Save or Die Interview

The latest episode of the Save or Die! podcast, Episode 124, features an interview with yours truly. Here's the teaser:

"The Dmigoes welcome to Save or Die….the Mad Wizard Zenopus from the Holmes Basic set! Ok, not the wizard himself, but Zenopus from the esteemed blog Zenopus Archives. We talk about J. Eric Holmes, Purple Worms, and why so many dungeons have rivers flowing through them at one point or another?"

It was great fun recording the show & I'd like to thank Jim, Liz and Mike for having me on!

The Episode 124 page has several links for topics we discussed. Here are a few more:

Dungeon made with Lego Heroica

Gygax's Castle Greyhawk Dungeon Level One handout from Origins II

Holmes Manuscript series - index of posts

The J. Eric Holmes Collection

Some of the 200 lbs of minis collected by J. Eric Holmes - photo by Billy Galaxy

Big news in the world of Holmes Basic: as posted over on the Acaeum, the J. Eric Holmes collection has been bought from his family by Billy Galaxy, who runs a vintage/import toy store of the same name. He currently has about a dozen items from the collection up on Ebay (see here), with more to come in the future once the material is sorted.

In his post, Billy writes: "Being an avid collector of this stuff myself I am holding onto the lions share, but there is still some great stuff that I will bring to market soon. But fear not fellow adventurers as the collection will not remain unseen in my dragons hoard, rather I will endeavor to share this fantastic find with the community through my own site (which has remained dormant for too long and this is the perfect excuse to relaunch) as well as through the Zenopus Archives and various forums (it will be a blast settling some age old debates and questions with cold hard proof)." 

Given my interests, I was naturally very excited to hear that the collection includes drafts and manuscripts for the Holmes Basic rulebook. See here for some pictures of these in another thread started by Billy. It's great that Dr. Holmes retained this material and that it is in the hands of someone who can appreciate it and has the resources to process the large quantity of materials. I spoke with Billy on the phone last week and as he wrote above he hopes to share information from this historic collection with the community.

Record Prices for Holmes Basic

     Earlier this week an Ebay auction by the Collector's Trove for a Holmes Basic set in shrinkwrap ended at $315, with four bidders driving the price from $50 to $315. Believe it or not, this is not even the highest price a shrinked Holmes set has sold for. Here's are the four highest sale prices in my records:

1) SW 1st print (F115-R code, Lizard Logo) - owned by Brian Blume - ~$500 - GenCon 2009
2) SW 3rd print (Lizard Logo) - owned by Gygax - $331.05 - Jun 2011
3) SW 7th? print (Wizard Logo) - Collector's Trove personal auction - $315 - Mar 2012

4) SW 4th+ print (Wizard Logo) - owned by Gygax - $308.25 - Mar 2011 

     #2-4 were all auctioned by the Collector's Trove, with #2 and 4 being part of the Gygax collection, and these naturally went for much higher prices than normal due to celebrity and charity factors (in common with all of the Gygax collection items). #3 is surprising because it's simply from the Collector Trove's personal collection, but he may have benefited from the exposure from running so many Gygax and other TSR employee auctions. #1 was bought by one of the Acaeum's premier collectors (stratochamp) in the annual GenCon auction, and he knew exactly what he was paying for. 1st print Holmes sets are rare to begin with, and are very rare in shrinkwrap, and #1 was also from the collection of Brian Blume. #1 is also interesting in that it has a blank box bottom. Normally the 1st print has a printed picture on the box bottom, but a few copies have been found with the blank bottom, so #1 confirms that they were actually sold this way (rather than being a later "Frankenstein"). Generally with 1970's TSR products the blank box bottom preceded the printed box bottom, so it's possible this version is a "true 1st" print. There's been some speculation (see this thread) that this version was sold at Gen Con in Aug 1977; but I actually haven't even seen any hard proof that the Holmes Set was actually for sale there or by that time (as opposed to Sep or Oct '77). Also, it could just indicate a shortage of printed box bottoms.

"true?" 1st print Holmes Basic box top - not in shrinkwrap - sold on the Acaeum last fall

"true?" 1st print Holmes set box bottom

   I'm neutral with regard to the high prices. I'd never pay these prices myself, but I don't mind if someone else does. They also don't astound me after perusing the Acaeum forums for years and seeing how much collector's are willing pay for various rarities. And I'm glad that some of the shrinked copies are being preserved. There were probably 500,000 to 1 million of the Holmes sets produced and there are usually ~10 on Ebay at any given time for $10-$20, so it's not like the handful of shrinkwrapped sets is keeping anyone from getting a copy. It's kind of a tribute to the Holmes set that it's now valued enough to command that much money. Also, I would caution that the later print shrinked sets are more common than the most recent price would indicate. The Collector's Trove apparently sent out some second chance offers after the auction, suggesting he had multiple copies. Also some one immediately put one up on Ebay this week with a "bargain" price of $300 after seeing the final price for the Collector's Trove auction and it hasn't sold yet.