More Vikinger
I had a great time at Endgame's 4/23 boardgame/wargame auction, in which 99 bidders bought 500+ games in 5 hours. I brought in six boxes of games (half for friends) and most of them sold, and I was good and only bought 3 things, although I bid on several more. Aaron flew back from the east coast to conduct the auction, and it was good to see him again.
Aaron knows a ton about games and provided running commentary on the games as he auctioned them. My favorite lines:
Ticket to Ride Dice Expansion: "If that sounds fun it probably is."
Vikings: "More Vikinger because this is the German edition." $13
CIA Cold War: "CIA vs. KGB. It's Blackjack the Gathering."
Top 10 prices I saw:
$80 Star Wars Queen's Gambit
$64 Space Hulk old edition in close to new condition (the same bidder also bought the as-new Deathwing and Genestealer supplements, so the trio remain together. That was great.)
$57 Merchant of Venus (starting bid $5; a LOT of bidding cards went up)
$53 White Bear Red Moon (opened at $50)
$53 War of the Ring + (rare) Expansions (no Sauron)
$49 Space Hulk 90% painted
$47 Rune Wars
$46 Railways of the World
$46 AH Dune + 2 expansions (some pieces missing, no unused player aid sheets)
$45 Streets of Stalingrad
Prices of note:
$18 Arkham Horror (another one at $20 went unsold)
$35 Dune without Expansions
$19 Dune without Expansions, box splitting at seams, some chits replaced
$13 Greg Costikyan's Bug-Eyed Monsters ("Look, it has a 'lust-crazed' counter")
$17 Last Night on Earth
$21 Nuns on the Run
$12 Starship Troopers (a later one had no takers at $4 but was bought afterwards for $5).
$17 just the Sauron and Gondor expansion for War of the Rings
My Battletech Nostalgia Pak went for $35 late in the bidding, and pleasingly, to the person I was hoping would win it. So yay!
In general the games that opened at low bids (a dollar or two) seemed to do well, but some things with high opens ($15 or 20) went unsold. Where they had multiples of an item they did dutch auctions, which I liked, where when the number of items available matched the number of remaining bidders, they all sold at that price. In cases where items had different starting prices, it started with the lowest price and if the bids went high enough, more copies came in. Several things missed their chance to sell by only a dollar.
The auction was really well-run and enjoyable. Endgame holds the auction every year in late April and I highly recommend it. Left-over games are available at Endgame through Monday for their minimum bid or $5, whichever higher, including a copy of Arkham Horror for $20.
Aaron knows a ton about games and provided running commentary on the games as he auctioned them. My favorite lines:
Ticket to Ride Dice Expansion: "If that sounds fun it probably is."
Vikings: "More Vikinger because this is the German edition." $13
CIA Cold War: "CIA vs. KGB. It's Blackjack the Gathering."
Top 10 prices I saw:
$80 Star Wars Queen's Gambit
$64 Space Hulk old edition in close to new condition (the same bidder also bought the as-new Deathwing and Genestealer supplements, so the trio remain together. That was great.)
$57 Merchant of Venus (starting bid $5; a LOT of bidding cards went up)
$53 White Bear Red Moon (opened at $50)
$53 War of the Ring + (rare) Expansions (no Sauron)
$49 Space Hulk 90% painted
$47 Rune Wars
$46 Railways of the World
$46 AH Dune + 2 expansions (some pieces missing, no unused player aid sheets)
$45 Streets of Stalingrad
Prices of note:
$18 Arkham Horror (another one at $20 went unsold)
$35 Dune without Expansions
$19 Dune without Expansions, box splitting at seams, some chits replaced
$13 Greg Costikyan's Bug-Eyed Monsters ("Look, it has a 'lust-crazed' counter")
$17 Last Night on Earth
$21 Nuns on the Run
$12 Starship Troopers (a later one had no takers at $4 but was bought afterwards for $5).
$17 just the Sauron and Gondor expansion for War of the Rings
My Battletech Nostalgia Pak went for $35 late in the bidding, and pleasingly, to the person I was hoping would win it. So yay!
In general the games that opened at low bids (a dollar or two) seemed to do well, but some things with high opens ($15 or 20) went unsold. Where they had multiples of an item they did dutch auctions, which I liked, where when the number of items available matched the number of remaining bidders, they all sold at that price. In cases where items had different starting prices, it started with the lowest price and if the bids went high enough, more copies came in. Several things missed their chance to sell by only a dollar.
The auction was really well-run and enjoyable. Endgame holds the auction every year in late April and I highly recommend it. Left-over games are available at Endgame through Monday for their minimum bid or $5, whichever higher, including a copy of Arkham Horror for $20.