Monday, March 11, 2013

Thrift Store Games

I love shopping at the local Salvation Army or Goodwill. In the area near the church where I pastor there are four thrift stores within blocks of each other, all well stocked. I like to browse the stores in search of anything game related and occasionally I actually find something. In one of my searches, I found an intact, unplayed boxed campaign set for Dungeons and Dragons' Dark Sun campaign. Since I don't play it-- it became available on my ebay account. I paid $2.00 for it and sold it for $12.00 as I recall. This stoked the fire and I intensified my search. I discovered a copy of Avalon Hill's "Feudal" and it also went via ebay for a small profit. Then, I thought I hit the jackpot-- I found a still in shrink wrap copy of "Carcassone"-- I bought it not knowing whether I would play it or sell it. Months later I let it go for $15.00 on ebay, a profit of $12.00. Another find was a copy of Risk 2210 (or whatever the number is) but I discovered it was missing a number of pieces and I sold it for parts. By the time I paid the shipping I underestimated, I lost about $2.00. Not to mention my time. My friend, Alfonzo, seems to do better in his quests than I do. Perhaps he just hits the stores on the right days or shops in a better neighborhood than I do. I picked up a copy of Avalon Hill's Alexander at a thrift store, and really enjoyed it messing around solitaire with it. I paid like $8.00 for it, but felt it to be a bargain. Once upon a time, these old games went in the trash, but now we recycle them via thrift stores, or more likely, EBay. Americans don't seem to throw anything away.