Story time!
At some point, probably around 2010, my interest in collecting Basic Role Playing (BRP) related games expanded. I was already deep into Call Of Cthulhu, but I knew there had been many other versions over the decades. Some of which I had already started buying.
Then my eye turned to Runequest. Just figuring out what existed was a labor! Rick Meints' Index to Glorantha (both editions) was very helpful, but is concerned with the setting as the defining point, and I was more focused on the ruleset (Glorantha isn't my favorite setting
shrug). So I had to learn what was
RQ and what was Glorantha and what was both. And then I had to learn about all the newer material that wasn't in the reference books. And keep up with those. And pay attention as the license bounced around. And watch as variants were spawned.
That's... a lot of books.
Last night, I finally finished Runequest. My grail item arrived. This is that story.
The only mention of it is in an article writing contest in a couple issues of Signs & Portents (49 and 50, for the curious), a Mongoose Publishing house ezine. When I discovered it, I wrote to Mongoose and asked about it, in late 2011. They had printed 20 (!) copies in 2007/2008 and, of course, had none left. They had all been given away in contests and such.
The search was on!
Or, more accurately, the eBay saved search was created.
With that few out there, I knew it would take a while to show up. A copy finally came up in 2014. I don't recall what went wrong (forgot to bid, sniper failed, search failed and I noticed it too late, etc.) but it went for very little (under £20, I think). I tried to negotiate with the buyer, which was still possible-ish in those days, but he decided to keep it. I tried emailing him a few years later, but the email address was void by then.
I'd do a manual search in a few places from time to time, but I knew it was a long shot. I thought about telling all of you, but I wasn't going to risk the Acaeum Effect on an item with that sort of print run. You're vultures!
Then nothing for five years, until about six weeks ago, when a copy showed up! I placed an opening bid to make sure I could, and wasn't restricted by country or whatever (Mongoose is a UK company, so it makes sense these would tend to show up there). I was prepared to spend a lot, so finally after 8 years, the quest would be over! The email from eBay arrived with a few hours left to go. Took a quick look. Still no advances on my bid. Even better! Went back to what I was working on.
Ending price: £18.50!
But. Not. To. Me.
I had forgotten to raise my bid. The fifteen minute warning had gone to my phone, which happened to be, in a very rare exception, not right next to me, but across the room. Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrgggh!!!
I vented. I howled! I posted a vague bit of sadness to "the one that got away...." thread.
sigh Check again in another five years, I suppose.
Just when I had started to heal from all that, eBay saved search... found another copy? Impossible.
I checked and double checked. As far as I could tell, it was not the same copy being resold. Not that I would have really cared, as a second chance is a second chance, but it was hard to believe after so long that two copies would show up in a month. But they did.
I wrote to the seller and made sure US shipping would be okay. I placed an initial bid successfully. I found and tested a new sniping tool, and set that up with an exorbitant bid. I had three alarms on my calendar counting down the time that day. The last ten minutes, I just watched it count down. I was ready with an advance on my ridiculous bid to be entered manually if necessary. I would not be denied!
Finally! A win! For an order of magnitude more than the previous ones had sold for, but so it goes. Waiting for a good deal had gone out the window with my previous screw up.
So now it can be revealed, and I hope I'm not screwing up someone else with the Acaeum Effect... but I've typed a lot and have been waiting to tell this story for a long time.
Slaine Runequest Edition!
https://imgur.com/JZbgWLqhttps://imgur.com/HLZ8SbDThoughts about this item:
1. I can't read those signatures. I sent a note to Mongoose to see if they can help.
(UPDATE: Jim Barstow and Adrian Bott)2. It's printed in full color. The regular version is black and white. That must have been pretty costly to do as such as short print run.
3. There is no identifying text about this being a special edition. Nothing printed in the book. Only the signatures, which could be overlooked. And references to it, if you even knew what to search for, are the couple ads I mentioned and a ~12 year old Mongoose forum post referencing those. And now this one, by me.
4. Listing descriptions (and probably dumb luck) matter a lot in final value. Compare the recent one I screwed up to the one I bought (below).
5. What's the market for this? IMO, probably fewer than the 20 copies that exist. A completist or two like me. A limited edition collector. A few of you who are now interested. So maybe a fight for a few copies, but then back to little value.
6. Am I
really done with Runequest? Pretty much. As I said, I gave up/sold off non-RQ Glorantha, and that helped a bit, especially on small press stuff and zines. There are some old convention items I'm not bothering with, as I generally don't buy those things. No one ever actually finishes all the (maga)zines for a game (do they?), so that's theoretically still ongoing. And I'm on the fence about the GW versions of a few early Chaosium items. They tend to differ by only a logo so it's hard to decide to care.
** expired/removed eBay auction ** ** expired/removed eBay auction **I hope that was en enjoyable journey for you. It was "fun" for me to experience and write up. Now I'm going to rest for a while.
Areas of interest/knowledge: Harn, WFRP, Ars Magica, anything BRP based such as CoC, Runequest, Pendragon and all their related games
