This Saturday the wife and I went to a couple garage sales. Mostly same old-same old, but I did pick up a few notables.
Chief of them was a 1960 Avalon Hill Gettysburg. This is a game which seems to have significant differences with the normal AH games. It has the hatchured square map, but the counters are quite different in the printing, having a different style of presentation. No modern Army "cross in the box" for infantry and so on. The rules also are significantly different, in that if you lose the HQ unit to a corps the whole corps is eliminated. Also uses "outpost" rules and several others which looks like it was trying to be a minis game in some ways. Got it for a song.
Also got a very good, very early game of "Careers."
At another flea market they were selling books for .25 cents for soft, and .50 cents for hardover. Picked up some good buys of art, illustration, and so forth there. Also got a Victor Book of the Opera from 1929 which was in good condition and had most of the dust cover intact. It was quite old and had a lot of the old operas you don't hear about any more.
Picked up a "Brownie" Scout manual, and a "Girl Scout manual" from 1959. The girl scout manual seems to have a lot of personal items stuffed into it, notes, letters, etc., including a genuine 4 leaf clover pressed between the pages. Have to do some archeology on this one.
But the best part was I found in a box of junk a whole pile of Britains Stone Walls and hedges and some farm animals. A few old 1930's metal tanks as well. And THEN! I found about 60 old Napoleonic troops. Looks like Scruby's, nicely painted. I don't do Nappy's but I wasn't going to leave these guys behind. I inquired where they guy got them and he said it was from a house clean out after the owner had died.
This balances out from three weeks ago when I was at a flea market and I saw a few toy soldiers on a guys table. He was telling someone that these were very old antique toy solders from the 17th century. I asked him if he meant that the soldiers were from the 17th century or the figures were made in the 17th century. He said "They were made in 1640." I told him flat out he was a liar. These are simply cheapo recasts in plaster of Ral Partha figures. I know them, got dozens at home… the real ones, made in rubber molds-- want the catalog numbers?!