Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

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Golden Stamp Books

Thursday, March 14th, 2024

Some months ago I purchased this for only $3.50 at a local antique store:

This was quite a find, not only because it’s Australian, but because I owned this exact book in my youth!

It’s a picture book of reptiles that came with a sheet of gummed stamps. The lucky owner would separate the stamps and stick them into each entry like they were putting a postage stamp on a postcard. The stamps in my copy have been stuck, but the back cover shows what the unused sheets would have looked like:

And here’s the charming instructions for the reader:

The book is 48 pages long, almost all of which are dedicated to a single animal with a picture and several interesting paragraphs. As a child I would have loved this. All the famous and well-known reptiles are included, like crocodiles, goannas and this old favourite:

But the true wonder of this book is that it also includes many lesser known – and possibly even nigh-unknown – beasts such as the Tryon Gecko, Master’s Snake and the good old Scrub Mullet:

I can vividly remember in the schoolyard, when my lesser-educated peers were yapping on about crocodiles and frilled lizards and I started dropping facts about Curl Snakes, Dtella Geckos and Krefft’s Tortoises! Immediately they recognized a master herpetologist in their midst, and rightly admired me for my knowledge 🙂

This book was first published in 1973, but I would have of course got it years later. I had other titles as well. I don’t remember exactly which ones, but I believe I had at least a sea life one and one about fossils or minerals. A quick search online reveals that many titles in the series were printed well into the 1980s. Here’s a selection:

The Golden Stamp Book series was popular not just in Oz but also in the USA and England, and no doubt other countries as well. Educational, fun, and lovely to look at: these were great books to have when we were kids 🙂

Posted in Australia, Blog, Books, History | 1 Comment »

Japan Pickups: Gamebooks

Tuesday, January 16th, 2024

As always I was on the hunt for books for my gamebook collection during the recent trip, and I’ve become better at finding them in the various collectors and used book shops I visit. I bought some interesting items this trip!

The above are the standard gamebook finds. Only one original Fighting Fantasy book is fewer than the last few times I was in Japan, but my collection of Japanese versions is becoming quite complete now and it’s not easy finding ones I don’t already have!

The middle book is the Japanese imprint of volume one of Cretan Chronicles and the rightmost is the Japanese version of the Maelstrom RPG written by a gamebook author and released to the same market in the 1980s.

To my great surprise – and happiness – I also found a brand new copy of the first box set of FF reprints from 2020. As I understand this was only available via a Japanese crowdfunding campaign and I assumed I’d never get a set. Now I have one! I already owned the second and third box sets, and the fourth is out in a few months. I’ll look for that one on future trips 🙂

Amazingly, after my great surprise finding a single issue back in June, I found thirty-one issues of Japanese Warlock magazine. This was not an impulse buy – both weight and cost were considerable – and I deliberated for a few days. Lunacy won out though, and they’re now in my house!

I now have about half of the 63-issue run of this magazine. This is a collection that merits more attention, and I’ll probably feature it in a future blog post one day.

The above were a surprise since I didn’t even know they existed. They’re AD&D modules based on FF books! Eight were printed in english (and they’re quite expensive now!) but the numbering on these Japanese ones (the above are 1, 6 and 7) don’t match the english versions and it’s hard to find information about them online.

They’re impressively designed with lots of nice art, and they make me want to try and get one of the English versions….

The last – and by far weirdest – item I found was this gamebook based on the 1980s horror film House. As you can see it was called Goblin in Japan, probably because there was a famous Japanese fantasy-horror film called House already.

This book is super strange. I though the Back To The Future gamebook I bought on a previous trip was weird but of all the films to based a book on why on earth was this one chosen?

It seems like a fully featured book with hundreds of entries, but it’s also very puzzle heavy, possibly in lieu of a normal combat system. Art is stills from the film. I’ve seen the film somewhat recently so I may have to get the translator and give this one a play through just to try and understand what the story could be?

Incidentally the publisher is the same that released the video game licensed gamebooks in Japan, including the two Wizardry ones I showed in the last post. And yet this is from a different series. As you can see it’s number 4 in the series. What were the others? Unfortunately finding info online about these is almost impossible, so for now I can only wonder.

Posted in Books, Collecting, Gamebooks, Otaku, Retro | Comments Closed

Japan Pickups: Wizardry

Friday, January 12th, 2024

My Wizardry game collection ever-increases, and with the acquisition of the above three on this recent trip there’s now only two games in the series I don’t own. While neither seem especially rare or expensive, the fact remains I’ve never seen a copy of either in years of looking so the search continues!

I was very happy to find the above on this recent trip: a beautiful boxed copy of Proving Grounds Of The Mad Overlord for the MSX2! Note that the original (1987) price was 9800 Yen – about $65 – which was about two or three times more expensive than a computer game cost in the west in those days.

The game is on a cartridge, and from what I read only works on expanded versions of Japanese MSX computers. I daresay there’s not many of them left working, so there’s no question I’ll ever be able to play this. The box contains all sorts of goodies, but notably the miniature metal dragon statue that was originally included is missing.

The above are three hints guides for various Wizardry games. I found these in Osaka which was good because at about $15 each they were considerably less expensive than they would have been in Tokyo.

As with others I’ve previously shown here, the guides are beautiful books, packed with art and maps and lots of colour. It’s clear the authors of these books loved the games!

This small hardcover book is an oddity! Titled Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Wizardry it seems to be a sort of lore book of items and equipment from the first six games. Almost every entry also features a nice piece of line art. It seems to have very limited (if any) use as an actual game guide, but could perhaps serve as a RPG manual of sorts. While I love it, it’s hard to see why this was even published!

Speaking of RPG manuals, the above was an exciting pickup for me: it’s the monster manual for the original Wizardry RPG from the 1980s. It’s a small-sized paperback with a lovely cover by Jun Suemi, and I dearly wish I could read it since the machine-translations suggest it’s very lore-heavy on the monsters from the games.

As you know I also collect gamebooks, so I was extremely happy to find the above two for sale. Both are from the Futabasha Famicom Gamebook Series and are based on the first and third Wizardry games.

These are very traditional one-player gamebooks in the Fighting Fantasy mold featuring manga-style art and what appears to be a complex system based on the size of the adventure sheet! There’s almost 80 (!) books in this gamebook series including two other Wizardry ones; I wonder if I’ll ever find them?

Lets end with a story about ‘one that got away’. The above pic was taken in Osaka a few weeks ago, and shows me holding one of my holy grails: one of the two Jun Suemi Wizardry artbooks. This is the older and more expensive of the two, and the sticker price on this used book was about $170.

Normally I would have thrown my money at the cashier but I had already bought the book on Amazon a month earlier. The amazon order – coming from Japan – was to arrive while we were away but never did. A followup with the seller led to a refund, and no book. So I held one of my grails in my hand and didn’t buy it, and still don’t own it. 🙂

Posted in Books, Collecting, Gamebooks, Games, Otaku, Retro | Comments Closed

The Strong

Saturday, December 16th, 2023

We’re in Rochester for an early Christmas and today visited The Strong museum. We’ve been here before but they’ve had a major expansion so it was time to see the new attractions.

This included a massive room housing the Video Game Hall of Fame, as well as a fantastic interactive exhibit on gaming in general. We played lots of games and had a lot of fun but it was the many, many displays of toys and games and associated paraphernalia that I particular enjoyed. Here’s a selection of only a few of the interesting things we saw:

That’s a prototype table for the official Lord Of The Rings pinball, as well as the actual (playable) table on the right.

Here’s the Vectrex 3D accessory, which is famously rare. I’ve never seen one, much less a boxed one!

The above are two examples of overproduced Atari cartridges once buried in New Mexico. Long considered an urban legend, this was proven to be true after they were dug up a few years ago and the city donated a few to the museum.

An actual World of Warcraft server ‘blade’ that housed one of the realms for several years! This is physically about as big as a skateboard.

An actual Atari store display from the early 1980s, stocked as how it would have been in those days. I wanted to grab one of the catalogues!

The above is a fascinating item. Those of us that have been around for a certain vintage recall these home-packaged games but to think this one has survived for so many years!

An original piece of hand-painted art that was scanned and used as a backdrop for an early Leisure Suit Larry game! They also had other prototypes and original art examples, including of consoles and arcade games.

Speaking of original art, that’s a hand-drawn sketch of Sonic The Hedgehog done by the original designer!

A lcd game based on those Japanese ‘nammeyano‘ delinquent cat art photos from the 1980s. This is an example of how varied the museum collection is. (Needless to say I’m not showing any of the vast display of more common game or toy items.)

Esoterica like the above I love seeing: an ancient McDonald’s happy meal box (from the late 1980s) and a series or Japanese World of Warcraft scratch-off cards that came with meals over a decade ago!

Or this unopened box of Pac-Man candy. This (which is about the size of a playing card) is 40-odd years old.

And some Donkey Kong ‘action figures’. I imagine the one on the right wasn’t a big seller!

A variety of game-related books. I’d love to read the two on the left, and last year I actually bought and sent the calculator one to Bernard!

Bridging video games and other pastimes, look at these two sets! Kristin recalls she even had the one on the right and put them on her bedroom door.

Here’s some rpg miniatures from decades ago. The grenadier ones even came painted! They also had lots of early D&D products and even an original photocopy of one of the earliest design documents co-written by Gygax and Arneson!

Look at this absolutely beautiful (not to mention unusual) board game based on the BBC Narnia series! I’d love to play this one.

A Wonder Woman trio: artwork for an unmade Atari pinball, a box of colorforms and a funky looking record with ‘songs and stories’ on it.

This is a talking doll invented by Edison and produced in the late 1800s! It’s a little retro-futuristic isn’t it? It’s also in extraordinary condition for something that is over 130 years old. I wonder if it still talks?

Speaking of dolls, the above is apparently the world’s most glamorous ‘teenage doll’. This is another fantastic condition and sealed-in-box item that is decades old and full of nostalgia.

Can you guess who the above doll is? It’s a pretty good likeness for when it was released (the 1970s)…

The above toy set of ‘missiles’ was released in 1958 and appears to be cardboard cutouts. I googled this and it was popular and rereleased (and updated to plastic) several times into the 1970s! What boy wouldn’t want to play with world-destroying nuclear missiles?

The museum was incredible, and there’s so much to see. It’s bigger and better than ever and I’m glad we visited it again. I hope you liked seeing some of the many wonders we saw.

Posted in Art, Blog, Books, Books & Comics, Games, Retro, Toys | 2 Comments »

Autographs: Authors

Monday, November 20th, 2023

When I was a child I had an autograph book. I believe I may have had a single autograph in it, and it was a football player I had no interest in but got the autograph of when he made an appearance at a mall. I remember I used to glue photos of famous people in the book and keep the opposite page empty for the autographs I would (of course) never obtain. I was an optimistic stripling!

Autograph collecting dates to a time before photos and the autographs were proof you met someone. Of course these days they’re more often purchased and signers can make a lot of money providing them. But even an impersonal autograph purchased from a shop is still a bit of a special item when it’s of someone you are a fan of, and I don’t judge anyone for wanting or buying them.

Recently I started thinking about all the autographed items we own now, and one thing led to another and then ultimately – as it often does – to this blog! This week therefore I’ll be showcasing most of the autographs Kristin and I have obtained over the years, in five different categories. We’ll start today with authors!

The above I’ve shown here before. I’m a big fan and collector of Fighting Fantasy books, and I treasure this pair of autographs of Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the two guys that created the series. These were sent to me by an Australian company in response to me tweeting out photos of my collection!

In a similar vein, I have Joe Dever’s autograph. He was the author of the Lone Wolf gamebook series, and some years ago special (expensive!) autographed editions of some of the books were released. To my great surprise Bernard sent me two of them, which means I have his autograph twice. Joe Dever passed away a few years ago, so this is a somewhat special mark to own.

Keeping in the RPG sphere, a decade or so ago I purchased a used copy of this Forgotten Realms AD&D box set and when it arrived I was astonished to see that it had been autographed. The two shown are Jeff Grubb and Ed Greenwood (who also wrote ‘Good gaming’), and it was also autographed by the editor. These may not be names you recognize, but each contributed enormously to Dungeons & Dragons and are well known to fans from that era.

Lastly I have Kim Newman’s autograph. He’s one of my favourite authors, and even though I already owned four imprints of Anno Dracula I naturally had to buy this fifth one when I saw it was autographed. I’d love to meet him in person and get a book autographed, but this is the next best thing!

I know I have at least one more hiding somewhere in this house, that being the author Tanith Lee who sent me a signed letter response to a letter I wrote her in my teens. Try as I could though I was unable to find it.

These are just the tip of the autograph iceberg. There’s many more to see this week, so stay tuned 🙂

Posted in Blog, Books, Celebrity, Collecting, Gamebooks | Comments Closed

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