"Vintage copy of Featherstone's rules for 1880 Period" Topic

I recently purchased the following Donald Featherstone rule booklet, and I'm trying to better understand its history, possible publication date, and whether it's common vs. rare as vintage Wargamer's Newsletter items go. Can any of you help? Has this been republished in any of the Featherstone compilations?

Wargame Rules
Rules For Wargames In The 1880 Period Including Colonial Wars
By Donald F. Featherstone (signed)
A Wargamer's Newsletter Publication

Here is a photo of the cover:
link

Interesting. Did you cross out his autograph? I have never seen that publication.

Yeah, I crossed it out in that picture. (It's not actually crossed out on the booklet.)

I found another similarly-titled one, but it has a different cover:
link

I'd love to hear from anyone with clues as to when it was published, or whether it's included in one of the more recent compilations.

Another interesting question – why would you have crossed out his autograph in a picture of the cover????

These were done in the early 1960's after publishing his book War Games

Don published a series of dittographed war game rules booklets. Ancients through WW1. Notice the first link shows booklet with SAE ACW artillery and figures. The second one shows scene from "Zulu". The second one is in format of his long running magazine, Wargamers Newsletter.

I realize that I neglected to include these in my Timeline and neither did John Curry in his version in the reprint of War Games. Nor did he include these booklets that I can see in any of his series on the History of Wargaming.

link

These were published after War Games and shortly after the beginning of the Magazine. There are no references in the next few books by Featherstone (Tackle Model Soldiers nor Advanced Wargames). I did find a reference to the series in Terence Wise's Introduction to Battle Gaming, 1969. There were 7: Ancients and Medieval, both by Tony Bath; 1750 period in Europe (with suplemnt for North America); Napoleonic Wargames; American Civil War; Late 19th Century, including colonial wars against natives; and 1917 period in German South West Africa, including rules for early tanks and armoured cars. That last one is strange because the war in SWA was over by mid-1915 and there were no tanks or armoured cars there. Maybe this was about German East Africa. I will dig through my files to find these and report after holidays.

I should mention that Don also did a ditto copy version of Little Wars to get it back in circulation.

why would you have crossed out his autograph in a picture of the cover????

Maybe to prevent someone from taking the digital copy of the signature to forge an autographed cover. Or maybe I'm just too cynical.

Yes, the obfuscated signature is to prevent forgeries. I have no idea whether a forgery would even be attempted in this case, but it was trivial to obfuscate, so better safe than sorry. (And in fact, I have no idea whether the signature is even authentic. I imagine it's authentic, but I have no proof of that.)

Onto the main subject…

Perhaps this booklet is essentially identical to the "Late 19th Century (including colonial wars against natives)" section within Lost Tales?

Is it possible that a contemporaneous issue of Wargamer's Newsletter might mention the 1880 Period rule booklet?

Is the 1880 Period rule booklet at all important or significant to wargame historians or collectors? If so, I would like to ensure that it gets to someone who can appreciate it. (I collect roleplaying games, not wargames; I bought the 1880 Period booklet while buying a set of vintage roleplaying games, because it seemed like it might be of historical importance, and ought to get out of the game store's dusty, dirty back room.)

The value to wargamers would be increased if there were the complete set. In any event, with the autograph it would be valuable. Put it on eBay or sell via TMP. The signature looks like Don's, and he did autograph whatever he sold.

Every issue of Wargamer's Newsletter in the 60's and early 70's had an advertisement for the booklets.

Thanks for reminding me of Lost Tales, all of these are in that volume. I had forgotten about that.

I have a collection of D.F. books and I found a similar title as a chapter in a compilation from 1987.
The book is:
Athena
WARGAMES RULES
WARGAMER'S NEWSLETTER
(Donald Featherstone)
RULES

Printed by Imperial Press, 34 Imperial Crescent, , Doncaster DN2 5BU

This book contains rules by Tony Bath Phillip Barker and Don Featherstone and is signed by Don.

The Chapter is called
"Rules for the late 19th Century Wargames(including Colonial Wars against Natives)"

I'll post pictures on my blog as holiday time permits.