Funny the things you find when buying old box sets..
I picked up a Holmes Basic box set so I don't have to abuse my prized original that started me on gaming as a hobby. The replacement was a Lizard Man cover box, oddly with a wizard logo rulebook and B1 inside.
The funny part about the contents.. also inside was someone's custom photocopied (out of Dragon Magazine) of Snit Smashing, with a photocopy map for Snit Smashing itself plus one of the spaceship Znutar; and a plethora of handmade counters (photocopies glued to chipboard); all with the photocopies being glorious poor-color, sticky ink 70s work.
The snits were entertaining enough, but the real kicker was the yellow credit card receipt (the carbon kind you used to run over that mechanical thing) for the princely sum of $9.95 for "Basic D&D".. from the famous California hobby shop Aero Hobbies. A little piece of gaming history right thar..
Nice little treasure to keep! I love it when you buy a used RPG and find someone's stuff in it. I found a character sheet in one RPG book I got off eBay years ago. I don't remember what it was, but it made me smile.
ReplyDeleteGreat! Is there an Aero Hobbies logo on the receipt? A scan would be great
ReplyDeleteZach H, no Aero logo alas.. this was a truly old school carbon receipt - just had the Aero Hobbies imprint and some numeric strings which I assume were their routing info for the credit card company at the time.
ReplyDeleteFor those not familiar with Aero Hobbies, by the way, Gary Switzer played with the Aero hobbies crowd. Gary Switzer was the guy who created the original concept and draft of the thief class for D&D, which was later adapted by Gygax into the game (in modified form) as an official class. So you could say that Aero Hobbies was basically where the Thief class was born: playingattheworld.blogspot.com - Gygax's "The Thief Addition" (1974)
ReplyDeleteAero Hobbies is still going strong by the way, after 60 years in business: http://www.aerohobbiesgames.com
ReplyDeleteaerohobbiesgames.com - Aero Hobbies & Games 2918 Santa Monica Blvd. #3 90404
And some more on the backstory of the thief class and the impact of the Aero Hobbies gamers on early D&D: odd74.proboards.com - Manual of Aurania | Original D&D Discussion
ReplyDeleteAero was also the store where dad bought all his D&d stuff. We might even have played our second game at Mr.Switsers house.
ReplyDeleteGary Switzer is also credited with painting several of the minis featured in Dr. Holmes' book Fantasy Role Playing Games. Many of Gary's minis were still on display when I started shopping at Aero Hobbies around the year 2000.
ReplyDeleteI love find homemade adventures and character sheets, I was always on the lookout for the DM's adventure log books that were filled in.
ReplyDelete