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| Sadly missed - now back in the library |
I also replaced the Wesencraft book, by buying the new, John Curry-edited paperback. Since I bought this edition, I guess I'm entitled to an opinion; my opinion is that I am delighted that John is re-publishing all these old classics, but I found his reprint of Practical Wargaming disappointing - numerous typos, tables laid out in a way which I found very difficult to follow, and I don't like the scans of the half-tone photos at all. So, you can guess what I've done now - that's right, I've bought a nice, clean, pre-owned copy of the orange, hardback Practical Wargaming from eBay. [I was about to go on to discuss the comparison of the selling and purchasing prices, but in fact I'm too embarrassed to bother.]
So everything is now back as it was - just some stupid footling-about in between.
Anyway, what this all amounts to is me trying to put a positive spin on my Full Donkey achievement of having sold two books on eBay and then having to buy them back again, also on eBay.
Whatever, I'm happy with the arrangement.
Thought for today: How many idiots does it take to make a market?
Hello MSFoy,
ReplyDeleteAt last! I have finally connected with someone that has made the same well intentioned mistakes that I have! My current flirtation with the ACW is a case in point - not to mention the the three sets of Conway’s Fighting Ships that have passed through my collection.
I feel warm and fuzzy knowing that there is a kindred spirit out there....
All the best,
DC
I know what you mean - it's an odd sort of comfort. Knowing that some poor sod has walked this same hopeless path before (and survived...?).
DeleteI am firmly in your camp on this one, Tony. I much prefer the original hardback editions to any of the Curry paperback doubles. I would not trade my hardcopies for Curry paperbacks. Quality of the Curry's is spotty. Some of that may be due to Lulu printing. Even more disappointing are the appendices added to the originals. Listings for bibliographies, wargames rules, and figure manufacturers are often incomplete. As for purchasing prices, bargains still exist on eBay. The last HB copy of Practical Wargamer I bought was $9.99. It was an ex-Library copy but condition was very good. On eBay, patience is a virtue.
ReplyDeleteThe Curry house does produce some previously lost or unknown works, which is a fine thing to do, but the weaknesses are often in the details and the care taken. The proof-reading is often skimped - lots of howlers. Low spot for me was the reissue of Featherstone's Pike & Shot title (of which I had never heard, not that this is significant) - an interesting idea, and it includes an appendix giving a previously-unpublished set of Don's ECW rules - sadly, the rules are incomplete and almost incomprehensible; it's unfair that I should impose my OCD standards on others, but I would at least have checked that the game worked, or explained why it didn't. The books also have a standard line-up of sub-editors and annotators, and some of the additions are (for me, like) ill-judged. To augment the original writings of Morschauer (for example) wth the thoughts and explanations of more recent self-publicists is not necessarily an enhancement unless there was something very wrong with the original.
DeleteOn the other hand, I also have to say that some of the lesser known early writings on wargaming were among the worst and least structured books ever published. My lawyer advises me to refrain from offering a list - so many of these old books were mostly just cheerful, with illustrations provided by that daft lad from the club, and with a screaming need for a competent editor.
As a rule of thumb, any book which included any kind of an apology for "grown men playing with soldiers" in the introduction is merely a trace of personal hang-ups and of a past age which is best forgotten...
I'm not 100% sure which but I'm pretty sure John Curry misspelt his own either email or website address on the back of the Wesencraft AWI book. The next time he googles himself he'll be pleased when he comes across this thread.
DeleteI'm just back from the MDF fest which is the Border Reiver show at Gateshead. Dave Lanchester had a very nice copy of Wesencraft's Pike and Shot book but as I know I have one somewhere and even could find it at a push I wasn't tempted.
Quite right, VM! The URL on that book DOES have a typo!
DeleteI'm pleased that whilst I have sold a lot of books some of the classic originals including the two you mentioned, Terry Wise Practical Wargames and George Gush still reside on the book shelf. A couple still have notes I made when of a tender age.
ReplyDeleteThe closest I have come to your faux pas is when I reduced my magazine collection I sold the old Miniature Warfare magazines, likewise I regretted that and managed to get a full five volume set from John Tunstill himself so now like you when I have one of those days I can delve into the past and brighten my day
Great that you replaced the MW so successfully - that's a real war-trophy - these days, people get their hobbies too easily (mutter, mutter, Warhammer, mutter...).
DeleteI had a look through my bookshelves, and I found quite a few old wargaming classics which are definitely not the original copy I bought, so I must have been at this silly selling-and-replacing lark for a while. Conspicuously, one of my Featherstone classic books (which originally I bought new) bears the legend "to Stinky for Christmas", which definitely doesn't mean me and probably explains why I bought the book for 45 pence.
I tend to keep everything. My regret is that, when I was much younger, I would cut out the articles and series from Airfix Magazine to keep them together... so I have a lot of mutilated 1960s Airfix Magazines lying around.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty tidy, I think, so one of the most obvious symptoms of my addiction problem is the proliferation of bookcases in unlikely parts of the house, rather than a simple mess of books (we can discuss the real and imagined differences in the pub). There was a bit of a cataclysm when I got divorced in the late 1990s, and lived in a tiny flat for a few years. Some books I stored away, but I had to get rid of a lot (I sometimes cry a bit when I think about this...), and in a number of cases I have consciously replaced books that I lost then. Mostly I don't have that good an excuse, just incompetence!
DeleteThis is very much in my wheelhouse. I have sold history and RPG books, only to find myself re-buying the self same thing (albeit secondhand and scuffed) years later.
ReplyDeleteAt 35 I sold a box of dungeons and dragons stuff, only to buy most of the same items back 2nd hand on amazon when the kids expressed an interest.
They grew out of it just as quickly and I'm left with a pile of cr*p which wasn't even mine to begin with.
Having said that, I took the filters/collective responsibility off the shelf stacking monitor a lonnnng time ago.
(you of course know this having seen first hand the pile of cr*p that I own).
I have now decided simply to keep everything...no wait...yes....at least until I change my mind next week.
This is very sound and - like me - I am sure that you will be able to remember shining examples of occasions when you finally got talked into getting shut of some old rubbish or other, and the very next week you needed it, or (even worse) suddenly you found these were selling for Bitcoin prices at Caliver.
DeleteMy confession is that I gave away 24 Wargames Newsletters about ten years ago in a cleaning out fit and now regret it greatly .
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain. I think that character-building involves a lot of regret for things we no longer have - it's probably a necessary growing process. Things I find I miss include decent eyesight, those spare cuirassiers that I had in the spares box for years and now need urgently, Rose Miniatures gold lacquer and - now, there was something else too - what the hell was it...?
DeleteI've never owned a copy of either!
ReplyDeleteAm I still allowed on your blog?
Not only are you most welcome, but you should probably be canonised for not wasting time talking crap about old writers from your childhood who were mostly no better than average. That's "canonised" as in "fired from a cannon".
DeleteYour only offence may be that you are too young to have read some of them - now that really is unforgiveable, and may also be one of the more surprising things you will read about yourself today.
I have a special "vintage corner" of books and magazines that I have been building up over the years - so many favourite pictures of models I can waste hours in rose tinted nostalgia land.
ReplyDeleteExcellent - you have to arrange the magazines in big piles on the floor, tied with hairy string. Leave space between the piles so you can walk about, to keep the Health & Safety guys happy.
DeleteTrue story - a rather odd friend of mine lives in an Elizabethan mansion in Northants. Part of one floor was full of heaps of old newspapers and business correspondence, tied up in the aforementioned manner, but the whole lot had to get cleaned out, because rats were eating them and nesting in them. I don't visit him much now...
I’m with you on the John Curry stuff, although he did get Charlie a Wesencraft’s unpublished AWI book into print. Which reminds me I’ve got a copy but haven’t read it. Wesencraft is a bit of a hero, with his North East connections, and unjustly neglected I think
ReplyDeleteDefinitely agree on the North East thing. I am a devoted fan of CW - while looking through my new replacement-replacement book I was reminded what a debt I owe him, what an enormous slice of my in-house conventions for wargames were lifted - whole or in part - from that book. For me, it was the first volume I read which gave a complete game - a game that was logically structured and made sense (I exclude Little Wars and Charge, but I believe I didn't read them until later).
DeleteThat whole regional split of early UK wargaming - and the conflicts and the occasional spite it generated - must be the raw material for a doctorate thesis sometime. I know of the Southampton lot and the London/Tunbridge/Whatever lot, and then there was the Hull lot, and there seem to have been less publicised centres in the North East and in Edinburgh - what else was there?
The answer to your question is Two. One buyer, one seller. We'd manage I'm sure. Not long a go, at a show, I found a very interesting looking book that tempted me until I remembered that I had had a copy and had sold it to a used bookseller, this particular bookseller actually. Wasn't going there.
ReplyDeleteThat is a salutary experience - it is worse when you don't see it coming, and buy the thing anyway. I am still amazed that I once went to a lot of trouble to buy back a book I had previously owned...
Deletehttps://prometheusinaspic.blogspot.com/2011/03/funny-thing-happened-on-my-way-to.html
Been there, except with Scandinavian literature. Unloaded half a dozen full book boxes after finishing graduate school and. . . about five years later realized what a stupid mistake I'd made. Live and learn as the saying goes. Not a mistake I'll make twice. Glad you were eventually able to find and replace your copies of the missed titles.
ReplyDeleteBest Regards,
Stokes
To err is human, to appreciate exactly what a disastrous mistake you've made is the clever bit. Learning is another level of divine achievement again.
DeleteMy grandmother (the Preston one) used to say:
"No matter how long you live, you learn something new every day. That's a good thing - however, if it's the same thing you learned yesterday, that's not quite so good."
She was, of course, mad.
I have two copies of Battles with Model Soldiers... the second one was naturally in "far better condition" than the first...
ReplyDeleteGood man. I like your style. My own copy of BwMS, I am surprised to note, is a paperback, though I know for a fact that it used to be a hardback. You don't suppose the Book Pixies come in here at night and muck about, do you?
DeleteInteresting thread, Tony. I don't have many of the older-school books, but I have in the past few years, almost completed my collection of 'Wargamers' Newsletter' - all bar about 13 issues. It's great reading, as are the copies I have of another magazine, a small A5 called 'Bayonet'. Of theses, the copies I have are dated 1968-69, and are full of seriously-intended but nevertheless quaint queries along the lines of 'Anyone got any knowledge of French light infantry at Waterloo?' And as for what you could do with the blade from a safety razor, a lump of plasticene and an Airfix figure.....they do have a charm of their own.
ReplyDeleteI never sell off anything, although I did give away my original Scruby Napoleonic armies. Eventually I may have to face the results of that should we ever move!
ReplyDelete🙀
This is getting dangerously close to sparking off the perennial discussion of what happens to our soldiers when we no longer need them - this topic is always bubbling just under the surface anyway. Having recently witnessed (at close quarters) the armies of a departed former wargaming colleague it is bubbling even louder than usual. I must rush out into the street and give the lot to the first homeless man I see, though he'll have to promise to finish painting the Spanish cavalry before I hand them over.
Delete