FF game boxes

[Ed]

Just wondering if anyone here remembers finding the FF game boxes or boxsets back in the 1980's ?

I'm assuming they were only ever sold in the uk.

I certainly dont recall them being on sale here in Ireland.

[a moderator]

I bought the second one. The box got separated from the books and wound up mixed in with a load of clutter, so it stayed when I got rid of my original FF collection. Some time after getting back into the series, I found the box during a clear-out, and put my replacement copies of books 4-7 into it. I know it should hold 5-7 and Fighting Fantasy, but I shelve the FFRPG books separately from the gamebooks, and Starship Traveller was a better fit for the gap than Scorpion Swamp.

Wizard Books also did some box sets back in the noughties. I have one containing books 1-4, and another that housed the Sorcery! series (though it now holds Wizard books 12-15, because having the books out of numerical order on the shelf bothered me).

[Ed]

I have the Wizard version of the SORCERY boxset. The original one from the 1980's is almost impossible to get now.

Not sure which one you bought back in the day but there are three listed on ebay for insane prices.

[a moderator]

The gamebox I bought back in the eighties was the one depicted here.

That reminds me: I also have the Puffin box set of the Sorcery! spell book and The Shamutanti Hills. Got it on eBay for under a fiver in 2005.

Also, the Clash of the Princes box set got overlooked when I sold/gave away my original FF collection back in the early 1990s, so I still have that one.

[Ed]

It would VERY hard to acquire that one now.

I also have that SORCERY 2 book set.

[Peter]

This is weird. I bought The Shamutanti Hills and the Spell Book when they were released, but there was no box in sight. I had never heard of it until recently.

I also bought the original Penguin wrap-around version of Khare, but then I lost it and had to buy a Puffin zig-zag banner version to replace it. The original is hardly ever mentioned, making me think I squandered a valuable artefact.

[a moderator]

Sept 8, 2021 8:36:36 GMT Peter said:

I also bought the original Penguin wrap-around version of Khare, but then I lost it and had to buy a Puffin zig-zag banner version to replace it. The original is hardly ever mentioned, making me think I squandered a valuable artefact.

Early on when I was rebuilding my FF collection, I found a first edition copy of Kharé going cheap in a charity shop. That's why I subsequently tracked down the box set of Hills and Spell Book: having a wrap-around Kharé sandwiched in between orange-spined editions of Hills and Serpents on my shelf was aesthetically displeasing, and I wasn't willing to get rid of the first edition for uniformity's sake.

[Ed]

Peter, you pretty much hit the nail on the head there.

Back in the pre-internet age of the 1980's , one had no notion that these variant editions even existed.

I never saw those wrap around covers or indeed any of the boxsets in the bookstores I frequented.

It was only in recent years through sites like FF collector that I learned of such treasures.

[bloodbeasthandler]

I assume that it is Balthus Dire leaning over his wargames table. But is that Steve Jackson in the background, watching from his mirror?

[sleepyscholar]

Apr 15, 2022 7:14:44 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

I assume that it is Balthus Dire leaning over his wargames table. But is that Steve Jackson in the background, watching from his mirror?

Hey! You never heard of trigger warnings?