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Back to eBay
Jan. 30th, 2005 05:55 pmThere was a time when I was a collector.
I managed to avoid the worst of excesses with my Magic: The Gathering purchases, but not so for my other favored hobby: roleplaying. Thus, I have sitting on my shelves at least 10 different copies of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, one from each edition starting with 1st. And the same with my other favored RPGs.
It was a sort of game at the time (1989-1994 or so) because the Internet was very young and there was no world wide web. If you wanted a rare item you scoured local game stores and conventions, and maybe sometimes made a distant connection via email. When you managed to pull a rare and desired game out of the piles at Gamescape or from a box at PacifiCon that was a major victory.
I haven't really collected in years. Part of that is a reduced interest in roleplaying that started when I began working for Chaosium, part of it is a lack of money, and part of it is just that my mind doesn't work that way any more. Our house is largely full, and so getting new stuff means, to some extent, getting rid of old stuff. As a result those 9 redundent copies of the Call of Cthulhu rules seem a bit silly.
So Saturday I was thinking about Ars Magica because I'd been fiddling with Project Redcap artwork and talking with David C., who I haven't spoken with in years. I started doing some eBay searches, because I was curious if any of the newer items that I don't have (since I pretty much stopped buying RPG books when I started working for Chaosium) could be found cheap. And I was amazed to see the first edition of the rules going for $100.
Yes, I do indeed have the first edition of the rules. I have a set of Ars Magica books that was pretty much complete up to 1999, even though I didn't get into the game until after it had been out for two years. It includes 8 copies of the rules (though to be fair 4 are from the 3rd edition, which I contributed to) and not just the first edition of the rules, but both printings (first + second). I was even surprised to (re)discover that my first printing was a proof copy, presumably used in-house at Lion Rampant for corrections, signed by Mark Rein*Hagen.
So, it was back to eBay. I'd been looking for something new to sell, to support some new board game purchases, and maybe some RPG purchases for some of the lines I still do care about (notably, Glorantha fanzines, and maybe the new edition of Ars Magica). Besides my firsting printing of Ars Magica I also put up an ultra-rare convention giveaway called The Bats of Mercille and a first ed of The Broken Covenant of Calebais (of which I also have the later second edition).
It's all on eBay if it interests you, and it's all stuff that I won't miss; as I said, I don't have the collector bug any more (and if I did, and I had the money to support it again, I'll get the enjoyment of trying to refind these items).
I managed to avoid the worst of excesses with my Magic: The Gathering purchases, but not so for my other favored hobby: roleplaying. Thus, I have sitting on my shelves at least 10 different copies of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, one from each edition starting with 1st. And the same with my other favored RPGs.
It was a sort of game at the time (1989-1994 or so) because the Internet was very young and there was no world wide web. If you wanted a rare item you scoured local game stores and conventions, and maybe sometimes made a distant connection via email. When you managed to pull a rare and desired game out of the piles at Gamescape or from a box at PacifiCon that was a major victory.
I haven't really collected in years. Part of that is a reduced interest in roleplaying that started when I began working for Chaosium, part of it is a lack of money, and part of it is just that my mind doesn't work that way any more. Our house is largely full, and so getting new stuff means, to some extent, getting rid of old stuff. As a result those 9 redundent copies of the Call of Cthulhu rules seem a bit silly.
So Saturday I was thinking about Ars Magica because I'd been fiddling with Project Redcap artwork and talking with David C., who I haven't spoken with in years. I started doing some eBay searches, because I was curious if any of the newer items that I don't have (since I pretty much stopped buying RPG books when I started working for Chaosium) could be found cheap. And I was amazed to see the first edition of the rules going for $100.
Yes, I do indeed have the first edition of the rules. I have a set of Ars Magica books that was pretty much complete up to 1999, even though I didn't get into the game until after it had been out for two years. It includes 8 copies of the rules (though to be fair 4 are from the 3rd edition, which I contributed to) and not just the first edition of the rules, but both printings (first + second). I was even surprised to (re)discover that my first printing was a proof copy, presumably used in-house at Lion Rampant for corrections, signed by Mark Rein*Hagen.
So, it was back to eBay. I'd been looking for something new to sell, to support some new board game purchases, and maybe some RPG purchases for some of the lines I still do care about (notably, Glorantha fanzines, and maybe the new edition of Ars Magica). Besides my firsting printing of Ars Magica I also put up an ultra-rare convention giveaway called The Bats of Mercille and a first ed of The Broken Covenant of Calebais (of which I also have the later second edition).
It's all on eBay if it interests you, and it's all stuff that I won't miss; as I said, I don't have the collector bug any more (and if I did, and I had the money to support it again, I'll get the enjoyment of trying to refind these items).