Sally Ann
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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 9:40 am 
 

So I am at the local Salvation Army store looking for cheap books for my kids. I decide to do a quick look for AD&D related materials (its hard to shake the collecting gene). I couldn't find a thing.
So while I am paying for the kids books I ask "Do you ever get any nerdy stuff like dungeons and dragons?"
She tells me its Sally Ann policy NOT to stock such items as they are related to satan worship.

Haven't we been over this?
Can anyone confirm whether or not this is true?

I know I have bought D&D stuff at the Salvation army before. In fact I used to be good friends with a staff member that saved it all for me. I didn't realise he was saving it cause he couldn't sell it.
Thoughts anyone?

  


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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 10:42 am 
 

While I can't speak for Sally Ann I can tell you straight up, shopgoodwill.com is where I got my (incomplete) Holmes' Basic set, a DMG, a PHB and a Cthulhu/Elric mythoi D&DG (and a copy of Kingmaker) for about $30.

  


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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:23 am 
 

The good stuff almost always comes from the least likely locations. Garage sales, thrift stores, etc. Its funny that you mention goodwill, that is what the woman at Salvation army suggested. Not the website, the local store.
My greatest find ever; an entire collection of SPI games for $20 cdn. 25 opened but unpunched and 12 games mint. All the biggies were there: World at War,Dawn of the Dead, Citadel of Blood, Swords and Sorcery Blue Box etc. I immediately sold them for a huge amount of loot.
It helped me put a downpayment on my first home. That was around 10 years ago. Life keeps me from doing the same kind of scouring that I used to, but I bet those kinds of finds still exist. :D

  


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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:50 am 
 

Icar wrote:The good stuff almost always comes from the least likely locations. Garage sales, thrift stores, etc.

I agree, but don't drive yourself crazy with this.  I went to every garage sale I could find last year, scoped out all the Good Will/Value Village/Sally Anns, and struck out completely.  (Ok, a single AD&D comic, but that's hardly worth mentioning.  I picked it up for $0.25 just to make myself feel better.)  This stuff has a way of hiding when you're looking for it, and showing up when you're not.

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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:12 pm 
 

deimos3428 wrote:
Icar wrote:The good stuff almost always comes from the least likely locations. Garage sales, thrift stores, etc.

I agree, but don't drive yourself crazy with this.  I went to every garage sale I could find last year, scoped out all the Good Will/Value Village/Sally Anns, and struck out completely.  (Ok, a single AD&D comic, but that's hardly worth mentioning.  I picked it up for $0.25 just to make myself feel better.)  This stuff has a way of hiding when you're looking for it, and showing up when you're not.


I am in the Deimos camp. I have done the same kind of thing. I once found a beat up Outdoor Survival for 25 cents which I bought just so I could justify the 100s of stops at garage sales and used bookstores that I have stopped at over the last few years. Salvation Army centers, of which there are three that are in my regular driving pattern always come up empty.

Everytime I as bookstore clerks if they ever get any AD&D stuff or rpgs in general, they ALWAYS give me that blank stare of..."never heard of it."


And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:20 pm 
 

I should throw down a one day search and scout gauntlet and see what the best thing anyone can find is.
It would be on the honor system. Nothing over $5 U.S. $7 Cdn or 2.50 GBP. to see what we can come up with.

I may just take an hour or two as an experiment today.

  


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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 12:49 pm 
 

bbarsh wrote:Everytime I as bookstore clerks if they ever get any AD&D stuff or rpgs in general, they ALWAYS give me that blank stare of..."never heard of it."

Reminds me of my adventure last week.  I went into a used bookstore, and inquired about D&D stuff.  He didn't have anything, but he mentioned that the record store next door had some in the window.

Sure enough, there was a 1E DMG & MM.  I asked to see them, just for fun.  He wanted $25 each, but they were in VF/NM condition, and I wouldn't have to pay shipping, so not completely outrageous.  He said he thought they were rare.

He looked slightly in awe as looked at them for about 5 seconds, determined they were a 7th printing DMG and a 5th printing MM, and said "no thanks".

Well, I thought it was fun.  :D

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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:16 pm 
 

Funny story about the local Goodwill Thrift Store.  I pulled up in the lot and wanted to go in to see if they had any (A)D&D stuff and I said a silent prayer to the gods of good fortune "Please let there be at least a couple of D&D books I don't have in there."

Well, SOMEBODY in the universe has a sense of humor because on the bookshelf was a beat-up Dragonlance novel and an equally beat up Planescape novel. :P :)

  


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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:54 pm 
 

I routinely hit all the used book stores and antique malls and flea markets in my area, and sometimes I strike it rich and sometimes I don't. Finds do generally pop up in the least expected places, and sometimes it just seems like certain trips are destined to be blessed with tons of cool finds while others are dry as a bone. Regarding Salvation Army, Goodwill and the like, I check them out from time to time just to see what might have come up, but in general I've stopped going to them simply because the return on invested time is just not there. Finds if any tend to be ratty and worn at best, and the way I see it, anything on the shelves is likely to have gone through so many hands in the donation process that anything really good is likely to have long since been spoken for. The SPI game find mentioned above (drool, drool, drool) sounds like a VERY unusual find for such places, and a lucky one at that. I think used book stores and flea markets are some of the single best places to make finds.

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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 4:11 pm 
 

Yard sales and flea markets are goldmines. I got my Amazing Fantasy #15 at a yard sale in a box of comics I paid $5 for. Didn't even know it was in there until later.
Occasionally you run into bookstores/game stores who don't know values. I once got the entire run of B modules in mint condition for $1 each from a store that focused on Magic the Gathering.

  

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Post Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 7:00 pm 
 

I can verify that Salvation Army stores do in fact sell RPG material, as one Salvation Army store I went to had RuneQuest's Troll Gods and a character sheet pack where people could see them.  Unfortunately, there was a sold tag on them, or I would have bought them instantly.

In general though, I don't go looking in those places for that stuff, because where I live, there's one game store about fifteen minutes drive from my place.  The rest of the stores are an hour away or even further.  What's worse is that in the city I live in, no one plays, as they're too engrossed in smoking crack.



  

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Post Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:12 am 
 

bbarsh wrote:
deimos3428 wrote:
Icar wrote:The good stuff almost always comes from the least likely locations. Garage sales, thrift stores, etc.

I agree, but don't drive yourself crazy with this.  I went to every garage sale I could find last year, scoped out all the Good Will/Value Village/Sally Anns, and struck out completely.  (Ok, a single AD&D comic, but that's hardly worth mentioning.  I picked it up for $0.25 just to make myself feel better.)  This stuff has a way of hiding when you're looking for it, and showing up when you're not.


I am in the Deimos camp. I have done the same kind of thing. I once found a beat up Outdoor Survival for 25 cents which I bought just so I could justify the 100s of stops at garage sales and used bookstores that I have stopped at over the last few years. Salvation Army centers, of which there are three that are in my regular driving pattern always come up empty.

Everytime I as bookstore clerks if they ever get any AD&D stuff or rpgs in general, they ALWAYS give me that blank stare of..."never heard of it."


    I am with you guys. In my entire life of going to garage sales, Goodwill, thrift stores, Salvation Army, etc., I have not one single time found any gaming related item in any condition whatsoever.  So probably we are talking something like 0 for a 1000 here in the last 20 years alone.  For that matter I've never seen a comic or paperback worth more than cover price at any of those sort of places.  I blame it on the fact that the Dallas/Fort Worth area is the headquarters and birthplace of Half Price books, we have something like 20 stores in a 50 mile radius and anyone with used materials such as these would drop them at a Half Price before trying to sell them anywhere else. Now, I've found literally thousands of cool items at Half Price books during that same period of time, so I suppose that is where all the stuff that might be going to garage sales, thrift stores and the like is actually ending up.
  Most oddball find was an OCE for $50 at an antique store in Joplin, Missouri while on vacation, btw that's the only gaming related item I've ever found at an antique store, and it was just sitting on a shelf next to some old paperback books; there was no other RPG stuff in the booth at all, must be a story there somewhere.

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Post Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:58 am 
 

I routinely scan 2nd hand and charity shops with mixed luck - I've had some good finds and had to knock back a few.
Seemingly pricing is done randomly - eg 'Wow a DMG from 1982 - must be rare!' -£10.00 (let that one go!) - or 5 assorted FR box sets (inc Ruins of Undermountain 1 &2) - 'does any one still want these?' £1 each (snapped them up).
Karma comes into it as well - I always put a bit of change in the collection box on the counter whether or not I find anything - this pays dividends cos you get remembered if you go in and do it a lot- A couple of my local stores call me if they get in anything that I might like!


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Post Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 5:17 am 
 

I had an amazing experience in a charity book shop a few years back.  I wandered in for a browse after walking the dogs in the grounds of the local National Trust property.  I had recently traded away my copy of the SELWG Middle Earth rules and was really regretting letting it go.  I spotted a 1st Ed DMG on the shelves of childrens books, so I picked it out and opened it.  A copy of the SELWG ME rules dropped out!  I bought the DMG for £3 and the cashier threw the SELWG in for free!!

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Post Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:13 pm 
 

One of first times I went to Goodwill (around '85) or so, I found a decent copy of the Moldvay Basic Set with B2 and the 1981 Gateway of Adventure catalog (which I still have), and Avalon Hill's Wizardquest bookcase game. I thought great, I'll find lots of stuff here in the future! Since then I've never found another D&D game at a Goodwill or Salvation Army. About 5-7 years ago I found a copy of Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival at a Goodwill, and a complete copy of Milton Bradley's Conquest of the Empire for $3 at a Salvation Army (which I sold on Ebay for about $150; that was my best thrift store find ever). I don't go to Goodwill or Salvation Army much anymore - I've got too much of my own old stuff around here to sell.

I was in Maui a few years ago and I was surprised that a little used bookstore in Lahaina on the west side of the island had a decent sized stack of D&D modules. It was all stuff I had and the price wasn't great for re-selling, but if you are ever on there on vacation it's worth checking out. They had a good selection of Sci-Fi/Fantasy books as well. It was called the Old Lahaina Book Emporium.

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Post Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:55 pm 
 

Well I went to two used book stores and found no D&D stuff let alone ones of worth or consequence.
I found one nifty item though, a space 1999 annual from 1976 in mint condition for 1 dollar. I believe sold at auction this rarity could fetch as much as 2 dollars.
Nobody is going to tell me I wasted my time!! HA.

  


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Post Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 1:25 pm 
 

Fired off an e-mail to Salvation Army headquarters here is the response:


Greetings!

In response to your recent e-mail regarding Dungeons and Dragons, it is true that D& D and other such games are not sold at our Thrift Stores.

Matters which contain reference to the occult, magic, demons, etc. may be consider offensive to some Christian groups and as such are not sold in our stores. While you may not share their opinion, we try to sensitive to all visitors and not sell items which some would find offensive.

The same would hold true for other materials and items with tobacco or liquor ad, slogans, etc.

I am sorry that we are not able to meet your requirements.

  

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Post Posted: Mon Mar 20, 2006 1:47 pm 
 

Icar wrote:Fired off an e-mail to Salvation Army headquarters here is the response:


Greetings!

In response to your recent e-mail regarding Dungeons and Dragons, it is true that D& D and other such games are not sold at our Thrift Stores.

Matters which contain reference to the occult, magic, demons, etc. may be consider offensive to some Christian groups and as such are not sold in our stores. While you may not share their opinion, we try to sensitive to all visitors and not sell items which some would find offensive.

The same would hold true for other materials and items with tobacco or liquor ad, slogans, etc.

I am sorry that we are not able to meet your requirements.


Ha Ha that's hillarious.  What idiotic morons.  Devil worship, Are we not adults here!  This is not porno, it is a game!!


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