Another post mockingly mentioned selling temple signs & tokens on ebay, and piqued my curiosity of what Mormony things might be on ebay right now. Among lots of things I found this:

1980 Gold Foil Book Of Mormon Cover, Reformed Egyptian Hieroglyphics Artifacts
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1980-Gold-Foil-Book-Of-Mormon-Cover-Reformed-Egyptian-Hieroglyphics-Artifacts-/251363384238?pt=US_Nonfiction_Book&hash=item3a866cdbae

Description reads:

"Gold Foil Cover with "Reformed Egyptian" Hieroglyphics, measures approx. 7 by 5 inches. Sought after by collectors, not only for the great cover, but also because this edition is out of print and contains photos of artifacts, drawings, and locations in support of, and possibly related to, the peoples in the Book of Mormon."

Now, really, Reformed Egyptian? Has it not already been determined that there is no such thing as RE? If so, just what is the scrawl on this gold foil cover? You're welcome to examine the link, check out the photo, pontificate, and share any thoughts.

There's another one for sale someone's hoping to get $99 from (hah, good luck with that). Apparently that edition was controversial and was recalled ...probably recalled because of the FAUX reformed egyptian on the cover?

My dad had one of these in the 80s! I used to think it was the coolest thing...gold and cool Egyptian pictures...but I was 8.

I was 8 in 1983 and had my first impression of mormons from a heart-sell commercial. I'll never forget it. I loved that commercial. Wish my never-mo family had been heart-sell happy! Of course now I see that heartsell is mostly an artistic illusion, but still nice to dream of and aim for occasional sweet family moments like that. I digress, off topic.

I remember back in the late '70s (on my mission) of having the choice to hawk either these gold books or the regular blue ones. The insides were the same. There were also gold zippered covers for our 'triple combinations' if we wanted to buy them. We were actually told to use them to reflect the sun into people's faces... because, you know, people like shiny things. Mormon inspiration at its best.

Out of print? Yeah, somebody probably challenged the characters. "Oops.. better not use those anymore."

So you've seen these IRL! Haha reflecting shiny things into people's faces.

I'm curious to know where the characters came from, if they were just made up?

Yes... it was my IRL. I still have a couple of the blue BofMs; I should have saved a gold one. I was mormon-nerdy enough to buy the zipper cover; but it fell apart long ago. There was also a sandy-colored Hebrew(?) zipper cover for the OT/NT. I still have that one. The screening is almost all worn off, though.

And I think about them (and snicker) when I see Klingon writing... or that writing they use on Futurama.

Listen to the Mormon Expositor podcasts about Mark Hoffman. These come up. I have two ;)

Notice how "Reformed Egyptian" is in quotes. I'm sure if you called them out on it, they'd just say it was an "artist's impression" or something to that effect.

I sent the seller a question. I'll let you know if they respond.

Can you tell me if the Reformed Egyptian characters are accurately presented? I've been unable to find Reformed Egyptian and this might be what I was looking for.

Thanks.

Asking closer to the source, good idea :-)

It looks like they were copied from the supposed Anthon transcript to me. Do a google image search for "anthon transcript" and compare.

That's exactly where they came from. The CoC (formerly RLDS) has the supposed Anthon "caractors" transcript.

So based on a google search, the Anthon transcript is the same as "nickname's" link to Mark Hoffman's reformed egyptian forgery. Are these one and the same? I need to research more if I feel inclined. Or not :-)

The way I understand it, the "Caracters" transcript didn't match the description of the Anthon transcript, and Mark Hoffman took advantage of this discrepancy to create his forgery. Hoffman's forgery looks different...it has a circular Mayan calendar-looking thing in the bottom right, and is in portrait orientation, per the description.

Yeah, on further investigation it looks like Mark Hoffman and this foil BoM both got their characters from the same place: the CoC's "Anthon Transcipt."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthon_Transcript

In fact, on further further investigation, it looks like the makers of the foil BoM just lifted the entire "Anthon Transcript" "text," character for character, directly onto their cover. (they had to repeat part of the first line again at the bottom to fill the page)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2013 06:59PM by nickname.

Aren't the symbols from Mark Hoffman?

Mark Hoffman was circa late 70's early 80's, yeah...

Lol! They totally are! Check it out!

Hoffman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ref._Egyptian.jpg

Foil BoM: http://i.ebayimg.com/t/1980-Gold-Foil-Book-Of-Mormon-Cover-Reformed-Egyptian-Hieroglyphics-Artifacts-/00/s/MTYwMFgxMjAw/z/xoAAAOxyYTRSZs3y/$T2eC16VHJHQFFhdj,25yBSZs3yKYlg~~60_57.JPG



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/27/2013 06:16PM by nickname.

Good find!!

Maybe those would be fun to buy after all.

Or not.

Yippee!

That was the very first thing on my shelf.

I was 8ish. I was sitting in primary (I think) in the second ward in Seattle. I was in front of the pulpit bored sh!tless. I looked at the book in my hands and was reading the cover. I realized that NONE of the so called "characters" had any stylistic correlation to one another.

I remember thinking "this looks like a kid made it up. I could do better."

I had a book which was published in the 1940s with similar characters which were presented as from the BoM which JS had copied and were accepted by an LDS leader as such. Hence, at least some of the characters were found on documents from 1830. It appears such additional ones are included in this book cover which appear similar to the writing on the Kinderhook plates.