensive as the 3LBB--$10!

These US companies got them from an importer; there were a couple that fit that bill, but they seemed to vary as to who had them available at any given time. We were buying sets from one of these guys on the West Coast when they were available and loose dice when we had to. They came from Hong Kong. (Sorry, I know I said China. It's China now...lol)

When poly dice sales took off (nobody could get by with one just one set, after all) somebody in Hong Kong noticed. How we got in touch with them, or them with us, I couldn't say. This was after we had moved out of Gary's basement and into the Grey House.

We did the "roll tests" as I described earlier. Brian and Gary decided on a company.

Several weeks later a box that was waist high and about 42" square was delivered by a freight company. The box was extremely difficult to manipulate because the cardboard was incredibly flexible. When we opened it, we had about 10,000 d20's, loose!

They kept leaking out of that flimsy box (apparently the salt air was not good for that kind of cardboard) for the next couple of months and then we found a better company that would sell us better quality bagged sets. Several thousand dice in the bottom of that box got stashed in the closet under the steps leading to the offices on the second floor. This shipment had the horrible pink d20's and the lighter blue d20's that turned white on the corners with use. Some time later we used them in some game or other. We did that a lot--use up components wherever we needed to. Some Holmes sets very likely came out with some of those leaky dice under the steps.

That's how I remember it. I was in the midst of four supplements and converting Strategic Review into two new mags, so I was kind of distracted by other things day-to-day.

I got more dumb questions. What color crayons was included in the latter basic sets?

Lennon wrote:I got more dumb questions. What color crayons was included in the latter basic sets?

Which later sets? Moldvay or later Holmes sets... or Mentzer sets?

Most of my Moldvay sets came with either White or Black but I have seen green dice with a green crayon, yellow dice with a red crayon... but I think the earlier moldvay sets had either light blue or browninsh dice with white or black crayons... these were the intermediate dice before the "dragon dice" UBER-low impact dice.

I've got a post somewhere showing the difference.