Crumb

On the subject of printing and colour variation, as Laserschwert pointed out there's loads of variation even in official output. I think it comes down to personal preference and what image you are used to. I also had the new MI1 poster professionally printed, on fancy paper with a Giclée process. For me it came back extremely over saturated, luckily the printers had a no quibble happiness deal, I de-saturated the image to be more inline with my own IBM boxed version from BITD (which is how it should look in my head 🙂). Looks stunning tbh, it's ~60x20 cm and the detail is fantastic!

I don't know. You should google it and see about the vendor. IIRC the business model is that the keys will likely be purchased from other regions for a lower amount than they then resell on. As I see it, at this point it's probably the most legitimate way of accessing the game, (unless you were to go android or iOS etc instead)

You *might* have luck buying a global/worldwide key from one of the steam key resellers. for example https://www.cjs-cdkeys.com/products/The-Cave-Steam-CD-Key.html I can't guarantee it will work, and i'm in no way affiliated, but it does say the license is worldwide.

oh!, yes where that appears on the box is quite cool (top of the left hand spine!). That's totally been added, it's a different style of writing. I think you've nailed it.

Looks a really nice and clean copy. No tears and minimal folds I've been thinking about the box art version, and the processing it went through in its production. I find it very reminiscent of (90s) photocopier enlargement processes. I wonder if they used a print from a halftone reprint and photocopier enlarged it? Also, not that it matters and is super subtle, I have noticed a difference in place names from the new scan and the box art. In the bottom right, Rhodes (~36 Lat,28 Long), on the box art has a label Lovelle that is not on the engraving. But that does mean there are revisions out there, and that might also mean other variations of hand colouring.

Hey there, wow I went away on holiday for a week (internet free). I'd have chipped in to that, but clearly no need, well done everyone!

I had a few mins so thought I'd have another look. I've found a different impression, this one without the red. some subtle blue around the islands. https://www.hipkiss.org/cgi-bin/zoom.pl?id=653 apparently 1200 dpi is available EDIT scratch that: it's slightly different -it doesn't have the concentric lines around the islands Interestingly though this one is Engraved by Hughes himself, and doesn't have the concentrics, the G.E.Sherman one might be a later re-engraving?

Yes that's right. I used a Hue Saturation Lightness (HSL) on the Red and Magenta Channels for that. I suppose what we don't know is who coloured the map for the box & manual art. Was it already on an engraving print or did they add it when producing the packaging. It's also probable new copper plates were engraved over many years of editions of the book, as they wore out.

I think with a careful use of HSL adjustment on the Reds & Magenta it can be greatly improved. super quick example attached, it can probably be improved with time, but way better than just greyscale conversion. Also I wonder if you end up with an original hardcopy, scanning it through a red transparency then converting the image to mono might well work too. This is the book it is from https://archive.org/details/atlasofclassical00hugh Page 97

I quickly stitched this together from the Geographicus link above. The Indy map is clearly from the same engraving, there could be lots of different variations of hand coloured prints though.

Ha!, you know I like a challenge, <goes and gets IFOA box & engage googlefu> ...and <15mins later yeah think I've found the Indy Map. 😁 I'd says it's "The Coasts and Islands of the Aegean Sea" by Cartographer William Hughes c1867. Engraved by G.E Sherman From the Book "An Atlas of Classical Geography constructed by William Hughes and edited by George Long" Links Previously Sold Item, but not bad scan and one on abebooks by the looks here

I'm pleased I could pin down the map maker to give something back, definitely better than a beer you don't like or want ! 😅

Hey no worries! I like challenges like this one Is it something that's been looked for previously? or just since yesterday?

Hi there, Long time Lurker checking in. Firstly major respect to Laserschwert, thank you for your perseverance and especially thank you for the work on the new Monkey Island posters, it's literally made a dream come true! How can I buy you a beer? The talk about the background maps on S&M made me want to try and use my google-fu and I think I may have found something, at least the publisher, if not the year of the map used. I think it's from a Gousha Interstate Road Atlas. Now I can only see the first couple of pages on an Archive.org version (it's some silly PDF rental thing!?); but looking at the fonts, colours of lettering, the highway number logos etc I'm pretty convinced it's probably the source. WDYT? Crumb