mbassoc2003 wrote in OSR question:Some of that looks like republishing books as new products for the sake of trying to stay in the public consciousness and to create revenue.
aia wrote in OSR question:Edit: i have just bought a full set of b/x books... Collecting-wise these are supposed to be the most difficult to find as they are oop, right? Any idea if they are collectable?
mbassoc2003 wrote in OSR question:So unless there is something unique about the physical entities in the Kickstarters, that are not reproduced in the distributed PDFs, I don't see any real value in physical hardcopy the way we see value in the collectables generally collected by many on Acaeum.
Also, given the ease with which stuff can now be published, the volume of product that can be collected is massive, and increases in the rate at which it is being published (electronically at least) every year. So whilst fewer physical copies are being printed by publishers, the means of publishing as and when desired is being handed directly to the buyer of the PDF (and anyone else who downloads those PDFs online). They simply send the PDF to a publisher and wait for their copy to arrive in the post.
Going forward I don't see how you track genuine publisher distributed hardcopies from other print-on-demand copies.For example, if I buy a hardcopy of a book from Necoritc Gnome's listing for their book on DrivetruRPG the week it is published, is that a genuine copy? Does that have any collectable value? Is it any more or less valuable that a copy Necrotic Gnome sent my friend the same week because he had backed the Kickstarter? Can the be distinguished between one another? Potentially they may have both been printed at the same PoD printer. If I send the PDF I get for backing a Kickstarter at a low level to a PoD publisher ten years from now, have I just created a 10 year old Kickstarter original if the PoD publisher doesn't add their own date and printer mark anywhere?
Is the value going forward going to be solely in the free bookmarks, condition of the box, poster map, ephemera, because the books have nominal collectable value only?
There is phenomenal quality in what the OSR has created in the past decade, but with few exceptions, I see most of it in 20 years time being as easily obtainable and of no more value that your average copy of B2 Keep on the Borderlands today. In some cases the exceptions to that rule are distinctive print runs (Swordfish Islands for example using partial leather bindings and foil embossing on the covers), or those publishers who do not publish in PDF at all, and leave the market to scan and create their own PDFs which (for the time being) destroys the possibility of after market printing of any discernable quality. With Weird on the Waves for example, the author released a low quality PDF only in order to limit physical reproduction. Sadly it also seems to have limited sales.
mbassoc2003 wrote in OSR question:In regard to KS exclusive premium quality printing, in whatever forms those take, I think this is a must for those who want to invest in a collectible and not just buy a product to play with. If this becomes a learned process and established as the norm in the OSR publishing community, I think we will see more investment from collectors, and more work actually reaching print from some of our more talented authors and artists.