Happened upon some old Munchkin cards. Can these be played together?

[Zero5360]

A few weeks ago, a friend introduced Munchkin to my wife and I at our weekly game night. We liked it so much that I bought the core set, printed May 2012. Just this last weekend, I was at a friend's house and I brought it up and he said his old roommate left his Munchkin cards at his place when he moved out years ago and offered them to me. Problem is, these look fairly old and the FAQ says that some of the older sets aren't compatible with the newer ones. Furthermore, there are expansions that I don't have the rulebook for.

Here are the cards I received. The only box is for the Demented Dungeons expansion and it is 1st edition, 1st printing, March 2008. I can only assume the other cards are older as Demented Dungeons is practically unplayed and the others are well-worn.

http://i.imgur.com/K7cp0rk.jpg

I couldn't find any dates on the cards, so here are some pictures. The far left card is from the set I just purchased and the others are from the stack I was given. There are some color variations that have me suspicious. Also, are the symbols at the bottom of the three on the right representative of the expansion they came from? If so, is there a list available so I might know which expansions I have?

http://i.imgur.com/EGUt16k.jpg

Lastly, is there any way I can buy replacement cards? There are about 40 cards that I found that are water-damaged and/or torn that I would like to replace.

Thanks for any information!

[Clipper]

The cards are from the older sets, so there are some cards that have been updated, especially Super Munchkin. Other changes can be found in the 2010 Change Log.

Most of those cards can be used, though, if you keep the changes in mind.

As for replacement cards, you won't find them as all the cards are now printed in colour. You'll have a better experience buying new sets and keeping the older cards as a fun alternate deck to play with.

[GT Quigley]

Here is the link to the card icon guide.

http://www.worldofmunchkin.com/icons/

[Zero5360]

Thanks so much guys!

[RevBob]

Originally Posted by Zero5360

There are some color variations that have me suspicious.

Way back in the Long-Ago, the Door cards were the same shade of brown as the Treasure cards. Expansion sets from this era were packaged in wraparound cardstock folders, and they also lacked set icons.

About when the first printing of Need for Steed came out (IIRC), all of the above started to change. Door cards were lightened considerably, to make it easier to separate the two decks at the end of a game. Set icons were introduced, and the packaging shifted to a plastic "clamshell" style.

All of which is to say that the color variations you mention only reflect that you've got some really early printings. You may want to visit the errata pages and see what applies to your cards. (There's a link on each product's page.) I'd recommend getting out a fine-point Sharpie and actually correcting the cards, as opposed to printing the errata pages as reference material.

As for the water-damaged cards...frankly, with a set of that vintage, I'd use that as an excuse to buy a new printing of the affected set(s). The product pages also have card list and rulesheet links, which should come in handy for separating the stash into sets and assessing the extent of the damage in terms of replacement costs.