Drat you, eBay!

Like a good boy I haven't been browsing on eBay. But today two of my longterm automatic searches kicked out results. Another copy of Tom Moldvay's old module Seren Ironhand is up for sale. Or is it the same copy as last time? I can't quite tell. The listing looks very similar to previous one. I don't recall if the seller, "hamilcar", was involved in the previous transaction or not. Given how rare this module seems to be, I'd guess he is either selling the copy he bought in the last auction or else he's sold 2 copies now and must have a box of 'em stashed away somewhere. The other search found a copy of SenZar and its monster book being sold as a lot. I did a mini-review/apology for SenZar in my "In Praise of Bad Games" series in the old blog. Here's a linky to that article. (Hmmmm. Maybe I should collect some of better articles from the old blog, polish 'em up a bit, and post them to my main website.)

Fools and their money being what they are, I bid on both items. I've already been outbid on Seren Ironhand. No surprise there; the last copy for sale went for 37 bucks. A module would have to be written on the ass of a gold-plated supermodel that grants wishes for me to spend 37 bucks on it. I'm currently the high bidder on the SenZar lot right at the minimum bid amount. I wouldn't be surprised if I was the only bidder for it. It's a ten-day listing so it may be a long wait to find out if I'm gonna get it or not.

I made an interesting (to me, at least) observation. I got the two automatically generated e-mails about these items on the same day. The SenZar auction was only a few hours old when eBay notified me of its existence. Good job. But Seren Ironhand was already into day five of a seven day auction before eBay clued me in. WTF?