Carcassonne Central
Carc Central Community => General => Topic started by: dirk2112 on January 06, 2017, 07:45:16 AM
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In the Cundco "open letter" thread a bunch of us were discussing asking Cundco for one more old art expansion full of rarities. I have been thinking more about this and I imagine the only way to get Cundco to even consider it is if we limited ourselves to:
- Cundco made expansions (no spielbox or Hobby world)
- Expansions that are tiles only
- 12 tiles only as that seems to be the max size on a sheet.
So what are the Cundco rarities? I would say Corn Circles 1, besiegers, and the River 2 and 3. Corn Circles 1 is 6 tiles. The river 3 is 12 tiles, but only 4 are different than the standard river (2 sheep and 2 vineyards). That leaves 2 tiles that could be the split river rock tile and either the tile that ends in a volcano or the one that ends in a city for the folks without the River 2.
Would anyone be interested in a mini expansion of those 12 tiles? Call it corn circles and river extender expansion. Can anyone think of a better way to maximize the 12 tiles? Besiegers and Corn Circles 1 could work for example.
Money
So in order to pursued Cundco to print this for us, we need to make it worth their while. I don't know how many they need to sell at 5€, but I imagine it would be 100 or more. So anyone interested may have to buy a few. I am willing to buy a bunch, keep 2 or 3, and sell the rest on Ebay at cost to me (new envelopes, shipping fees, etc). Anyone else?
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I'm definitely in for a reprint of Besiegers and Crop Circles 1. And I guess some more folks around here are too... You have my support in this, that's for sure! :yellow-meeple:
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I am in too.
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I am in too.
Corn circles with my river idea or besiegers?
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Either. It is the corn circles I that I am after.
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I have Crop Circles 2 and the River 2 & 3 so it's mainly Besiegers i'm after...
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Sounds good to me too, but how much is that in dollars? I would like the river that ends with a volcano. Could someone please explain the difference between the river 1,2, and 3? Which river version is in the V2? Unfortunately I'm stuck between the two worlds of Carcassonne old and new! I'm not buying any more new until 2017 big box so therefore need to buy some old stuff which I think I like better! I have my eye on an original big box that includes P&D but it has no river. I'll have to buy that separately but am confused with which one to get... well I know I want it to end with a volcano but I don't know what river version that is. That being said I can help out with your request above... I'm sure if you guys like it I would too! :yellow-meeple:
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I would like the river that ends with a volcano. Could someone please explain the difference between the river 1,2, and 3?
OK. River 1 was the first set of river tiles which is sometimes now sold with the basic game, regardless of which art version you have. River 2 is the one that includes the volcano on one of the lakes. This was released by itself as a standalone expansion, but it is also available in the King & Consort expansion along with a few other minis that kind of work well together. River 3 is actually just an alternative version of River 1 that was introduced in Big Box 5 (the most recent one - all old artwork) but there are a couple of differences because they added a few bits to some of the tiles to help them play with the Hills & Sheep expansion which was also included in BB5.
So far, only River 1 is available in the new art although it sounds like River 2 will be with us (in the new art) soon with the release of the King & Consort expansion. I don't know if/ when River 3 will be available in the new artwork, but I guess they'd probably want to release Hills & Sheep first, or at the same time, as the additional features of River 3 wouldn't make sense without it.
And yes, all three rivers can be used together in the same game if you want. If you were prepared to mix artwork you could even string 5 "different" rivers together but that would be a very long river...
Hope this helps!
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I have all of these so I am not particularly interested (unless they add a new watermark), but just weighing in. I think the best option would be to attempt a 24-tile pack for €5-8 that would include the full River III expansion (12 tiles, it is already watermarked and I don't see them breaking that up), Corn Circles I (6 tiles), and Beseigers (6 tiles). Present this idea to them together and they may relent. It would be similar to what Rio Grande did with the two Zooloretto expansion packs full of German promos.
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You'd need a lot more than 100 to justify a print run. Specially if the printer is being used to print new edition tiles for new sources of income. 250k editions of Carcassonne vs 100.
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I am not sure what you all are saying here. But you are aware of that HiG has the rights for the graphics?
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I am not sure what you all are saying here. But you are aware of that HiG has the rights for the graphics?
I would hope so because I limited it to things printed by Cundco. If they didn't print Big Box 5, then River 3 is out.
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I am not sure what you all are saying here. But you are aware of that HiG has the rights for the graphics?
They are asking for a reprint by HiG.
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You'd need a lot more than 100 to justify a print run. Specially if the printer is being used to print new edition tiles for new sources of income. 250k editions of Carcassonne vs 100.
I will need to find the minimum. I figure if I can prepurchase a large enough percentage for people here, they may get on board.
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Assuming it is under €15, I'll get a copy, because I'm can't help but support such a proposal. But only if the tiles are in the old art.
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Thanks Whaleyland.
I will draft a proposal and post it here before sending it. I need to be brief and write simply in case the reader relies on Babble fish.
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Well, if I am going to do a 100k game, I'm sure I can assist buffing up the tile count for reprint. :D
I've also been thinking about a kickstarter event for this, raising funds to buy tiles and then send those tiles after the game to backers.
Still early stage of planning, though.
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I love the idea in theory but realistically I'd only be interested if the shipping costs were right. I'm from the US and if I had to order via Cundco for this one off reprint I'd be ok with that if the shipping wouldn't be more than the cost of the item. As for the expansions noted I would be interested in Corn Circles 1, Besiegers, and River 3 (specifically just the 4 unique tiles with sheep and vineyards but would gladly take the other 8 to get these 4). Also, if we limit this only to expansions produced by HiG (and not spielbox, etc.) then about the only expansion I see that they did that I don't have that's hard to find is the Tunnels but that isn't a tiles only expansion. I also don't have the Festival but I assume that one is still relatively easy to get (even if it is sold out at Cundco).
Basically, noting the stated limitations the idea you have is a good one that I will certainly support if I could reasonably do so. I also think that the KS route could be a good one because it would allow to really gauge the actual interest without requiring anyone to put out a ton of money upfront.
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Shipping from Cundco to the US is $4.16 or 3,95 Euro. You can get a bunch of small expansions for that price. Also, I am in the US and am planning on selling whatever I need to buy at cost to make this happen (within reason). The Tunnels was a Spielbox expansion, so you are out of luck there.
As for Kick Starter, I seriously doubt that Cundco would be interested. In fact it would probably be detrimental to them as they are trying to sell the new artwork. I expect that they would only want to reprint these if they A) Know they can sell them at a profit. B) Sell them only on their website as they don't want to distract or confuse customers who they want interested in V2.
I am going to ask nicely fully expecting them to tell me "no". It can't hurt to ask though.
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Ok, well I should clarify that last month I placed a sizeable (sizeable for me at least) order from Cundco that included pretty much every mini expansion they currently had plus a boxed copy of Hills and Sheep, since I never did get that one in English. The shipping on the order ended up being $25+. I do know that Cundco does offer cheap shipping like you said if the item/package is small enough. My point was that as long as this idea of yours would be sufficiently small enough to stay within the cheap shipping threshold that I would then be interested, :red-meeple:
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i'm very interested in Besiegers.
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If I am the only one interested in the hills and sheep river, I will drop that from the discussion and go with the other two. I have an extra copy of the river (assuming no one claims it from the spare parts giveaway). I imagine I can obtain sheep stickers and something resembling a vineyard and roll my own.
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If I am the only one interested in the hills and sheep river, I will drop that from the discussion and go with the other two. I have an extra copy of the river (assuming no one claims it from the spare parts giveaway). I imagine I can obtain sheep stickers and something resembling a vineyard and roll my own.
I don't want to wade too much into this whole discussion, and I've only been skimming the thread, but I think you might be missing something in general here, which is that HiG often includes exclusive expansions with the base game or in big boxes as a deliberate retail strategy because it works to their benefit.
So while it would of course be fair and nice for us if the River (III) was sold separately for €5, that's not necessarily profitable for the publisher. If more than 1/10 of the people who would buy it for €5 would buy it as part of a Big Box for €50, then that's a better deal for the publisher. Many people on this forum bought Big Box 5 solely for the exclusive things in it even though they already owned all the other stuff, which shows that this strategy works. Sometimes (e.g. Festival or Besiegers) this exclusivity has been relaxed later on and those items have made their way to Cundco, but not always.
It's already been nearly 2.5 years since Big Box 5 and they've completely moved on to a different form of artwork, and the River (III) has already done its job for HiG, so I highly, highly doubt they're going to create a small print run of it again for hardly any or no profit. I don't really think the business world works this way even though it would be nice for consumers if it did.
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The BigBox5 - has some more interesting components than only the River I (with symbols for Sheep&Hills). There are Meeples for the 7th and 8th player included also the Wheel of Fortune also included base game, 1st, 2nd and 9th expansion. Here in Germany you can get the BigBox for 30€.
A standard expansion like "Inns & Cathedrals" cost around 12€ and the base game (classical edition) around 16€ here in the shops (I don't talk about online shops - I talk about real shops where you have to go into the shop).
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Kickstarter is not a good way here in Germany.
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jungleboy is in the most parts right what he has written about the boardgame business.
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It's already been nearly 2.5 years since Big Box 5 and they've completely moved on to a different form of artwork, and the River (III) has already done its job for HiG, so I highly, highly doubt they're going to create a small print run of it again for hardly any or no profit. I don't really think the business world works this way even though it would be nice for consumers if it did.
Your argument for why they won't do it is actually similar to my argument as to why they should. We agree they have nothing more the gain by having the River 3 exclusive to Big Box 5 as for the most part, that is sold out. They already have the money of the folks who bought everything again for the exclusives. I suppose people who are willing to rebuy things as exclusives are less likely to do so if I pull this off, but often times those people aren't willing to wait.
They built the Watchtowers which required play-testing, new artwork, and production for 5 Euro. A lot of people are more than willing to pay 5 Euros for the expansions I am requesting and they can skip play test and having new artwork created. They just need to print them. I don't know how many copies they need to produce to make it worth their while. If it is thousands, then there is no way for this to work. If it is a few hundred and I can get a bunch of people here to agree to pre-buy a large enough % of the reprint to make it possible, they quickly run out of reasons not to do it. They can always choose to leave money lying on the table.
Here in Germany you can get the BigBox for 30€
Well then the River 3 is definitely out. I can't touch any Big Box for less than $109 in the States
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I would definitely be interested in buying a reprint of The Besiegers for 5-10 euro - it's one of few expansions/mini-expansions I still need to complete my old art collection.
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While I agree that a reprint maybe unlikely, I would totally buy a new printing of the River 3.
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First draft:
Cundco,
I am part of a small group of Carcassonne enthusiasts who are trying to complete our Carcassonne V1 (Doris Mattaus) collection before moving on to Carcassonne V2 (Anne Pätzke). How many copies of Corn Circles I and the Besiegers could we pre-purchase in order to make it worthwhile for you to reprint those expansions? I am willing to purchase more copies than I need in order to make this worth your while. I am not a reseller and I do not wish to make money on selling these rare expansions.
Also, do you happen to have any extra copies of the River expansion with the Hills and Sheep tiles (exclusive to Big Box 5 which is sold out in North America)?
Thanks for your time and consideration,
The Bablefish translation to German is:
Ich bin Teil einer kleinen Gruppe von Carcassonne-Enthusiasten, die versuchen, unsere Carcassonne V1 abzuschließen (Doris Mattaus) Sammlung vor dem weitergehen zu Carcassonne V2 (Anne Pätzke). Wie viele Kopien von Mais Kreise ich und die Belagerer wir vorbestellen, um es lohnt sich für Sie diese Erweiterungen Abdruck machen? Ich bin bereit, mehr Kopien als ich brauche, um das zu machen, lohnt sich zu kaufen. Ich bin kein Händler, und ich möchte nicht auf diese seltene Erweiterungen verkaufen Geld verdienen.
Auch haben Sie zufällig zusätzlichen Kopien der Fluss-Erweiterung mit den Hügeln und Fliesen Schafen (exklusiv für Big Box 5, die in Nordamerika verkauft wird)?
I don't speak German, but I know enough to tell that the important sentences (2 and 3) are a disaster.
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Firstly, you should address your letter to Hans im Glück (HiG) and not Cundco. HiG is the publisher of Carcassonne. Cundco (Carcassonne und/and co) is just the online shop of HiG. If you want to address it to an actual person (even better), there are people on this forum who could supply names for you if you ask nicely.
Secondly, I don't think you should mention that you personally would be willing purchase more copies than you need. Even though you qualify it in the next line, it could still lead to suspicion about your plans. I think this idea is more likely to succeed if you have a names of individual buyers for every copy you want to pre-order.
Finally, as stated previously, I don't think this has much chance at all, but I admire your enthusiasm and optimism. Good luck!
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Thanks and I agree. Though I don't expect forum users to give me their real names and I feel using forum names is ultimately weak, so there is not much to be done to address that.
I really just don't want them to think I am a reseller looking to over charge their fans. I hate resellers.
I do have a contact name at Cundco. It is from March, but hopefully she still works there. I also have the name of the managing director (Geschäftsführer), but have never spoken to that individual.
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The translation in German is not good - but the English sentences were proper. I think they don't use any automatic translator at HiG or Cundco, they have staff speaking english as second language.
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The translation in German is not good - but the English sentences were proper. I think they don't use any automatic translator at HiG or Cundco, they have staff speaking english as second language.
Translation services are terrible. Where I work, we are not allowed to use them. I imagine you are correct, but with my luck I will submit my email when the English speaking staff are all on vacation. :)
By the way kudos to all of the folks on this forum who speak multiple languages. I have been trying to improve my Spanish, but I am not close to being able to participate in a Spanish language forum.
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I say this as always again and again....
sometimes they reprint this and that - it could be some of your wishes but it needs time.
The BigBox5 is still in our shops here in Germany. And a new BigBox is not yet outside.
That means not yet a river I with items from the Hills & Sheep expansion - many people say it will be the river III but HiG use it as River I.
Ofen they "fill" the CundCo Shop with mini expansions to the Easter (March/April) time, to the "Spiel"(Occtober) and to the christmas time (December).
A print run needs 6-8 weeks for example. Mostly a print run will be more than only a hundred mini expansions.
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And as the other members have said - the stuff at CundCo and at HiG can speak, read and write a good English.
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I can certainly confirm kettlefish's word about HiG Staff's use of excellent English. Everyone I spoke too at Essen were more than fluent!
I'm sorry, I didn't want to come across negatively, as I think your idea is admirable, but many have mentioned the economic issues; from the printer and the the publisher - these are two different organizations.
I'm not aware of the industrial scale of the printers HiG use, but I suspect they wouldn't even turn their printer on for less than a $250k batch. These are the same printers which have printed the ~2-million copies of the base game of Carcassonne that have sold since the new art work was introduced less than 2 years ago. That's the scale of the printer used.
I don't think these guys turn up at work at 9am and print 100 copies of a game in a morning when they're ordered from suppliers. I think it's more likely they create a batch of 10s or 100s of thousands of copies. The publisher has to judge how many copies will sell over a period of time, before starting a new print run. I suspect, given the 16 years of experience HiG have publishing Carcassonne, they can model this very well. They how many and how quickly a print run will sell and when the optimal time to produce, in order to see the return on their investments. HiG are experts in this field.
But back to the printers:
Every print run will require proofing to check the colour and alignment is correct. I suspect the Carcassonne tile printer also feeds directly into a machine that cuts them. Once everything starts the printer will run continuously, day and night until the order is complete.
If you had a printer which could print vast copies of something in a consistent way; would you:
i) Spend time preparing a print run of 100 copies or
ii) Spend the same duration preparing a print run of 100k copies?
The wastage of proofing print runs will be the same. :(y)
The printer doesn't care so long as their paid, so the publisher would have to absorb that cost. But the issue is the vast overhead in creating every print run.
From the publisher's perspective - If you had to pick between printing a brand-new expansion no one has, or printing an expansion 98% of the people who-would-ever-buy-it already have, which would you opt for- remember that overhead we have to cover?
I suspect all the Besieger tiles were printed in a single run in 2013. And shared between a panels and included with the Müller Exklusiv-Edition.
Crop Circles (Not Corn Circles as you stated) was issued twice, in only two runs. This is clear because of the differences in green in both copies/editions.
Also the Easter 2016 Cundco Newsletter included:
During the spring cleaning a partner merchant appeared a mysterious small box, on closer inspection, it contained ... drumroll ... 100 mini-expansions "The besiegers'! This rarity we no longer produced and not reissued. But at Easter, we can offer you these 100 copies still, of course, only as long as this same stock. And please: Only once the besiegers per household order, there are as many have a chance.
I admire the passion and work - but I don't comprehend where the the economic incentive HiG would need to print these expansions; unless you're offering to but 100k editions for 10Euros each!
It you need someone to boost the numbers, put me down for a copy of anything produced - but I can't do more than that.
I would have picked you up a copy of BB5 at Essen for 20Euro if I'd known. I suspect there will be some left next year too!
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We can only speculate on how much they require to make a printing run worthwhile. Best thing would simply mail them and ask, or if someone knows a person there who can answer this directly.
Once we have this figure and how many prints there would be for this and for what expansions available for print, we can determine how viable this is.
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We can only speculate on how much they require to make a printing run worthwhile. Best thing would simply mail them and ask, or if someone knows a person there who can answer this directly.
That is what I am planning to do. I'll send them a message on Monday.
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I would have picked you up a copy of BB5 at Essen for 20Euro if I'd known. I suspect there will be some left next year too!
20 euros, really? I probably should have picked one up!
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It was during the last 20 minutes of Essen when all the stalls were closing. They were dirt cheap. The only thing that stopped me was the weight of everything else bearing down on my shoulders....that and I've already got two :-[
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It was during the last 20 minutes of Essen when all the stalls were closing. They were dirt cheap. The only thing that stopped me was the weight of everything else bearing down on my shoulders....that and I've already got two :-[
And that we only had about 3 Euros left between us (that we knew about)...
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Oh yes! I'd forgotten about the Egg-Laying-Woolen-Milk-Pig that cleared my wallet out.
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Thanks and I agree. Though I don't expect forum users to give me their real names and I feel using forum names is ultimately weak, so there is not much to be done to address that.
I don't mind you using my name on this but obviously you'd need everyone's name to make a different and I can understand there being some who weren't willing.
I'm not going to make a long post as there isn't much I can add to what's already been said, but I too am impressed by your enthusiasm and your willingness to try and make something happen, even if it doesn't work out. A lot of people talk about stuff and complain about stuff but when it really comes down to it, few of us are willing to try to make a positive difference. Merit to you for settle an example and trying to do something, regardless of the outcome! :)
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I too will forward my name. Even before Carc II, I have always been in favour of making uncommon expansions more publicly accessible. I was a huge fan of the Crop Circles, Tunnels & Plague expansion when Rio Grande proposed it and was very sad to see that project disappear when Z-Man took over.
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A lot of people talk about stuff and complain about stuff but when it really comes down to it, few of us are willing to try to make a positive difference. Merit to you for settle an example and trying to do something, regardless of the outcome! :)
Sending them a request is no big deal. If they agree to it and I have to put my money where my mouth is, that will be the real trick.
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Please dont order 100k copies of Besiegers- unless you're secretly a millionaire :(y) :(y) :(y)
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Please dont order 100k copies of Besiegers- unless you're secretly a millionaire :(y) :(y) :(y)
If I was secretly a millionaire, I'd hire Doris Matthaus to free-hand me some crop circles on blank tiles. :))
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You can put me down for a couple
Sent from my SM-G800F using Tapatalk
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If this is still a ongoing idea, I would like to join in!
The Crop Circles 1 and Cathars/Besiegers are nowhere to be found at the moment. It could be worth mentioning in the letter to HiG a number of members of CC that sign the letter or something.
And HiG have a account on this forum, so maybe we can ask them via that?
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I emailed them on January 9th concerning Corn Circles 1 and the Besiegers. I haven't heard back yet.
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Okay, I'll keep an eye on this topic for when they reply :)
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Cundco replied.
"We didn't have any of those tiles you described any more in our shop. There is no plan to print Corn Circles 1 or Besiegers again. Sorry! Have luck finding some elsewhere on the Internet".
I asked how many copies it would take to make it worthwhile for them, but either they knew I couldn't come up with the numbers needed or even if I did, they don't care. Either way, it was a long shot and now I have 10 months to find something else cool to do to get my name to appear on Dan's Advent trivia quiz.
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Thank you so much for your efforts dirk2112!!!! It's a step farther than many of us went.
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Yeah, at least now we know that they dont plan on making more.
Thanks for the effort!
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Either way, it was a long shot and now I have 10 months to find something else cool to do to get my name to appear on Dan's Advent trivia quiz.
In January, one of our forum members lobbied HiG via Cundco to make some reprints of some of the most highly sought-after old artwork expansions for Carcassonne. Unfortunately they weren't willing and/ or able to accomodate his request so he decided to find something else cool to do so that he could be included in the 2017 Advent Quiz. Which forum member was this?
Seriously though, I'm sorry this didn't work out. It was definitely worth a shot though as you 100% definitely wouldn't have got anything if you hadn't asked at all.
+1 merit for your efforts :) :(y). Hopefully next time they will be rewarded but who knows. It's always worth a try.