Over the years I’ve heard a number of stories of people finding amazing deals in charity/thrift stores, pound/dollar stores, bargain bins and other cheap venues. Much to my chagrin, I turn out to be fairly poor at this sport, so I was especially pleased when I actually found some vaguely useful tat the other day. Of course, when I say “useful” I mean that my deranged gamer radar detects a potential use for something in a project that will probably never exist outside my mind. You know the kind of thing 😉
Anyway, 9 different dino skellies for under £4. Not the world’s best models, but as terrain elements for a Lost Valley of the Dinosaurs Pulp game…
Or, Lost Valley of the Zombie Dinosaurs. Hmmm…
And if I cut them in half to bury them in the floor then I’ve got twice as many 😀
What’s been your best bargain?
Quirkworthy 
I love posts like this! I once came across a “buy it now” auction on ebay for a badly beat up game of Man o’ War going for 30 USD. The photos were terrible, it looked like things had been stepped on, but it seemed like there was a lot of metal in there. Indeed, once it arrived there was a copy of every single unit that GW had ever made, except one or two (Only 1 Slaanesh Hellslicer, and no Britannia buccanears). I spent far too much time pricing them out over ebay and looking up their suggested retail; it was over $800 worth of GW metal, possibly more given that some auctions for rare ships would sometimes go a little nutty.
I added a few here and there, painted ’em all up and posted an image of the find over at boardgamegeek:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/770118/man-o-war
I still think it’s a fun little game, even if it almost never even comes out of the closet any more!
Wow! That’s an impressive haul.
Those dinosaur skeletons look really cool. I understand the fascination. Those are great toys! 🙂
What apart from deadzone or is that just fawning
Perfect martian experiments.
In fact, I think Mars Attacks needs some kind of zombie/alien/monster/dinosaur/scratch built rules.
Or for the plague.
Well we’ve got Dredd crossovers, so why not?
I got a bunch of new Fighting Fantasy gamebooks for 10p each at a school fair back in the 80’s. In the mid-90’s I got both Realms of Chaos books from a second hand bookstore for £5 each. That’s about the extent of it.
ROC for a fiver is good going.
I’ve got a few of those dinos, but probably paid more for them.
Got it in mind to have british explorers hunting the lost valley of the dinos, and the like, in Strange Aeons, instead meeting thugee cultists and some lovecraftian gribblies. A little dino skelly terrain would be good for that.
(I’ve had many many bargains over the years, but I think the single biggest one was my wedding. 😀 )
You got your wedding in the pound shop?
Yes, yes I did.
We managed ceremony, dresses, sit down meal, reception with dj and barbeque, and honeymoon for about 3 grand, and had a cracking time.
Bargain!
I was reading online that a good place to get tabletop terrain was a cake decorating shop. So I googled the closest one and made a visit. I arrived to find that the place was going out of business and everything had to go. I ended up buying 24 plastic palm trees for 1$. I also got some doric columns, and piles of small bushes for a couple of bucks. It was kind of bittersweet, though. I was happy to get cheap terrain, but the poor owner was heartbroken that he had to close up shop and all his clientele of bakers and caterers were there sharing his pain. So a good bargain for me, but not so much for him….
My best find so far was an 8gb ipod, which needed charging but worked perfectly, in the “for free” junk section outside the thrift store.
Gaming wise, my best find was a “young architects” set of transparent walls and building blocks for $5.00, perfectly scaled for 28mm.