red barber board game

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Posted By: chris

Has anyone ever come across one of these??? Please post photos if so.

Thanks,

Chris

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Posted By: leon

thanks for posting over here......There are some great guys on this side of the board....and it's much more civil .....Good luck with the question. Personally, I don't know about it....regards

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Posted By: Joseph

This game is scarce. Below you'll find a link to a Lelands auction which contains a picture and a price which, you'll see, is commensurate with its scarcity and its value-added association with the Yankees AND the Brooklyn Dodgers.

http://www.lelands.com/bid.aspx?lot=1187&auctionid=104

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Posted By: Butch & Co.

Joe is of course correct. The game is indeed fairly scarce -- although a little of the game's mystique, and a bit of the reason for the generally high prices it commands at auction (average close to $500., range from $225. to $1100.+ over the past decade, for examples in nice condition) -- come from its wholly undeserved rep as "the rarest" or "among the rarest" of all tabletop baseball games. We have no idea who started that rumor, but inexpert collectors have kept it circulating on the interweb for years.

We did, however, recently run across a real rarity -- a variant edition of the game, with slightly different cover graphics, we'd never previously seen. In that edition, the photos of Burt Shotton and Preacher Roe are replaced by pics of Stan Musial and Roy Campanella.

Baseball Games
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Posted By: chris

hey butch,

thanks for your reply and info. what would you estimate the "variant" edition to be worth?

thanks,

chris

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Posted By: Butch & Co.

A fair question, Chris, but putting a dollar value on a unique (or nearly unique) item is always a challenge. The only track record established is for the "standard issue" Red Barber, so we'd only be guessing as regards the Musial/Campanella variation. Honestly, though, we think it probably wouldn't get a lot more at auction than the Shotton/Roe edition -- and possibly even less. Most collectors hunting the Barber game seem to have a youthful connection to the three New York teams (and the players and managers pictured on it) and to having played the Barber game itself as kids, and that's where the value lies for those game/memorabilia collectors -- not in variations to the graphics, the way those sort of rarities and anomalies appeal to many among the far, far larger numbers of card collectors (or coin or stamp collectors, &c').

But as we said, that's just a guess, and if the Musial/Campanella variation came up for auction, much would depend, as always, on condition and completeness. Joe is usually way better than we are at predicting what price a game will fetch at auction... Chief Wahoo, any thoughts?

Baseball Games
http://baseballgames.dreamhosters.com/

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Posted By: Joseph

I totally agree with the above assessment with regards to value. The best market for a variation of an item that is already scarce would be a baseball game completist. And if there's more than one of those guys on the planet, that would be a lot. Frankly, I think the price commanded for this game is a bit much, but then I'm a pre-war kinda guy.

[Skoonj]

I have played this game hundreds of times, and had kept scorebooks of games for years. I don't have a complete game, but do have two of the boards, which I obtained from William D. Hart. Mr. Hart designed the Red Barber game, which was copyright 1947 and 1950, and according to Mr. Hart was no longer manufactured after 1952. My friend and playing companion, Danny Bickman's father Nathan wrote to Mr. Hart on our behalf in 1977. He was kind enough to respond. He had no remaining Red Barber games, but sent us two of the boards, but not backed by cardboard. They were simply the original printed paper, sent in a rolled mailing tube. One remains in the mailing tube, but the other I have had laminated so we could play the game.

In his letter, Mr. Hart said he had designed a new game, the Real-Action Baseball Game. He sent us a copy, which I have. The game is boxed. The board is mounted on better grade cardboard than the Red Barber game, though the appearance is similar. The players are red and yellow, rather than red and blue in Red Barber. It has a spinner rather than dice, but it does have a ball (we used a button).

One of Danny's Red Barber games were purchased at the Baseball Hall of Fame (I think he had three all told, but none exists today). In the 1980s I went to their store, hoping they had copies left. They didn't but one of the staff said they ran out only recently.

[Butch7999]

Hi Skoonj, thanks for that information! We had not known that Real-Action designer Hart was also responsible for the Barber game.
Real-Action Baseball Game, as you know, carries both 1947 and 1966 copyright dates. We've never seen any evidence of
an edition actually produced before 1966.
No coincidence anymore, then, that both the Barber and Real-Action are among the few games to employ a grid pattern
on the playing field to establish defensive range for fielders...

[Skoonj]

Butch, you are right, Real-Action does have a 1947 and 1966 copyright date. I never asked Mr. Hart, but my guess is that many elements of the newer game were pioneered in Red Barber, so he included a 1947 date. By the way, one of the changes brought in with the newer game was the throwing speed by fielders. He raised it to three spaces per turn. In Red Barber, it was two except in the case of a caught line drive (the ball hits the space the outfielder is standing on). The three space per turn throw was something Danny and I considered doing in Red Barber, at least for outfielders. It does speed up the game, and in our opinion, made it more realistic.

[JayZim13]

I have a Red Barber Game. The board shows the copyright of 1947....1950.
I would like to confirm that my game is complete. It has the board, 3 small red dice, 11 red round pegs and 11 blue round pegs (plus the yellow box that they originally came in. There are 2 official scoresheets (unmarked)There is also a GR Anthony pamphlet for books and one letter for Baseball Personalities by Jimmy Powers-plus a prepaid envelope to order stuff.
I also have the original box.
Is this a complete game? Thanks in advance

[jcmtiger]

Here is a picture and description of the game from: Baseball Games by Mark Cooper.

Joe

[Butch7999]

Joe, thanks -- as we (and Mark) now know, there's a later box-lid variation that replaces Shotton and Roe with Musial and Campanella.

Jay, as far as we know, your game sounds entirely complete with the exception of the one white marble (we think it's actually wood)
that sits in the concavity atop a peg to indicate (if we understand the rules correctly) where the fielding action is taking place.
There's been no separate parts box in any of the many examples of the game we've seen -- do you mean the yellow build-up
(as it's known to boardgame geeks) that fits inside the box bottom and holds the pegs and dice in place?

[Skoonj]

Jay, Butch is right. Your game lacks just the round white wooden "ball", flat on one side. Once the die are rolled, one at a time, the ball is placed on the square under that number, and the play commences: fielders go, ball goes, runners go.

The ball is perhaps the LEAST important piece in the game, in my opinion. Not talking about complete game collector value or anything, just play value. Danny and I couldn't stand the ball since it could easily be touched and roll on the board, which is annoying as hell. We replaced it with an ordinary white shirt button, and that was good for years.

[Skoonj]

I just looked at the photo of the game. I have to say, whoever placed the fielders is asking for trouble. The infielders and outfielders should be deeper, and the shown configuration will result in far more hits. A couple of actual games, and this would surely occur to the person who set up the game for the photo.

[JayZim13]

Thanks guys.
I do have the white flat ball-just forgot to list it. Yes, the yellow box is the original "build up" that the pegs etc came in.
Are the 2 original scorecards considered part of the game?
Also, did the game come with the GR Anthony book offers?
I bought the game in 1990 from Lelands.

[Butch7999]

Hi Jay, we've seen the G R Anthony promotional flyers included with a few other examples of the game, so yes, they're original to it.
The scoresheets, too, are part of the original package. You could order 100 more of those for $1.00. Then.
Thanks for clarifying build-up versus parts box -- thought you might have had something we hadn't seen before!