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Anyone here remember Mountain Mage?
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Alaskanaut
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Post Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 5:20 am 
 

I grew up in some isolated places which didn't have much in the way of hobby stores. (And by "much" I really mean none at all.)

Back in 1987, in Adak, Alaska, when my dad was stationed there and entering my third year of obsessing over RPGs, I came by a recommendation for a company out of Colorado (whom I'd later find often advertised in the classifieds of Dragon Magazine).

I wrote and received my own catalog in the mail a few months later.

I recall it being an offset-printed catalog, tabloid and folded in half and saddle stitched, with a rudimentary logo on the paper cover and the interior being "typeset" with dot-matrix printing. I made a few orders (dice, minis, and maybe a game item—hard to recall), and carried it with me for many years, finally losing it (I think) to water damage over some of the things I had left in storage underneath my parents' house in Wasilla when I went north for college in 1990.

It may sound odd, but I'm interested in seeing one of those catalogs again. Only now I can't find any evidence anywhere online that the company even existed. Poof. My memory may be poor, but I have independent corroboration that the catalog was used extensively by military service members (and their offspring) in the hobby. (ETA: in Alaska, anyway.)

Anyone else have any memories of this catalog?


--Scott
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ZardokhasSpoken
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Post Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 7:46 am 
 

If you could find the adverts in Dragon that might be helpful. I may have a chance to check the 250 issue cd later.
  

bclarkie
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Post Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 8:23 am 
 

I do not recall them myself, but I decided to put my Google-fu to work to see if I could help you dig anything up.  They definitely advertised in Dragon.  Here's a screen shot of an ad I found for them in Dragon Magazine # 108(it's on page #97 of the magazine or page # 99 of the pdf):

Image

I won't link it here for obvious reasons, but for better or worse pretty much every early Dragon Magazine is out there on the net for free as a pdf, even if you don't own a Dragon Magazine Archive.  :evil:  So, if you don't have a Dragon Magazine Archive or own Dragon Magazine #108, just do a Google search on it and you can find one out there to view.

Also of note and interestingly enough, doing a search on the address for the company in the ad, it actually comes up as a residential house(a fairly nice one, too), so it appears that someone was just working the business out their home at the time.

Hope this helps.


"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Neitzche
  

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Alaskanaut
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Post Posted: Mon May 27, 2019 3:37 pm 
 

@bclarkie It does!

@ZardokhasSpoken: yeah, the ad just isn't that descriptive of the catalog. None of the ads I've seen even include the logo, and all seem to look just like the one bclarkie posted.

Though I do have some Dragons (and just finished making a list of what I have and don't have), they're hard to reach in my current condition (which I rate as good at best). The existence of a PDF archive is news to me, though. Was this an … official product?

@bclarkie Your G-fu seems better than mine, since I didn't think to check the address. They must have stored their stuff elsewhere other than a house, though. My copy of the 1987/88 catalog also became very personalized with highlighting and stars and question marks, like the Sears Wishbook of yesteryear, only without pictures and made of 64-pages with two columns of densely-packed, dot matrix type on nearly every page. It was a lot of stuff.

Edit: I found actual photographs of my desk and "library" (a nightstand, really) which kept my stuff back in the day. You know those photos you take on a film camera to get the film around to "1"? I took them of my desk, before attempting to take snapshots of my artlessly-painted miniatures I had set up.

Amongst my orders to the Mountain Mage included my Tunnels & Trolls boxed set (box long since disintegrated), the minis I mentioned (Grenadier Dragon-men (?) and skeletons), and, I now recall, "amber-colored" dice which were more beer-colored when they arrived. (They were on sale.)

It also appears my collection at the time was more substantial than I remember, for a 16-year old.


--Scott
Hobby-applied project: http://orc.one
Day/night job: http://cgfx.us
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mordrin
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 5:27 pm 
 

Alaskanaut wrote in Anyone here remember Mountain Mage?:@bclarkie It does!

@ZardokhasSpoken: yeah, the ad just isn't that descriptive of the catalog. None of the ads I've seen even include the logo, and all seem to look just like the one bclarkie posted.

Though I do have some Dragons (and just finished making a list of what I have and don't have), they're hard to reach in my current condition (which I rate as good at best). The existence of a PDF archive is news to me, though. Was this an … official product?

@bclarkie Your G-fu seems better than mine


Yes, the archive was an official product.
https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/N ... s-l225.jpg

It's kind of nice to have, but, as noted, you can Google up a pdf of any Dragon without much trouble.

Yes, bclarkie is rather know for his sleuthing skill.
  

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Alaskanaut
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2019 7:47 pm 
 

Attachment:
Screen Shot 2019-06-08 at 10.21.43 PM.jpg


From Dragon 147, I can now at least remember what their logo looked like.

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--Scott
Hobby-applied project: http://orc.one
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Mister Yuk
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Post Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2019 11:42 pm 
 

Hey Scott

As I'm sure you already know, it'll be a struggle for you to find that catalog unless you find a collector of catalogs of that era. Especially when searching, you'll find all kinds of Yu gi oh Cards and the like with the same name.

Even if someone has one, they probably won't think of listing it since it'll be so hard to determine a value for it. One thing you can try, is to look at any box sets or collections of that era that come up for sale or auction. Don't be afraid to ask sellers to look through that big stack of papers they are including with some books or Modules too, as long as you can tell them exactly what you are looking for. That's a part of selling, even though some don't think so. They might even separate it out for you, if you're asking before the bids start coming in.

Good luck. It's a hard road ahead for what you are trying to find, but not impossible I'd think. A lot of gamers saved everything, you just need to find the right one.
  
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