Post by Whiterook on Dec 23, 2023 15:18:53 GMT -5
Picture now, in your mind, the words uttered as a whisper and dragged out… “REEEMEMMMMMBERRRRRRR”
Yes kids, you once upon a time were able to walk into large Malls, and there amongst the clothes and tech and lawnmower stores, you could actually find game stores filled with glorious copies of wargames from all the major brands of the day… Avalon Hill, Victory Games, SPI, etc. In a major mall and hour away from me, there was a store named E.J. FUCH’S, loaded with them! That’s may have been the store I bought my very first wargames, in fact. A very large part of my current collection came from there and such stores.
There were some specialty shops, like The Complete Strategist in Boston, but these mall stores were a gold mine for guys like me, as we accompanied our girlfriends, later wife, to these giant retail realms. A stop in to those hobby shops usually meant I was going to drop a hundred dollars or so, which believe it or not went a lot farther those days in carrying out three or four games!
We’re talking well before 1990, of course.
As console gaming became the rage, these shops quickly changed market to those… where you’d spend $35-40 (sometimes less) for a wargame, they could sell console cartridges for $50 and up, so more money to be made by then. Same thing happens today with Magic and other card games.
So yeah, you can still find hobby shops today, but they are usually their own unit in a strip mall, and they might, *MIGHT* have a handful of wargames mixed in with Catan and ROOT, but it’s getting harder to find a place with a ton of wargames like old. Around here, the closest game store that has massive amounts of wargames in The Citadel in Groton, Connecticut… it’s like Valhalla! The Compleate Strategist in Boston closed many years ago…I’d have to go to New York City for that fix, and well, there’s just too many damned Yankee’s fans between me and there. E.J. FUCH’s? …just a memory now. The hobby shops in the States around me vary with amounts of wargames, but they generally have just a few, mixed in with all the huge quantity of Euro and Family games.
Ah, the Good ‘Ol Days!!!
What was that one store that rocked your world back in the day, and what’s left today?
Yes kids, you once upon a time were able to walk into large Malls, and there amongst the clothes and tech and lawnmower stores, you could actually find game stores filled with glorious copies of wargames from all the major brands of the day… Avalon Hill, Victory Games, SPI, etc. In a major mall and hour away from me, there was a store named E.J. FUCH’S, loaded with them! That’s may have been the store I bought my very first wargames, in fact. A very large part of my current collection came from there and such stores.
There were some specialty shops, like The Complete Strategist in Boston, but these mall stores were a gold mine for guys like me, as we accompanied our girlfriends, later wife, to these giant retail realms. A stop in to those hobby shops usually meant I was going to drop a hundred dollars or so, which believe it or not went a lot farther those days in carrying out three or four games!
We’re talking well before 1990, of course.
As console gaming became the rage, these shops quickly changed market to those… where you’d spend $35-40 (sometimes less) for a wargame, they could sell console cartridges for $50 and up, so more money to be made by then. Same thing happens today with Magic and other card games.
So yeah, you can still find hobby shops today, but they are usually their own unit in a strip mall, and they might, *MIGHT* have a handful of wargames mixed in with Catan and ROOT, but it’s getting harder to find a place with a ton of wargames like old. Around here, the closest game store that has massive amounts of wargames in The Citadel in Groton, Connecticut… it’s like Valhalla! The Compleate Strategist in Boston closed many years ago…I’d have to go to New York City for that fix, and well, there’s just too many damned Yankee’s fans between me and there. E.J. FUCH’s? …just a memory now. The hobby shops in the States around me vary with amounts of wargames, but they generally have just a few, mixed in with all the huge quantity of Euro and Family games.
Ah, the Good ‘Ol Days!!!
What was that one store that rocked your world back in the day, and what’s left today?
