I recently stumbled across this site:

http://www.commandperform.com

It's apparently offering things like the KC Card Company's Catalogues, How to Control Fair Dice and other items that have been digitised for a fee. This looks pretty suspicious to me. I have been trying to get a hold of the Blue Book and How to Control Fair Dice for a while but I don't think I want to risk this.

Anyone have any more info or comments?

Michael

If you don't have access to the sources then $20 for a digital copy doesn't sound like a bad deal. Of course you can bet on the seller not having the rights to anything he sells so that's probably not legit in that sense but who'll stop him?

For what it's worth I got my copy of "How to control fair dice" by subscribing to some dice control newsletter for free. As for the blue book, ebay was my friend. I recall also seeing a link to free digital copies of the HC evans catalog and the blue book, but I can't seem to find that again. Good luck in your hunt.

Almost none of those old catalogs are still protected by copyright, so it isn't illegal for that site to sell digitized versions.

In some cases, the folks that would've had a legitimate beef (ethically, if not legally) have been gone for 60+ years.

Jason

PS: I'm almost positive this guy (or company, or whatever) was advertising on eBay a while back.

You can view PDFs of KC Catalogues Etc here.

http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/kccard/

Regards

Tommy

I've got half a dozen K.C. Card Co. catalogs from the 50's and 60"s.......no copyright notices in any of them.

I don't think these folks could have even entertained copyright protection in their day.

Because it was so long ago, I think it's easy to forget the kind of real villains K.C. Card, H.C. Evans and their brethren were lumped in with.
Robert Kennedy was gunning for anything that resembled illegal activities taking place across state lines, and mail-order gambling supplies was one of the least "notorious" activities that got caught up in his net.

Despite many internet searches, I've not found a single instance of any derivatives of these companies still being around......so nobody to worry about copyright issues.

Sadly, the gambling supply catalog house has ceased to exist.

I've exchanged thoughts on this with others in this forum, and it's troubling to think about how much gambling equipment know-how simply evaporated after Robert Kennedy completed his task in and around the early 60's.
This very forum remains a source of information really not matched anywhere outside of private libraries owned by collectors and practitioners.

(BTW, for anybody looking, I've got a spare mint copy of the 1961 K.C. Card Co. catalog I picked up from David Malek - $60.00 inc. postage)

Its an OK deal for a newb to collect all of the material digitally. Nothing beats real print though, and there is zero resale value there. Still its a worthy offering, but late to market by a few decades. The KC Card catolog prices in the market are because of me and I still buy and sell them every time they are available.

My vote is if you don't have any of the material get it for the 20. But be aware that it is only hard to find and at any time it can be reproduced, in the same digital format for far less. Still you can't get a quality meal for two for $20 so give that some thought.

If you already have some of the printed or reprinted works, shun them, and steer the newbs in.

Fact.

I suspect that the last scraps of remaining stock may be disposed of without issue considering the very high pricing vs the original catalog pricing. We can conclude that only collectors would pay 5 and 10 times the prices up to 50 times the price and much more.

BIG PROBLEM. Advanced collectors such as myself have lots of holes in their collections still. I mean I am down to buying 50 or 75 of an item to get one for myself and then wait till there is interest. I can't keep doing that and its worse for other collectors.

Already some of these items are all but untouchable price wise. Its a crime not to properly document an era such as this and just ban it. Its like rewriting history.

Sad situation.

FYI
I went to the Chicago office in 1988 and purchased some marked cards. They had no catalogs at that time.

FYI
I went to the Chicago office in 1988 and purchased some marked cards. They had no catalogs at that time.

FYI
I went to the Chicago office in 1988 and purchased some marked cards. They had no catalogs at that time.

I bought some catalogues from dave maleks shop http://www.elmagicshop.com/cgi-bin/webc.......38675.f2