Friday, February 20, 2009

Goodwill – Where old games go to die.

Some call it Goodwill. I call it Greatwill.  I figured that my local Greatwill is an interdimensional portal for old games and Gamerstuff.

In one week, ONE WEEK, look what I picked up for as Little as .50 cents for the Tunnels and Trolls modules, $2.00 for the boxed sets, and a whopping $3.99 for the Dr. Steel- Big Jim P.A.C.K figure. I may never buy shoes there but I’ll snap up .50cent modules as quick as they set them out!

greatwill 014

I never even heard of this book till I saw it at Greatwill. It’s apparently a collection of Chainmail Bikini style funny short stories.

greatwill 013

greatwill 012

greatwill 011

greatwill 010

greatwill 009

greatwill 008

greatwill 007

 

The Dr. Steel figure has a fully chromed hand and still sports his dragon and wolf tattoos!

greatwill 006

15 comments:

  1. You hit the motherlode! I never see gamer stuff in charity shops over here... until I've donated it to them :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your Goodwill Rocks!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous4:17 AM

    Wow! It must have been like being on a Monty Haul campaign! Great finds! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Are you freaking kidding me!!!! You got the boxed sets of Top Secret and Gamma World at the friggin' GoodWill? Man, we have some decent thrift stores here, but the closest we get to gaming stuff is jigsaw puzzles and a children's boardgames.

    Huge find.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Big Jim baddy in the orange Speedo. Big Jim was the man!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I never even heard of this book till I saw it at Greatwill. It’s apparently a collection of Chainmail Bikini style funny short stories.

    It's more than that. It's a Buffy-style lampooning of popular sci-fi and fantasy of the late '70s and early '80s. When you realize that the first Maureen Birnbaum story was written not quite a decade before Buffy hit the big screen, you realize how prescient Effinger was.

    - Brian

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous6:44 AM

    Oddly enough, Goodwill's my favorite place to get shoes. The game stuff only appears in fits & starts. Landed the Cthulhu/Elric Deities & Demigods for $2 a while back, but everything else has been oddities like Tenchi Muyo or Legendary Lives.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Geeze, your goodwill is apparently a little better than mine.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gamma World!

    You even have the "Legion of Gold" module!

    Now I wish I hadn't gotten rid of mine. I always thought it was a fun game.

    (yeah, I know there's a newer one, but I hear it misses some of the fun 70s post-apocalypse adventure styling)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wow. I have never amassed such treasures at my Goodwill. That is neat.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The Maureen Birnbaum stories are laugh out loud funny, specially if you've also collected the stuff he lampoons in them. The first two stories take good-natured potshots at Edgar Rice Burrough's Princess of Mars and Pellucidar. I've only read three so far, wish I could find that collection!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Drool over the find. There is no local Goodwill store but there are several thrift stores. I consider myself lucky when I find some fantasy, horror or science fiction books. I did find a boxed D&D set at one thrift store a few years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Effinger also wrote the excellent Marîd Audran series, which is well worth a look, even though Effinger died after only writing three-and-a-half of the five-book series (plus a couple of short stories).

    The series comprises: When Gravity Fails, A Fire in the Sun and The Exile Kiss. Budayeen Nights contains some short stories and the unfinished fourth book.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous7:31 AM

    Holy ca-ca!!! You got those T&T solos for 50 cents a pop? Cripes. Dargon's Dungeon and Overkill aren't easy to find at all and usually go for quite a bit. I'm all sorts of jealous.
    I wish my local thrift stores had anything game-related...ever.

    -Eric

    ReplyDelete