I noticed something strange about the AD&D Rub-down transfers in my collection. I have all four of the first series of sheets as well as the store display box. The product ids printed on the transfer sheets, do not match the ids printed on cardboard backing on three of the four items. After doing far more research than I should have, I've come to the conclusion it is most likely a manufacturing error. It's also possibly a really sloppy attempt to counterfeit a relatively low value, low demand item.
Here's the
sheets in my collection:
Monsters has the product id 1500-1 on the backing and 1500-3 on the transfer sheet.
More Monsters has the product id 1500-2 on the backing and 1500-2 on the transfer sheet.
Humanoids & Undead as the product id 1500-3 on the backing and 1500-4 on the transfer sheet.
Dragons, Giants, & Demi-Humans has the product id 1500-4 on the backing and 00-1 the transfer sheet.
The transfer sheet for the last one appears to have been printed to far to the left, so I suspect the first two digits of the product code were cut off.
The Tome of Treasures has
photos of a set where the numbers on the backing and sheet are consistent. My sheets match the sheets on Tome of Treasures. It seems my backings were printed with mismatching titles and numbers.
This post on reddit mentions inconsistencies between the numbers on the sheets and backing boards.
Searches on Google and Ebay for "Dungeons & Dragons rubdown transfers" found several relevant results. All of the results were consistent with either the examples on Tome of Treasures or the examples in my collection.
Has anyone else looked into this?
