Well, the camp sales were a huge success. As you may know, my project for this year was to custom build, paint and sell DBA camps to fund my convention-going and hobby purchases. It was a way to cut expenses and save some money for purchasing a home. And as this issue wings its way towards you, I should be settling in to my house. Notice the new return address -- I promise I'm done moving for awhile, now! Anyway, one Sunday I took my first batch of a dozen camps to our monthly Gods of Wars DBA Campaign. In the batch were two commissions for my friends -- an Egyptian camp for Mike Stelzer and a Greek one for Dave Zecchini. I sold 7 camps that day, much to my delight. I hurriedly constructed another batch and took 11 down to Warband in Cincinnati, that Saturday. I sold another half dozen there to various Great Lakes members. Zeke and Mike were definitely my best customers, though, buying three each between the two sales. After that, I made a couple more batches (of four camps at a time, usually) to stock up for our annual trip to Cold Wars. The goal was to have my income from camp sales pay for my room, meals and any goodies I picked up in the Dealer Room. My friend Jason Mirosavich snagged two of them right away, once we met him to check into our room. I took some down Friday during the Big Battle DBA tournament, and sold a handful. I brought them again to Midnight Madness, and sold more. As it turned out, I made about four trips down to the Ancients area to hawk them, and finally on Sunday before we left, sold the final two. I counted up the cash, paid off Joel for the room, and still had money left over for lunch and dinner on the way home...I'd done it! Twenty-two camps sold over three events netted me more than $500. That was half a grand more, in essence, towards my downpayment. I am very thankful to everyone who bought them -- my friends Mike, Zeke, Jason and Steve; DBA pals like Dennis Frank, David Schlanger and Tim Ryan; Board Members like Jack Shaw, John Adkins and Rich Smethurst (plus any more I haven't mentioned). It seems the first 22 got a ball rolling, as I have commissions coming in from other friends and strangers. I also plan on bringing more up to Drums Along the Maumee next month. I've posted photos of the 22 on my gaming website, Roman Dreams: www.geocities.com/mikedemana. Check them out, and let me know what you think. I've had a great time doing them, and it feels good to be able to allow the hobby to help me out in my personal life. Back to The Herald 58 Table of Contents Back to The Herald List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2004 by HMGS-GL. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com