Sunday 17 July 2016

A Boot Sale Dilemma

                                     

....And the cost for little lot? 50p the book, £2 for the Blu Ray and £6 for the figures. 
        The box is a little tatty but the contents are complete and on the sprues.


Another Sunday, another boot sale. The pickings for me have been a little on the light side in recent weeks (excepting last week of course) at our local 'lazybones' boot sale but today I acquired some useful bits and pieces - one of which has given me a delicious dilemma.

I am on a bit of a mission at the moment in that I replacing a number of my DVD/Blu Ray collection with the digital version. Many films now have a download code which you can use and either add the film to ITunes or Ultarviolet. This means that I can a film cheap at a boot sale and assuming the code has not been redeemed I can then download the digital version to watch at my leisure - and this is very handy for the IPad. Ultimately I will be able to stream the download onto our main TV - I can certainly do so at present via the Mac. Thus far I have some forty plus films stored in this fashion - which saves a lot of shelf space. One can actually buy the download code in some cases from EBay and I was able to get Spartacus (with Kirk Douglas), The Battle of the Five Armies and the entire James Bond collection for a fraction of the disc price.

Battleship will be very much a popcorn film but it will certainly pass some time and any film that features a battleship and Liam Neeson must have something good going for it!

The book is not my normal ancient period but I am aware that the author has written a number of acclaimed titles around the Greco Persian war so I picked this up from curiosity as much as anything. Alexander's contribution to the pages of world history is well known but this account will certainly fill a gap on the bookshelf. It may well inspire some Command and Colours Ancients games in any event!

Finally we come to the piece de resistance - a box of 28mm hard plastic Teutonic Knights produced by FireForge Games. These are unassenbled and are still on the sprues with the only damage being one of the lances having a minor bend in it. As there are plenty of options of hand weapons this would not be a major problem. I have no intention of using these as they are intended but Lion/Dragon Rampant and Saga are certainly likely candidates. The figures are beautiful and whilst this is not something I would have considered ordinarily they are crying out to be used for something. Of course it means that I will have to add the collection but luckily FireForge produce other figures that would be suitable.

Now all I need to do is to paint them....:-)

9 comments:

Robert (Bob) Cordery said...

David,

A great bunch of purchases! The figures aren't something that I would have bought at full price, but for £6.00 they are a steal!

All the best,

Bob

David Crook said...

Hi Bob,

The figures run contrary to everything I have said about super detailed plastic figures but hey ho - they were a bargain for sure! In my defence the author of Lion/Dragon Rampant is working on a set for the Colonial period so I like to think these are very much by way of an advanced experiment with the rule mechanics.....

By the way, I have dropped you a couple of emails this week - they may be going into your spam folder.

All the best,

DC

Ray Rousell said...

That's quite a haul for a boot fair Dave. I've never had that much luck.

Paul O'G said...

The Teutons make for excellent Generic European Knights. Heres some my friend made:

http://dux-homunculorum.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/yet-more-fireforge-knights.html

Drew Jarman said...

Just make sure you chop off the Eisenstein horns :-) I rarely fine such bargains but then I have not been to a boot faire before.

David Crook said...

Hi Ray,

I am a huge fan of boot sales and have scored some real bargains on occasion. The only downside with the plastics is that I will now need to spend a lot more than I would have done had I not seen them!

Many congratulations to your to daughter on her graduation - mine is still three years away but she is working hard to make it a success.

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Paul,

I only hope mine look half as good when they are finished! Very nice indeed.

All the best,

DC

David Crook said...

Hi Drew,

It is funny you mentioned the horns as two of my gaming circle both suggested the same thing. Boot sales are rather like playing golf in a way because you can have a truly dreadful round but there is always the chance of that one shot that goes well and lures you back next week for more of the same!

All the best,

DC

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I should hang around car boot sales .. my charity shop wanderings produced bargain GW stuff, which I don't know what to do with :(