The glory of the gaming auction, part 2

So the twice-yearly Game Plus gaming auction came and went earlier this month. If you've read this blog much, you'll know that the auction is a fixture in the Chicago gaming scene—literally hundreds of sellers unload their unwanted gaming goods (board games, RPGs, miniatures, everything else) over four frenetic days of bidding. It's almost a convention unto itself, albeit one restricted to a single event.

It's fascinating to attend, because it really gives a sampling of the Midwestern gamer zeitgeist of the each particular year. Last September, for example, D&D 4e products didn't sell (to one commenter's woe). This year, a bunch of older gamers whipped themselves into a bidding frenzy over a string of Middle Earth Roleplay products, which I gather are becoming increasingly hard to find. Each year, a few reliable products command high prices (Deities and Demigods feat. Cthulhu, the D&D little brown books, entire Warhammer 40k armies painted to a decent degree, etc).

In any case, the March auction witnessed an undeniable resurgence of interest in D&D 3.x products. Gently used Players Handbooks and DM Guides consistently sold for $18 to $22 all day long; at the height of the bidding, when the room was packed with a standing-room-only crowd, I watched a 3.5 PHB sell for $38...that's right, more than the original retail price.

I participated heavily, both as a seller and as a buyer. I ended up selling off a bunch of oddball RPGs, assorted board games and random miniatures that I convinced myself I'd never get around to painting. I also put up my entire collection of Star Wars RPG d6 books—this was only a bit sentimental, as the SWRPG constituted my initial foray into roleplaying. But the prequels have forever soured my desire to ever roleplay Star Wars ever again, and I was pleased that my whole pile o' loot sold for more than $200. Sweet!

On the buying front, I ended up sitting through 8+ hours of bidding on Saturday and Sunday with very little to show for it. I was interested in a lot of stuff, but not so interested that I wanted to get in a bidding war with the dude sitting across the room, know what I'm sayin'? I'm going to have to re-think my strategy, especially on the RPG front, because I'm finding that there's not that much I'm really looking for anymore. The gem of the day was a very nice copy of Palladium's Weapons and Castles sourcebook from 1982. This was an excellent buy, given my current fascination with castles sieges (due in no small part to my recent re-reading of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones books).

I fared much better on Sunday, which was dedicated to miniatures. There I picked up two awesome random bags of old, half-painted miniatures from a variety of manufacturers and game system, all for $10 a bag. Between the two bags, I probably scored 35+ individual figures. I got Ral Partha, Grenadier, Citadel and a big pile of figs from the now-defunct manufacturer Adiken. That should keep me painting for a while!

Fresh from 1980: Grenadier's Fighting Men boxed set

The "buy of the day" from last weekend's gaming auction has to be this boxed set of AD&D Fighting Men from Grenadier Models Inc. The set is in mint condition, considering its age.
The box is pristine and the miniatures themselves look like they were cast yesterday. I even had to clean off flash and mold lines, that's how new they were. Take a look:


I love the variety of weapons and poses: halberds, swords, axes, spears, crossbows and more. I don't think any of the dudes herein are fitted out exactly the same way. And is it just me, or do you sense a little trepidation—maybe even fear—in the lead-molded faces of these bold little fighters? They're aggressive, sure, but I'll bet they know when to turn tail and run.

Believe it or not, I snagged this box for $3. I'll be painting a lot of miniatures this winter, so perhaps I'll check back on these fellows so we can see how they've progressed.

Fistfuls of loot at the fall gaming auction

Last weekend was the fall auction at Games Plus, Chicago's gaming mecca. Enthusiasts from near and far emptied out their closets and bookshelves, filling the halls of Games Plus with much-loved gaming books, miniatures, board games and accessories.

Each day had a particular theme. I stopped by for Saturday (the tabletop RPG book day) and Sunday (the miniatures day). Once the bidding commenced around 11 a.m., it didn't stop until about 8 or 9 p.m. The Games Plus team went non-stop, auctioning items fast and furious—and frequently switching out auctioneers when a particular volunteer's voice started to fade.

Most lots went for less than $10, and plenty of great deals could be had for as little as $1 or $2. The auction featured several jewels from the hobby's early days. In particular, I saw near-mint copies of Phil Edgren's "The Book of Monsters" and "The Book of Demons"—both circa-1976 unofficial supplements to D&D and other first-generation fantasy RPGs. I admit that I didn't really know what they were when I saw them sitting atop a pile of books. But a quick flip through the musty pages confirmed their old-school cred. They were published through Little Soldier Games. I couldn't find much reference to Edgren or the publisher on the Web, but there's this.

Interestingly, throughout the day, the D&D 3.x core books received much higher bids than the 4e stuff in the auction. One 4e PHB with a starting bid of $10 didn't even sell! But none of the current generation of fantasy games proved as popular as the Pathfinder core book. I saw just one copy go up for auction, and bidding ended somewhere around the actual retail price for the book.

And I spotted this just before I left, so I couldn't bid on it. But I would have!


So what did I get, you ask? I scored a copy of Fantasy Flight's "Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation" 2-player board game, and a I won a lot of 6 AD&D books, all by Gygax—two of which were immediately earmarked for The Reverend, an occasional commenter on this blog and a real-life fellow gamer here in Chicago.

On Sunday, the miniatures day, I spent about $35 and walked away with a nice pile of assorted miniatures, rulebooks, terrain and some static grass. I had entered some of my own stuff in the auction too; later this week I'll find out how much cold, hard store credit I'll be getting from that.

The Great Purge of 2008

I'm in the midst of some housecleaning, at least as it pertains to my hobbies. Since the end of the summer, I've been selling off a lot of my comics and gaming stuff in order to free up some closet/shelf space for a more "distilled" version of my hobbies. Trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, if you will...simply put, I'm tired of moving boxes of stuff around to find what I want.

In practice, this has amounted to a rash of eBay auctions lately...four to five comic book lots each week for nearly a month, so far. I've also taken a few loads of books to Half Price Books; last night's haul funded my purchase of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide, which I've wanted to read for quite some time.

The problem, of course, is my own internal eBay policy. I allow myself to shop for new gaming stuff using only the funds I've acquired by selling off my own stuff, which helps keep my finances in order and lets me stay motivated to churn through unused bits of my collection. Last summer I sold off my Warhammer 40k armies; this summer it's comics. I'm having a tough time finding RPG books that I can let go. Plus my swelling Paypal account has me shopping more frequently on eBay...for the very stuff that I might end up selling off in another year or two. In fact, a careful read of my online commerce habits could even show that my purge is backfiring; my overall geek merchandise volume might be growing. I'll let you know next time I try to pack it all up in boxes.

Post-auction writeup: Loot, glorious loot

Yesterday was the fall gaming auction at Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, IL. I attended with an eye toward snatching up some useful and/or nostalgic items for cheap. In that respect, I was thoroughly successful. Here's what ended up in my adventurer's backpack at the end of the day:

• Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition- $6
• Dungeon Worlds: Catacombs - $1 (didn't really need it, but the price was right)
• Wondrous Items of Power - $3 (terrible editing, but if I can rip even one good campaign idea out of this book, then it was worth the price)
• Wreckage - $8 (small, quick board game of Mad Max-style vehicular combat; I've coveted this sucker for a long time)
• Zombies!!! - $5 (waited and waited to snag this game for a decent price...success!)
• Agone core book - $5 (OK, I thought I was bidding on Agon, and I didn't realize it until I'd already won the auction for this game. Eh.)
• AD&D trading cards - $2 (couldn't say no, plus they'll be great for Everway)
• Cracken's Threat Dossier - 50 cents (again, couldn't pass it up. I'll play d6 Star Wars again...I swear it)

And I didn't even hit my carry limit.

The glory of the gaming auction

One of the coolest things about living in Chicago is the twice-annual Games Plus Gaming Auction, held by the good chaps at Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, IL. Throughout most of September, local gamers can drop off their unwanted gaming merchandise, which becomes part of a veritable mountain of loot that dominates the rear of the store. Daily visitors to the store, of course, watch this treasure heap grow over the course of the month, which serves only to enhance the sense of excitement and anticipation for the auction.

The auction itself spans a long weekend, with each day dedicated to a particular gaming category: Friday for the board games, Saturday for the RPGs and fantasy games, and Sunday for the miniatures. Make no mistake: these are long days. There’s no rhyme or reason to the auction; cartloads of material are wheeled up to the auctioneer’s table all day long and sold in the order they arrive. A barely-used copy of Zombies!!! might be auctioned off right after a much-loved edition of Keep on the Borderlands, for example.

What this means for customers is that you have to sit through the whole thing to make sure you won’t miss a particular item you spied in the treasure heap. There’s no way to be alerted when an item you want goes up for auction. The upshot of all this is that Games Plus is clogged with gaming geeks lounging on chairs, reading books or eating lunch pretty much all day long. As the day progresses, these folks are generally quite vocal, sending up a chorus of “ooooh!” whenever a particular gem commands a hefty price, or chuckling when another customer nabs an oddball item for cheap. In truth, it’s a fairly festive atmosphere, sort of a cross between Medieval Times and a football game.

Last year I snagged the Eberron core book ($5), Panty Explosion ($3) and Fluid Mechanics ($5, a supplement for Blue Planet). This year I’m hoping to attend both the RPG day and the miniatures day.