Saturday, March 26, 2011

New board games can be rare too!

Sometimes I will come across a game in my collection that is rare because it is "out of print", or no longer in production. Most of these games are still sought after because they are adaptions or updates to old favorites.

Today's game selection is:


This is of course an alternate version of Connect 4, one of my favorite quick, simple games. Games like this are great to play in a series, like best 3 out of 5, or some other predetermined challenge.

Other games I have purchased like this are Guess Who Electronic Version, Monopoly Here and Now, among others I can't recall at the moment. I am usually happy with them but still enjoy playing the original version as well. I recently sold my copy of The Game of Life ~ Twists and Turns for $46 on Ebay and that game still brings a good amount of bids on auction.

I decided to list Connect 4 Stackers on auction instead of as a Buy it Now item in my store to see if I can attract bids. I started it low at only $9.99 and will be happy to sell it for whatever the market will bear. There is only one other copy of the game for sale right now on the internet, on Amazon, for over $120!

I know mine won't sell for quite that much, for a couple of reasons. Mine is flawed, but well loved and still playable. The second reason is I really have no idea how out of line the price is on Amazon with no other recent internet sales to compare it to.

If you want to get in on the action and place your bid, or you just want to watch my auction, you can find it here:

Connect 4 Stackers ~ OOP Board Game

Have you played this game? What do you like about it?

What games have you purchased or played lately that are updates to classic board games? What games do you wish you could find in stores, but they are out of production?

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Monopoly...one of my all time favorites!

On Sunday morning, my neighbor, Paige (age 10) and her little friend rang my doorbell. They wanted to know if I wanted to play this:

Of course I did! Monopoly is one of my favorite games. Shannon and I play it all the time, but these days, we usually play it on the Wii. No, not the new Monopoly Streets game, but the version before that. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. The computer players are pretty realistic with their trades if you set them to the highest skill level.

The girls happily set up the game and let me know I would probably choose Cinderella as my pawn. So I did. The pawns were very cute, all Disney characters of course, and the houses and hotels were cottages and castles instead.

The girls informed me we couldn't buy anything until we went around the board once. I patiently complied...although I can't say if I know for sure if this is a real rule. It must be, because I remember playing with this rule many, many times. (I don't like that rule)

Paige was the banker and the property dealer, so she had a lot on her plate. The girls were passing on a lot of opportunities to buy, but we didn't hold any auctions. I didn't mention it. I, on the other hand, was happily snatching up every property I could get my hands on and running low on money. Paige's money pile was growing like weeds.

Soon, Shannon walked by and told the girls the key was to buy up anything they could. Boy, did the game start to take a twist. Paige landed on Park Place. She bought it with a $500 bill and was happily giving herself $250 in change. I had to explain that her change was only $150. She didn't believe me ;) so she double checked with Shannon. In all the excitement, she forgot to collect the property card. The next time she landed on it, she tried to buy it again. I had to tell her the whole story about the payment and change before she realized she really DID own it. Oh, kids....

During this time I was boiling a couple of hot dogs for breakfast. Yes, that's right. Paige landed on Free Parking at some point, collecting the $500 the girls added to the pot at the beginning and whatever tax money had been paid in. I asked the girls if they were going to replace the $500 from the bank for the next lucky winner. They reluctantly agreed. "I guess so." they said.

Quite a few times Paige accidentally paid for things with the bank's money instead of her own, and while I truly believe it was an accident, boy was that girl loaded. You are wondering why I am not mentioning the friend. She wasn't too interested. She was laying on the floor a lot, playing with my pets, picking lint off her pants, basically not paying attention. Classic bored kid behavior. I made a trade with her so she would have all 3 orange properties and I would have all 3 red. Paige had the 2 purple properties at the beginning of the board and was purchasing cottages for them, and eventually a castle! She was NOT following the even build rule, which I read to her from the book, but let her do what she wanted anyway. She had her castle on one property and nothing on the other. And yes, I came around quickly to a $450 burn. She took a risk and it paid off.

Around this time, her friend seemed bored to tears and I was about out of money. Paige had around $50,000 and a huge stack of properties. Her friend said she wanted to go back to the other house and I told them we could just call Paige the winner and end the game early. "Really?", Paige asked. She was delighted.

Do you like Monopoly? I want to know what rules and adaptions you use when you play with your family. Do you go around the board once without buying? Add money to Free Parking? Have you ever even thought about the even build rule? What about auctions and trading? Do you usually finish? Feel free to comment on anything and everything about Monopoly, one of my favorite games.

Monday, March 7, 2011

RISK

Oh, RISK. I love this game.

It's a shame I haven't played with a group of people more often. My husband and I have played the 2 player version of this game countless times, going for "world domination" to determine a winner.

I own several versions, so I am getting ready to list the one from the photo above on Ebay, in an attempt to thin the closet a bit.

UPDATE: This game SOLD on eBay on March 8th for $14.99

It is hard for me to look at this game and not remember a time we were playing and Shannon actually became furious about the number of sixes I rolled in a row. I am known to get the giggles from time to time and on this particular occasion, the giggles were on in full force. He was challenging me to a round of battles and I kept winning. It frustrated him so much, he actually did a mocking impression of me rolling the dice. It went something like this:

"Oh! Six! HaHaHa! Let's roll again! Six! hehehe! Six! Oh, you want to try again! Six! Oh, my, I dropped my dice on the floor ACCIDENTALLY, but on the re-roll, LOOK! I got a SIX! Six! Six! Six!" The rant ended with him throwing his dice at the wall behind me.

Oh what I would give to have a video of that. Please don't get a bad impression of my husband. He is not violent, or anything of the sort. When I remind him of this story, he actually feels bad.

It's just a really good example of his competitive nature shining through, combined with a true LOVE for dice games. He likes to hold the dice a certain way, call out what he's going to roll before the dice are thrown, and occasionally has a strong reaction to the result. I think a lot of it stems from his youth and an obsession with Strat-o-matic baseball. But that is another post, another story...

Are you a fan of the game RISK? Do you usually play for world domination or use the mission cards? Any RISK stories?

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Welcome

Welcome to my closet! Err...my new blog ;)

I am starting this blog to drive traffic to my ebay store, Goulash. There is also a link at the bottom of this page.

I love board games! Although I find vintage games most interesting, there are a lot of really great games out there. I love the feeling of sitting down to play a good old fashioned board game and all of the fun that comes along with the experience.

I also love all things ebay. I have been buying and selling for years, but last summer I decided to up the ante a bit and thought it would be nice to try to become a power-seller and set some sales goals for myself. I reached my goal of becoming a power-seller after a great Christmas season and some hard work. One day I shipped out eleven packages!

February was quite slow and I have read about others starting blogs to drive traffic to increase online sales, so here I am!

I started focusing on board games after hearing the mantra, "Sell what you know, Sell what you love," etc. from many people. I had a closet FULL of board games, new and old, and started to have some success in selling them, so my main category is represented quite nicely in my store.

There will always be other items in my store as well, feel free to browse a bit!

In the near future, I will be working to add some information about my win/loss record from playing board games, some board game reviews, sales success stories, fun tidbits, and random musings.

If there is anything you are interested in reading about regarding board games, please let me know! I'm sure it will be a bit before this blog really gets rolling, but everyone has to start somewhere! Thank you for reading! :)