You always hear collectors talk about that "Great Haul" they made one afternoon, yard-saling; that one, big haul, where they wound-up with $1000s worth of comic books or whatever they collect for a mere $1.00 or the like - that famous "Monty Haul Story" every collector has, to varying degrees.
When I started collecting in the 1980s, these stories were a dime a dozen - basically every collector over the age of 30 had at least one. And you would listen to their Monty Haul Story while regarding your shoes with a mixture of envy and disgust, thinking, "Well, that'll never happen to me - everyone knows how much comics are worth nowadays."
And, for the most part, it never did. I've had my share of great finds and deals, but never a, say, X-Men #1 in a dime-box in someone's garage. That is, until today...
Now, this is one of those Monty Haul Stories that will really only excite gamers; it applies to games and not comic books, and games rarely increase in monetary value, unless there were printing errors, low-print runs, or something like that. However, we gamers are an enthusiastic bunch - to say the very least - and just having the books themselves are oftentimes worth more to us than anything else. I mean, we would never sell them and we don't buy them just to have them (collect them) - we get our money's worth out of them, using them until the covers fall off, the spines fall apart, and the pages tear loose.
I found a copy of a Cyberpunk book I needed for 50¢ on eBay a week or so back and placed a bid for it. When I won the auction, the seller contacted me and said she had a bunch of RPG books she just wanted to get rid of. I didn't get the story behind why she "just wanted them out of the house," but I didn't much care. If I wanted to pay shipping & handling for all of them, she'd send them along for the 50¢ I bid. I asked her to total it up, and it came to over $26.00 - about 3x what I'd expected to pay! - but I figured why not?
I didn't expect much - she'd said there were two boxes, but I just assumed they were small, regular boxes of 5-10 books each that simply didn't fit into one, regular, media mail box. You can imagine my confusion when the UPS man arrived with two, large boxes, weighing approximately 20-lbs. each!
I set them on the couch, grabbed the scissors, and opened them up. Inside, I found:
- TORG: Boxed Set (sans Drama Deck), Full Moon Draw, The Cyberpapacy, Creatures of Orrorsh
- Alternity: Player's Handbook, GM's Screen, Arms & Equipment Guide
- AD&D: Monster Manual II
- Earthdawn, Earthdawn Companion, Denizens of Earthdawn Vol. 1, An Explorer's Guide to Barsaive
- The Cyclopedia Talislanta Vol. IV: The Western Lands
- Don't Look Back
- Feng Shui
- Marvel Super Heroes Player's Book
- Legend of the Five Rings, GM's Survival Guide, The Book of the Shadowlands, The Way of the Unicorn, The Way of the Crane, The Way of the Lion, Honor's Veil, Code of Bushido, Legacy of the Forge
- Ars Magica GM's Screen, Stormrider
- Shadowrun, Seattle Sourcebook, Cybertechnology, Shadowtech, Fields of Fire
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Werewolf: The Apocalypse 2nd-Ed., Caerns: Places of Power, Valkenburg Foundation, Silver Fangs Tribebook, Under a Blood Red Moon, Rage Across New York
- The Vampire Player's Guide 2nd-Ed., The Storyteller's Handbook, Storyteller's Screen, Mummy, Blood Bond, Awakening: Diablerie Mexico, Ashes to Ashes, Dark Colony, Clanbook: Toreador, Clanbook: Setites, Clanbook: Malkavian, Clanbook: Ventrue
- And, of course, Cyberpunk 2020
So kids, make sure to pack your gaming books before you go to college if you think you might, ever, even possibly, want to see them again, and boyfriends, do not piss-off your exes!
© C Harris Lynn, 2008
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