This is the traditional weekly thrift and bargain finds list.
These lists may start empty but as always: add your items.
Put in what you consider a bargain, tell us how much you paid and the place you got it from. Bargains can be thrift store finds or any second-hand purchases or discounted games bought new. Don't forget to add your encounters with the Thrift Store Irritant Squad™ and any other embellishments in order to make it even more interesting.
Our GeekGuild: The Ancient and Loyal Order of Thrifters. Enter the halls of thriftdom at your own risk. Do mind the stacks of prized games. Don't mention the musty smell and try not to sneeze. Be sure to bow before our King, EvilTimmy I, and pay your due respects to last year's King, Blackwind I. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/guild/193
For Mother's day, the kids decided that I should build a brand spanking new flower bed for our backyard. Not one to argue, I ventured to the nearby Home Depot for some stones, soil, plants and other items. And wouldn't you know it, but this Home Depot is right down the street from a Value Village. Well, it would be a shame to be in the neighbourhood without dropping by.
Not much new on the shelf, but sandwiched between Clue and Clue Jr was this little Ravensburger game suitable for kids. For $2 it's a no brainer.
However, on inspection at home I find that the rules are missing, as are a yellow and red boat. Oh, and the die has been replaced by a standard d6. Oh well, none of these are fatal -- I'm not likely to play with more than 3, the rules are downloadable from the Geek, and a die is a die, once you know the faces (which I've already discerned from postings on the Geek). I'm looking forward to playing this one with the kids.
Up the River. $2 at Value Village. Incomplete, but enough to play with three players. Otherwise in great shape.
Tooled around to some thrift stores and at Bargain Thrift I located This version for 54 cents. Amazingly, they had Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader in Shrink for $13 in the display case.
I would say "Yes, I am smarter than a 5th Grader and thanks for the bargain!"
Picked this up at ValuWorld. Luckily it was the middle of the three items taped in a stack so there was no damage from that tape. The other two items were a box of greeting cards and a puzzle. So the cost assigned to the game is 40 cents. The box has shelf wear, stains, sticker, and some tape removal damage on the bottom (previous). It is complete but the components show their use. One of the green chips has a chip! The chip off the ol' chip is still in the box.
Picked up a couple of things this weekend while running around. Picked this up for $1.99, in pretty bad shape but mostly complete. Looks like it might be an interesting play.
Also picked up a copy of this for $1.99, in the plastic case but no box or instructions. Anybody know why this doesn't show up when you search for 'Set' in the game lookup box when adding it to a geeklist? Weird!
Also came home to a nice surprise - a package of games from the current http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/24780/ that I've been waiting on for a while. It included a Brawl Club Foglio Tess deck
I put the act of buying a tic-tac-toe game on my list right next to buying a battleship game. Unheard of! I've been playing battleship and tic tac toe for 50 years by drawing them on paper!
However, I've been seeing these glass tic tac toe pieces in the thrift shops but it seems like every game has at least one x or one o missing. At a yardsale today, I found a complete game for two bucks.
I finally bought a tic tac toe game. Don't tell my mother, please. She'll make me play Chinese Checkers with her again, and I never beat her.
I'll put the new game on a private shelf, right next to battleship and travel battleship.
Sport Marbles Playset! Two bucks and looking pretty good. Comes with 50 marbles, a soccer goal (which you shoot at with a soccer marble, bowling pins (which you shoot at with a bowling ball marble-very cool), a bridge that gets in your way and a marble launcher.
Man, I could've used one of these marble launchers when I was ten. I was a lousy shot.
Finally. My very first copy of this for $1. Box is a bit rough and it's missing 3 bits--1 beach card [which one, I have yet to determine] and 1 red and 1 purple swimmer [haven't determined their numbers yet]. Everything else was present [including the obligatory extra monsters].
This game was *well* loved and the cards are kind of tired, so I'd love to replace as many of them as possible. At this point, I may actually just recreate them on 100lb cardstock and print off a new set at work.
I'm pretty excited about this find though as I think the near-wife will really dig it.
I have some parts for this. If you find out what you need exactly let me know and I will see what I have.
Here's what is absolutely missing:
1 Purple #1 Swimmer 1 Red #3 Swimmer 1 Beach "Shark" Card [the image of the fin] 1 Boat [I swear I counted 12 in the store but there are only 11 here now]
Here are the cards that are pretty creased and I would love to replace if possible:
Beach: Shark Swims to any vacant space Beach: Move one of your boats 3 spaces
Forest: Whale dives to any vacant space Forest: Sea Serpent dives to any vacant space
Mountain: Kill a shark.
Obviously, I'd most like to come up with the missing bits, but any help with any of the above would be much appreciated.
On my way to my monthly games club I stopped off at a few towns to check out their shops. £3.99 from Oxfam, complete & excellent condition. I will have to wait until Christmas to get some decent ebay return.
Because I just missed my onward train in going back to the store for this I decided to wait on a bench for 15 mins and found 20p on it...so the game technically only cost £3.79
A much better find was at RSPCA for £1.50, complete & excellent condition. I already have 2 copies so I've given this one away to a gaming friend (who gave me a Smurf memory game for my son).
A bit odd perhaps, because I'm not keen on wargames, a minor grail find for me has been a vintage copy of Risk with those smooth wooden blocks. £1.50 at Help the Aged, complete and 'well looked after' condition (although the box was moderately grubby so I used a wet-wipe to clean it).
Well actually I left this one and bought its cousin 'Penalty Shoot-out' (not yet in DB). It's mostly the same thing (a playmat, a goal, one keeper and one kicker) and was given away with a certain brand of chocolate bars. £0.50, St. Francis Hospice, Brentwood.
On my way to and from Pax River, I stopped by a few thrifts - nothing particularly interesting per se, but what did pick up in everyone of thesee looked practically new! And these were quite old games. First up Scrabble Sentence Cube for $1.41.
You don't even need to be competitive with this in order to get great use out of it. My son and I started playing with this when he was four, just making equations from random pulls until he got bored. I don't think that we ever kept score.
There are 'simple' and 'advanced' tile sets out there as well. Simple has fewer fractions and more ones and zeros. Advanced has more fractions and introduces exponents.
That's good to know. My son is 6, so I will definitely get some use out of it then, if you have using since your kid was 4.
I find it funny that they tout that a mathematician cretaed it; we're talking fairly basic math (even when you include exponents), so I am not sure why a mathematician is necessary. Guess it establishes a credibility?
If this hadn't looked like new for $1, I would not have picked this up. I can never rememeber the name of the store, but it's on Route 5 heading south from Mechanicsville, MD.
Same prce, same store, same time... Holy similarities Batman!
I also dropped by Unique Thrift as I got close to home for literally 3 minutes, but found a pair of vintage 1960s spun aluminum (or aluminium if you will) Tiki torches still in their box - like new with only a water stain on the box. $5.95. What a deal - retro torches for my retro house...
See my Favorite Contribution Microbadge (Purple Dot) for my collection of reviews from the 2011 Solitaire Print and Play contest.
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I met my wife at a hair salon on Friday in the Sugarhouse area, which I don't make it to as often as I used to. (New job isn't close to it - or any other thrift store ) I stopped in for a minute at the DI and found a few mildly interesting things.
First up was this, which I knew was not a great game, but the box (German edition) was so cute that I knew my wife would like it. It is missing one red cap and one yellow cap. Also missing the rules and the die but those I can track down.
$2.00 at Sugarhouse DI. Slightly incomplete but playable and good condition.
See my Favorite Contribution Microbadge (Purple Dot) for my collection of reviews from the 2011 Solitaire Print and Play contest.
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Next up was this. I hadn't heard of it before, but the awesome playing pieces were too cool to pass up. Unfortunately, this one was missing tons of the gold pieces, robbers, rafts, etc... but strangely, all the wooden pieces (with the exception of the die) were still there. I'm sure I can find a use for the train and cowboy blocks. Anyway, it looks like there are a few people that have parts for this game, but I can't imagine that I'll go to two much trouble to complete it. The original rules were missing too but there was a xerox of them included.
$2.00 at Sugarhouse DI. Incomplete, but what was there was in decent condition.
See my Favorite Contribution Microbadge (Purple Dot) for my collection of reviews from the 2011 Solitaire Print and Play contest.
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Next I grabbed a big 1960s Era box of thin Poker Chips. Those are always easy to find a use for. In fact, I might use them to complete the next game...
The numbers 80, 175 and 229 are the winning tickets in last week's Thrifty Lottery. Congratulations to mistermarino, eightbit and SurfinDecoy who are the winners of one shiny coin each. The winnings have been added as tips to the corresponding listed items on last week's list.
This week there's another Thrifty Lottery with three coins up for grabs. You'll find the details and previous results here: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/299468
I also got 3 hardbound edition 'books' of the following: Michael Crichton- "Timeline"; Elmore Leonard- "Get Shorty"; and Douglas Adams- "Mostly Harmless". Those were in the "Dime Novels" section.
I also got the IMAGE Entertainment DVDs "Plan 9 From Outer Space" (with the Flying Saucers Over Hollywood doc and "The Haunted World of Ed Wood Jr." They had some others, but the only one I'd really get (not that I actually want it) is Glen Or Glenda.
) I stopped in for a minute at the DI and found a few mildly interesting things.
's-Hertogenbosch
Noord-Brabant
The numbers 80, 175 and 229 are the winning tickets in last week's Thrifty Lottery.
Congratulations to mistermarino, eightbit and SurfinDecoy who are the winners of one shiny
This week there's another Thrifty Lottery with three coins up for grabs. You'll find the details and previous results here: www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/299468
To all of you again...
Good hunting. Good luck!
Kingman
Kansas
Maple Valley
Washington
I love my new game even more now.
Thanks.
Aberdeen
Washington
Chula Vista
California