My friend Mike Garrett likes to point out that the true winners in all the math trades are the shipping services. I simply accept that cost as part of updating my collection. Better to pay $10 for a game that will get played than keep a game I don't want in my collection. Looking back at my trade list this year, I spot a few games I've traded away only to re-acquire. Jambo was one of the first I traded off (along with Masons) for Age of Mythology: The Boardgame and All Wound Up. All Wound Up was the game I wanted out of this trade, and I didn't feel bad giving up Jambo (which I knew I could get again) for a bigger game in Age of Mythology. Overall, a bad trade. Though Masons isn't that great, All Wound Up was terrible. I traded it away. AoM sits on my shelf. However, I'm getting Jambo again as part of a trade I made for Memoir 44. Next on the circle of trades - Basari. I traded this for Pizzaro and Co in a math trade (which I traded away later). I got Basari back as part of 3-game package for my BattleLore expansions in a math trade.And the last one was Bus. I traded this for Bus. Yes, this was one of the first recorded same-game-arbitrage instances. I traded my copy for an upgrade to my warped boards. Annoyingly enough, almost right after my copy went out the door, I got an email from Splotter telling me they'd ship me a new board for free. So I could have saved myself some money by skipping this whole trade. Oh well. In looking at most of my trades this year, none standout as super trades, but I'm happy with the way 90% of them have ended up. I keep thinking I'm hitting the end of trading, but then I decided to move something else. I'm sure there are some games that will finally get some plays as my son gets older that will influence keeping things or trying to get others. Hopefully, folks will want to keep on changing out their collections as well.
4 comments:
Funny, Charles. I keep telling myself the same thing. No sense in trading, and then up comes a math trade, and in go a bunch of games.
Curious to hear your thoughts on Jambo. I traded for it, as I really enjoy several of Dorn's designs, but something about it seemed a bit wonky or clunky. Maybe I am missing something, but we played it at least 4 times. Caron hates it, which is rare--she hardly ever hates a game. But for some reason, it just seemed to be too rote. See if you can convince me to like it.
trading is good if you're getting rid of stuff you don't want and getting stuff you do want -- trading is bad when you're playing 'musical games' and getting back the same stuff you traded 6 months ago
Well said, mike.
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