Miser's Hoard
This early 1980s SF & fantasy RPG fanzine was produced with a typewriter, Letraset (transferable letters), ink line drawings, scissors and glue. The first issue, released in September 1982, was edited by my brother Ian. Our maternal grandfather put us in touch with a good lithographic printer and from issue three onward we were able to reproduce photographs fairly well.
Miser's Hoard was always a team effort, not just by family but also friends and members of York University SF and Fantasy Games Club and others who contributed features, articles and artwork. Looking at chronology it seems I was working on issue 3 when I should have been revising for my Final Exams!
The eighth and last issue of Miser's Hoard appeared in the summer of 1984, just before I moved to Brighton. Back then I sent archive copies to the UK national libraries. Soon after, when my parents moved house, the stock of back issues was lost, though maybe still lurking in attic depths.
Lost and Found
I had one set but some years ago I lost even that, but then a curious incident happened. Wanting to reread an item I purchased issue number 4 from an online seller, but it looked odd and the reproduction of photographs was not as good as I remembered. Some weeks later I visited the Bodleian Library in Oxford where I could read all the issues. Sitting in the old Upper Reading Room examining issue 4 it dawned on me that the copy I had bought online was a fuzzy fake. So one of my motives in archiving is not wanting Miser's Hoard to be represented to posterity by inferior photocopies.
My father, who died last year, helped make Miser's Hoard. In the late 1970s, helping us in our hobbies, he started a miniatures retailer called Rank & File and from its stall at games conventions we sold copies of Miser's Hoard. He also helped with the publication process.
Now, my brother Ian had preserved one set of printed copies but those were buried in storage and not found until this year. Those surviving copies enabled my project to make an archive.
Dr John Patrick McKeown, Cornwall, UK