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New Release - Game Player's Nintendo Buyer's Guide Vol.1 No.1b (August 1988)


E-Day

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Is this really the first time this has been scanned?  I think I must have seen this cover so often in in-house ads of other Game Player's mags that I convinced myself that I already had a copy, but it appears that I don't.😆  I'm positive I saw this on newsstands at the same time as Game Player's Strategy Guide to Nintendo Games Vol.1 No.2, which there are two covers for - one with and one without the triangular contest blurb seen on this cover.  I'm pretty sure both of these issues (and possibly others) received multiple printings, making pinpointing their exact release dates difficult. 

One of the covers of issue 2 (which Retromags lists with an "August 1988" date, the same as this Buyer's Guide) features the same contest blurb as this one but displays a "sell until May 16, 1989" note, suggesting that this Buyer's Guide issue was likely published sometime in 1989 as opposed to "August 1988" as listed here.

At any rate, it's almost 100% definite that the dates listed at Retromags are incorrect, unless there was indeed a one year gap between issue 3 (September 1988) and 4 (Aug-Sep 1989). 😂

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I'm pretty sure we never had this issue before. I usually keep all scans even with poor quality until a better version is available, and I did not any version of this issue.

As for the dates, the second issue (which will be getting a new scan shortly), doesn't have a date listed in it like volume 1 number 1b. The copyright date in the masthead is 1988. The first run of Game Player's are really hard to pin down as far as dates go. And for the yearlong gap between the two issues you mentioned, if they did their numbering properly on the cover, it means we are missing at least 4 issues between them as it goes from Vol.1 No.3 to Vol. 2 No.4.

I still have Kevin Gifford's (aka Magweasel) spreadsheet that he created a long time ago that I refer now and then. It's by no means 100% complete, but looking at his table for these magazines, there should be one more for 1988 (Winter), and then he only has Vol. 2 No. 3 as one that we had missing in our database (I have since added it). He doesn't have  Vol. 2 Nos. 1 and 2 listed, which makes me think they skipped those two for some reason. I can't find a whisper about them anywhere online either.

Anyhow, I found a copy of Vol.2 No.3 on ebay and bought it, along with the Vol.1 No. 1A as we call it since it has a slightly different cover. I'm guessing it was the first print run before they came up with the Game Player's logo.

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32 minutes ago, E-Day said:

As for the dates, the second issue (which will be getting a new scan shortly), doesn't have a date listed in it like volume 1 number 1b. The copyright date in the masthead is 1988. The first run of Game Player's are really hard to pin down as far as dates go. And for the yearlong gap between the two issues you mentioned, if they did their numbering properly on the cover, it means we are missing at least 4 issues between them as it goes from Vol.1 No.3 to Vol. 2 No.4.

The problem with our database for this mag is that we've listed imaginary dates for the early issues.  The only evidence within the mags themselves is the copyright date, which allows us to pinpoint the correct year.  Anything beyond that is pure speculation.  To a degree, we can guess when certain editions of certain issues were on sale if they include a "display until___" note, but since there were multiple print runs of these early issues (the first 3 issues all have multiple covers from different printings), it's impossible to know which came first, since the earlier printings don't seem to include such a notice.

If I had my druthers, these early issues would only have a year listed for their publication date, dagnabbit.😤

 

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