Dungeons and Dragons has been capturing the imaginations of gamers since TSR released the original game in 1974. By 1977 there was already an updated version, called Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and a copy of the monster manual for that has just sold on eBay for an eye-watering $26,678 USD. The book went to auction on eBay by The Collector’s Trove, and features autographs by Gary Gygax, along with artists Dave Trampier, Dave Sutherland, and Tom Wham, on the title page.

The book isn’t even unique. It is one of many comp copies  given to Gigax as the president of the company and for his lifetime subscription to TSR product as the company founder, and was sold from the personal collection of Gygax himself.

The Collector’s Trove has been authorized by the Estate of E. Gary Gygax to auction this and hundreds of other items from his personal collection. These items were acquired by Gary over 55 years of amateur and professional involvement in war games, strategy games, card games, board games, and role-playing games, over a decade of that time spent as President of TSR, a company he founded, the company that launched the role-playing game industry. They also come from his time as head of Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment Corporation as he worked toward a Dungeons & Dragons feature length movie and produced the highly successful Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon series. Finally, a number of the items come from his tenure as a fantasy and sci-fi publisher through NIPI and Trigee and as author of the popular Gord the Rogue and Magister Setne Inhetep novels and short stories.

Before Dungeons & Dragons, there were only six sorts of table-top games: pen and paper, board, card, dice, tile, and miniature games. When Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson co-created and published the rules for Dungeons & Dragons it introduced the world to whole new sort of game – the role-playing game. Since the creation of the game it has been translated into dozens of languages and has been played by more than 50 million people!

Gary’s story is the story of a creator and a dreamer — the story of determination and daring. History will ultimately tell how Gary changed the world, and all for the love of games.

About The Collector’s Trove

The Collector’s Trove is an online auction house for game industry designers, artists, and insiders, including former TSR employees, the company that brought us Dungeons & Dragons. Their mission is to help these individuals realize the maximum value for their collections at auction.

The Collector’s Trove has a worldwide reputation for its ongoing series of auctions which include the collections of Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Rob Kuntz, Dave Megarry, Dave Sutherland III, Ernie Gygax, Steve Marsh, Tim Jiardini, Len Lakofka, Eric Shook, Kevin Hendryx, Bill Hoyer, Mike Mornard, Darlene, David “Zeb” Cook, B. Dennis Sustare, Jim and Laura Roslof, Allen Hammack, and Jeff Leason.

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