Met a guy at a thrift store who had a system for rating used games by their box smell

I was digging through a pile of old board games at Goodwill. This older guy walks up and starts sniffing the boxes. He said he could tell if a game was stored in a smoker's house just by the cardboard smell. He ranked a 1980s copy of Fireball Island as a 7/10 on the stink scale. He buys games based on that. Has anyone else run into weird collectors with crazy methods?

3 comments

3 Comments

rubysingh23d ago

Gotta say I think you guys are reading this wrong. He wasn't rating the stink level like it was bad. He was rating how AUTHENTIC the smell was for a vintage game. A 7/10 on the stink scale means it smells like a proper old game that was actually played, not some sanitized thing that sat untouched in a closet. I bet that Fireball Island box had that great mix of old plastic and attic dust that collectors actually want. Most people don't understand that a little mustiness adds to the nostalgia factor. The guy probably knows his stuff better than anyone giving him a hard time.

lunag3023d ago

A 7/10 on the stink scale for a Fireball Island box. That is a very specific number. I guess if you are going to collect games, you might as well have a strange way of sorting them. But smelling old cardboard for fun? I have to admit that sounds a little odd to me. I wonder if he keeps a little notebook with the ratings.

black.jake23d ago

@lunag30 honestly I bet he does keep a notebook for it, something color coded with little smell ratings and dates. That Fireball Island box probably has that perfect mix of old carpet and melted plastic smell from the 80s. A 7/10 seems generous but I guess fresh cardboard funk is rare these days.