Sunday 19 February 2012

Board Games + Growing Up with Them & Selling Them



Board games!   I loved them as a kid and as an adult.  Many happy memories on our summer holidays of playing UNO and Tri-Ominoes and How to Be a Complete Bastard (whoops!!).


Some board games bring back memories of my early childhood - especially the ones with the same boxes - Masterpiece, Cluedo and Scrabble.  Getting blisters on my finger playing Ants in Pants.     Ah, happy memories of my lovely little brother grabbing the game board and throwing the entire thing in the air when he knew he wasn't going to win.   Then doing a fantastic imitation of a fly-sprayed blow-fly on the floor.     Happy days.


I still have my packet of Dukes of Hazzard UNO that I bought as a teenager.   Boy I thought those two men were hot in that show!!!!    My teenage heart *yearned* for them.








Bwahahahah!  You didn't think I meant limp Bo & Luke!   Hah!   I have better, more refined, singular taste in men, even at that age.   Imagine my dismay when I found that instead of putting Enos on the UNO cards, they had that putz Cletus.  Those cards went back in the box, and I never used them again.     They're in a little box with the other things I'm secretly a little embarrassed about but absolutely will not part with.

Australia has some great old board games - many of them revolved around horse-racing, drinking, gambling and driving cars in the outback.  Because apparently that's all we do here.   I remember one game we used to play had a little foam esky that the game came in, instead of a box.   Classy as.
I love Trivial Pursuit and I love word games like Scrabble and Boggle.   I have a built-in spell-checker.  I anally spell-check menus, road signs and anything else I can slap my peepers onto.   

I hate games like Monopoly and Chess that you have to think ahead and plan.  My tiny brain lives in the right now (or even ten minutes ago) - not five, ten or fifteen minutes into the future.

Board games was my new venture on Ebay after selling only books.   It was a new subject to learn about.

This is all the games I have listed on Ebay:
Yes, they're nearly up to the ceiling.  Some of these I've had for over a year.  At 40 cents a month on Feebay to keep them up, they have to sell quick or they become a little money vacuum hidden inside a lovely box.      I have found a non-Ebay selling site, Quicksales.com.au  where I can park these lazy little squatters and get them moved on with no listing fee.  I need to do that this week.  This site is probably similar to Bonanza, in that you don't get many sales, but when you do, the fees are very low.

This is one of my piles of "To Be Checked" board games.     
The other pile is in my family room.    The other problem with board games is you can't be sure all the items are in the box.  I spend a lot of time holding boxes above my head and squinting at the Contents list,  sneakily slicing through boxes that are sticky-taped up so I can peruse the contents.
I hate the sight of an "AS IS" sticker on a game box.  Either it is all there - or it isn't.  Please let me know, so I don't have to arse around on the op shop floor with people tripping over me.

Having said that I love it when you get to push the lid back on the box and it does a loud farting sound. Very very satisfying.  Please excuse my game sir, I have no control over it.
And here one of my piles of games that don't have all the contents, but I think could sell as parts - these are just the ones where I have kept the box.  I also have a box full of miscellaneous game parts from different games.  I will be using Quicksales to put these pieces up to.   I still have to do that.   Must pull my finger out.
Remember that Scrabble game I talked about last week that I left behind and then found the price was good.  I beetled back there first thing Monday morning, and found the game was still there.  Yay!   I forked over $5, hurried home and put it up on Ebay.

One hour later, I got this: 


This customer paid nearly $20 to get it posted to them.  Hmm, think I under-priced it.  Live and learn.

Remember the other Scrabble game I mentioned last week?  The Sydney 2000 Olympics one.  There were others up at $8 that weren't selling, so I didn't price mine too high.   I put it up, and then one day later:

I have given my sister my BOLO list for board games as she is also a keen op-shopper.   Yesterday she found me this one for $1.  This is always a sure-fire seller in Australia.

I put it up when I got home.  Then one hour later:
She also found me Nightmare III for $2 which I have put up, and also Cluedo (which sadly was missing all the murder implements). 

I wish all the sales were nice and quick like the above-mentioned, but as you can see by my photos I have lots of games that are taking up space and not paying rent.  A lot are ones I bought early when I didn't know what to look out for, or I didn't check to see if all the contents were there.   

Others are just bombs that nobody would bother using even to start a bonfire with.

The only thing that will move these now is my free-to-list website.   Sometimes I want to take them back, but I can't find myself willing to part with them - after all that time I spent photographing them and counting all the blasted cards.  I guess I'll give them a free holiday on Quicksales for 6 months or so and then give them their marching orders.

I've enjoyed branching out into games, they have added some much-needed income - but like anything else, they are hard work.

Do you sell many games?   What games are your sure-fire winners?

4 comments:

  1. I have sold two games on ebay. One was cranium and Remember the 70s I think I got $24.99 and $30 These were both new. Cranium did not have the shrink wrap though but all the pieces were sealed. I usually dont buy games because I dont think they are good sellers. Why would someone pay me $12 for a used game when they can get the same one at walmart for $8 Unless of course they are old but I never find any old games.


    Also the person who bought the cranium game bitched saying it wasnt new because the box corner was torn. This was mentioned in the listing though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh come to think of it I sold a Dora game and a vintage Mickey Mouse yatzee but those were at auction and got less than $5 each

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Walmart sells games for $12 ? Wow, we don't have Walmart here! Most of the games I sell are no longer in production, so they can't buy them brand new. Sorry about the crabby buyer of your Cranium game. :-\

      Delete
  3. Thanks Mr DJ in the other Aussie desert - for your very kind words. *blush* :-)

    ReplyDelete