You guys are definitely paying too much for your blowjobs. And $2400 is a stupid amount of money to pay for a simple roleplaying game you could probably make up yourself or find on the net.

"So don't buy it" seems to be the main guideline here. I was perfectly satisfied with my $55 White Box and am content to leave the more expensive printings to the collectors.

Not that I have a choice here, mind you.

Quote from: droogYou guys are definitely paying too much for your blowjobs. And $2400 is a stupid amount of money to pay for a simple roleplaying game you could probably make up yourself or find on the net.

Yeah...I mean...why pay millions for a gauguin or a renoir?  You could just fingerpaint or paint-by-numbers yourself...or find an image on the net, right?

But that's the thing, James... there are a few major kinds of collectible items:

- artworks, which are beautiful* and rare, and which have some kind of intellectual value* beyond the material they're made of;

- jewelry and such ("objets d'art" as the auction houses call them), which lack the intellectual value but have the material one, and which are also rare (Faberge eggs);

- documents broadly conceived: everything from relics to autographs, which lacks aesthetic, intellectual and material value but which is a direct token of a famous author or event (score for Beethoven's Ninth, Magna Charta, nail from Napoleon's coffin or Christ's cross), and which is also rare;

- all sorts of other things that mix above parameters to varying degree (vintage cars etc. etc.);

- finally, stuff that's MERELY rare (Brown Box); and, worse, rare because FLAWED (Blue Mauritius, Alpha printing DMG).

It's the last category that's a bit infuriating to some people (not to me, I'm indifferent). But it's a complex matter. I once spent a whole year at a research institute trying to make some kind of systematic sense of collectors and their motives. It was a resounding failure.

*Let's not fight over these terms.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo way would I pay $2,400 for an RPG, unless it came with a complimentary blowjob from Jessica Alba.

 For me that would be Geena Davis, Lea Thompson, Glenn Close , maybe Robin Curtis....or maybe Condi.



- Ed C.

I remember the first time I looked through a copy of the Comic Collector's Guide and discovered that one of my comics, which I had bought for a paltry $1.75, had been listed at $50.  I was quite excited, until the comic store owner, a friend of mine, pointed out, "Sure, it's worth $50...if you can find someone willing to pay that much."  Collecting is a funny thing that way -- you generally have something that isn't even worth the out-dated cover price, until you find someone else desperate enough to own it.  Or, better yet, two people desperate enought to get into a bidding war to own it.

!i!

Quote from: Tyberious FunkNo way would I pay $2,400 for an RPG, unless it came with a complimentary blowjob from Jessica Alba.

Dude.  That's $2400.00.

Jessica Alba?  Aim higher.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity- finally, stuff that's MERELY rare (Brown Box); and, worse, rare because FLAWED (Blue Mauritius, Alpha printing DMG).

I wouldn't put the Brown Box in this category; it's more like "documents broadly conceived" translated into the mass-culture environment. (And in turn the category has precedents IMO in things like saints' relics. An interesting strain of development--off the top of my head, relics seem like the first explosion of obsession of "authenticity" as necessary for "significance". Contrast things like charms which only need to have the proper form or recipe, and possibly a blessing, to achieve their power.)

Yes, on reflection, the Brown Box is almost an autograph--one step short of Gygax's ur-manuscript. And yes, relics are definitely part of the document category.

What's at stake in authenticity is the indexical (a la CS Peirce) or contiguous relation between author/event and object: X physically caused Y (Freud wrote this letter to Fliess); or Y was once material part of episode/person X (splinter from the holy cross); or both (Shroud of Turin: impression of Christ's body).

It's the very fact that it's "translated into the mass culture environment" that makes it objectively worthless. As long as even one copy exists--and there must be a lot more than that--it's value as a historical artifact is undiminished. The desire to have it and hold it is pure consumerism.

Either that, or Brown Box fetishism is secularized relic worship in the age of mass-commodity consumerism. When absolutely everything's mass-reproduced, Brown Box is as close as you get to Napoleon's snuffbox.

Huh? A Ferrari is also "mass produced".

What´s wrong with consumerism, btw?

Quote from: SettembriniWhat´s wrong with consumerism, btw?

Shit, I dunno, how about everything?

That said, I cleared up that issue in my early twenties, no point in going there, you get it at that time or you don't.

Ahem?
Says the guy who pays $100+ for rare RPG supplements?

EDIT: Did you mean consumerism as in "conspicious consumption"? Because then we are on the same page. I thought you were against any luxury items and purchases. Which I would classify as a totally bonkers idea.

Quote from: SettembriniWhat´s wrong with consumerism, btw?

He would just rather wait years on a list to buy a Trabant, Set. :steeringwheel: :haw: