A First Printing Woodgrain D&D Set... If You Can Afford It!

On eBay, a seller called editorjan is selling an original woodgrain box D&D set from 1974. That's the good news. The bad news is that, with four days left on the auction, it's currently sitting at an eye-watering $5,600! "Yes, the "granddaddy of them all". Published by Tactical Studies Rules, a fledgling company (at the time) of Gary Gygax, Don Kaye, and Brian Blume. The game is based on the fantasy portion of the earlier Chainmail rules, and also requires the Outdoor Survival war game (by Avalon Hill) to play. Original D&D Set (woodgrain box) by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson Contains three booklets (Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures) plus a Reference Sheets booklet. The Reference Sheets booklet (actually just loose pages stapled together), was exclusively available in the Original D&D Set. Nearly every set we've heard about has a booklet with varying pages, from 6 to 12; as far as we know, each printing has the same info, only differing in format and number of pages. The set was first printed in late January 1974, and very likely was not publicly available until the second quarter of 1974."

On eBay, a seller called editorjan is selling an original woodgrain box D&D set from 1974. That's the good news. The bad news is that, with four days left on the auction, it's currently sitting at an eye-watering $5,600! "Yes, the "granddaddy of them all". Published by Tactical Studies Rules, a fledgling company (at the time) of Gary Gygax, Don Kaye, and Brian Blume. The game is based on the fantasy portion of the earlier Chainmail rules, and also requires the Outdoor Survival war game (by Avalon Hill) to play. Original D&D Set (woodgrain box) by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson Contains three booklets (Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures) plus a Reference Sheets booklet. The Reference Sheets booklet (actually just loose pages stapled together), was exclusively available in the Original D&D Set. Nearly every set we've heard about has a booklet with varying pages, from 6 to 12; as far as we know, each printing has the same info, only differing in format and number of pages. The set was first printed in late January 1974, and very likely was not publicly available until the second quarter of 1974."


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Poking around, I found that the seller posted about the auction over at The Acaeum. It sounds like the set is in great condition, and the seller is quite (pleasantly) surprised by the bidding amounts.

If that's too rich for your blood, there's this version - two days left, currently at $299. It's not the woodgrain version. But if you have a few grand burning a hole in your pocket, this would make a great addition to any collection.
 

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Mad_Jack

Legend
Geez, did somebody stick a copy of an early Spiderman comic in there or something? lol...

I'd love to have one of those, but not if it cost more than a car... :-S
 

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