Hi guys,

a friend of mine is visiting the Big Apple soon. Do you know any good RPG  or comic shops that are a must-see?

stratochamp wrote:the complete strategist on 33rd. they still have numerous dusty oldies lurking underneath their shelves.

Pretty much that's the only place left in the area for old RPGs.  It's a tiny, cramped, packed place that's a lot of fun to search through.  Over ten years ago I found multiple PotVQs and Dwarven Glories there.  
Plus it's practically across from the Empire State Building so you'll be in the neighborhood at some point anyway.

frankfromgermany wrote:    So that's how you finance your collection!

If I remember correctly I picked up 5 PotVQs and 2 Dwarven Glories.  To add insult to injury they were being sold for 50% off cover price so they were like $2.50 each or something like that.  This was back in 1996 or so, and I offered to sell some of their old stuff online (they barely even had a website then) but they said they weren't interested.  A couple years after that they cleaned out a whole section of old stuff from the 1970's by just throwing it in the trash and they seemed oddly proud of that fact when they told me on a later visit.  Who knows what treasure was potentially in there...

Sounds like a fun old-school shop. Is it this one here? www.thecompleatstrategist.com

Also how about some comic shops?

Don't know much about comic shops so I won't venture a guess... but I'm sure there's some really good ones someplace... maybe Forbidden Planet is still around in the Village but that's probably a tourist trap.  
As for CS, that's the right website.  There was a time when they had 3 shops in Manhattan including one in Rockefeller Center but that was obviously untenable from a financial point of view.  
The remaining store on 33rd St. is the original and you can feel the history in it.  The floors creak as you walk on them... they're actually kind of lumpy.  If you search on the floor below the first rack you'll find a ton of Thieves Guild and other old RPG treasures from the 70s and early 80s; you can probably get the entire Thieves Guild set and it'll be 50% off as is everything down there.  A word to the wise  is to bring a pair of gloves otherwise your hands will be black from 20 year-old soot.  
It's a fun place to hunt, and there's not many places like that left, enjoy it!  
Plus the Empire State Building is across the street and you won't want to miss that either.  Stay across the street from it and just look up, up, up... it's pretty awesome.

I can't add alot to what VF says about CS. It is incredibly accurate. He cleaned them out of all the great stuff before I got to it years later. I managed off with a stuff like Starstone and strange prints of other various nonTSR goodies. I tried my best to get the manager to let me have at the storage rooms. But several efforts yielded nothing.

There is something great about finding antique gaming shops. I once hit the BreastPlate in Youngstown before it closed. He still had a few Dragons with his original advertisements circa 1977.

scribe wrote:Days of Knights in Delaware is a great one as well. While traveling between DC and NY I would stop in if I had time. They are another one I would pester the hell out of to get into his storage areas. Supposedly, there was a lot more stuff in storage of old material than there was of the newer crap in the store and it was a rather large store. They would tease me with that info yet tell me they couldn't let anyone back there. After saying they had lots of everything from the late 70's/early 80's  

I can never understand why these old timers want to hold onto that stuff. They can pull down some great cash if they would just open it up.

I'll never understand the reluctance of some stores to let paying customers into the back "forbidden" (gasp!!!) areas. I suspect a lot of it is posteuring.  There is a great game store in Houston, Nans Games, that has been around forever and I have pulled some great stuff out of random boxes and piles.  Like the examples given, supposedly they had tons of boxes of older goodies in the back, you could glimpse the piled boxes through the back door of the place. I once dropped about five bills there buying old TSR stuff and told the manager that was a taste of what he could see if he would let me back in the storage.  He hemmed and hawed and honestly couldn't think of any good reason except he had never done it for anyone.  I continued to pester him on subsequent visits, but he never gave an answer that made any sense.  Finally, a couple of years ago Houston flooded during some heavy storms and I understand all the back stock was pretty much ruined.  Nan's had to throw out boxes and boxes of waterlogged stuff.  Needless to say, they finally got the back cleared out (last few times I've been there there's nothing in the back anymore, used to be piled high with boxes) and I spent approximately nothing the last few times I've ventured in. Who knows how much money the owners lost by not letting me into the back?  To top it off I've heard the owners had no insurance for flooding so they couldn't even make any money back on the stock they lost.  If you ever wonder why your FLGS goes broke and has to close up, I think most of the time the main reason is stupidity.

Mike B.

It is uncanny how these experiences of others in the antique shops sound hauntingly familiar.  

I hate to say it as it sounds sort of weird. But I guess I don't fit the m.o. of the normal gamer wondering into the store. I guess I have a predator look or something when plowing towards the bottom of boxes and back of selves etc. Maybe its when they catch me peering into the doorways of the back storage rooms or something.   I try to be as honest as I can about my intentions to no avail. I guess I just don't have the time and energy to pose as a gamer to get to the good stuff. I was never to good at the undercover/James Bond sort of thing.

scribe wrote:It is uncanny how these experiences of others in the antique shops sound hauntingly familiar.  

I hate to say it as it sounds sort of weird. But I guess I don't fit the m.o. of the normal gamer wondering into the store. I guess I have a predator look or something when plowing towards the bottom of boxes and back of selves etc. Maybe its when they catch me peering into the doorways of the back storage rooms or something.   I try to be as honest as I can about my intentions to no avail. I guess I just don't have the time and energy to pose as a gamer to get to the good stuff. I was never to good at the undercover/James Bond sort of thing.

    I often do much better at the local Half Price Books.  I've cultivated friendships with many of the workers; one eventually worked her way up to manager and then district manager, which was way cool.  Anyway, I can usually cajole people I know to let me have looks at the stuff not on the shelf yet.  I never ask for any favors regarding pricing; just price it as they normally would and I will buy it if it's within my range.  However, some stores have strict policies about unpriced or unshelved items, I never push them.
 I've found it works best to adopt the persona of the inoffensive, curious gamer-type who loves older stuff but doesn't know what it's worth.  I have an entire spiel worked up that I use which puts the bookstore/gamestore owner off guard to where they don't mind me looking through their backrooms/backstock/unpriced items.  For some reason these people are much more apt to let a "fellow old school gamer type" into their inner sanctums than a "predatory seller type".  I made the mistake many years ago of handing a guy at a used bookstore where I had just purchased several hundred dollars worth of stuff my business card and told him to call me if he ever got anymore used gaming stuff in. He looked disgusted, threw the card down, and said they didn't sell to dealers and if I hadn't already purchased the items he would have voided my sale!!!!  Mind you this was several hundred dollars of stuff; he hated dealers/resellers that much, but still seems like an extreme reaction.  I guess all dealers/sellers have the same quirk that selling to a fanboy is ok, but someone who might profit off the items, no way.
     When playing the part ofthe inoffensive gamer/collector I often get invited right back to the good stuff without even asking!  And I can't tell you the amount of times I've had to bite my tongue when the seller launches into a long story about how valuable the D&D with Cthulhu is, or just really far out incorrect stuff (like the guy who wanted something like $15 each for his old Dragon mags  because they had never been reprinted, but parted with all his old Polyhedron and Dungeon mags for $1 each because they HAD been reprinted, huh???).  I just smile and nod and make inoffensive gamer guy comments like "So what is all this 3rd edition stuff all about?" and "I don't play anymore, used to play about 20 years ago, I just like buying all the older stuff to read through it." Most of the time it works.  Sometimes you get people like the afore mentioned that just plain won't deal with you logically. However, I've found that most of those supposed "hordes in the back room" are so much exaggeration and might consist of a few good items and a bunch of crap.  I've seen many supposed treasure troves in my day that turned out to be a bunch of beat up first edition books, some dog eared 1st ed modules, and a case of SW Spelljammer and Al Qadim crap.  
   There is a small city in south Texas (to remain nameless) where there is an old guy who was a game/comic shop on the main drag of the small town.  He's been there forever in a large cavernous place.  There are hundreds of comic longboxes and gaming items in the back that have never made it to the front of the store for sale, he always told me that"Someday I'm going to sell all that stuff on the internet and retire".  There was always much speculation in my mind what goodies could possibly be in the back stock....
   Last time I went by there, he had finally got all his RPG stuff out and priced it.  It was an entire wall full of stuff.  What a joke....everything was dusty, dirty and beat up.  Everything was priced about ten times ebay (T1-4 at $100 with no mapbook, U series at $30 even through they looked like they had been used to clean toilets, common Judge's guild modules at $15 each, the inevitible AD&D first ed hardbacks for $20 each in less than desirable condition, etc).  Boy was I crestfallen at this development.  I scoured the entire stock and came away with the only handful of items in good shape and priced correctly.  He was telling me any day now he was going to start putting his RPG stuff up on Ebay and make enough money to retire....I didn't have the heart to say much of anything.  So, sometimes I think the fantasy is far better than the reality when it comes to these so-called treasure troves...

Mike B.

Great stories, BMike! I suppose we should have just started these up in their own thread. Would be great to hear more antique shops stories by would be plunderers.  

I went through the CS in NY a couple years ago- nuthin'! The guy said I should try ebay, and he looked none too impressed.....