“Now YOU fight the Civil War Battle in this realistic Tournament GAME” No. 501, 1961, $2.49 Designed by Charles S. Roberts

The Battlefield Edition of Gettysburg was a special low-price variant that used an unmounted map printed on stiff card stock. It was sold exclusively at the battlefield in Pennsylvania (according to the sticker on the cover). The map and sticker are the primary differences between the Battlefield Edition and the standard ’61 set.

The Battlefield Edition was not the first low-price version of Gettysburg. The 1959 rulebook describes a “junior set” which was also reportedly sold at the battlefield. In addition to using an unmounted mapsheet, the junior set did not include any charts apart from those printed in the rulebook.

The following component manifest is for the 1961 Battlefield Edition.

Components

Map 22”x28” unmounted cardstock mapsheet marked copyright 1958 with the title Gettysburg printed on back

Rules 5½”x8½” Battle Manual (24 pages) marked copyright 1960

Counters: 93 counters (see ’58 edition described above)

Charts, Pads, and Play-Aids
1 Orange 6½”x7” Combat Results Table card
2 Two Order of Appearance cards (as in ’58 edition)
3 10”x8” Time Record card
4 Two yellow 5¼”x7” Combat Factor cards (as in ’58 edition)
5 Range Card (as in ’58 edition) Inserts
1 5½”x3¼” “To Help us... improve Gettysburg” postpaid postcard addressed to “209 E. Fayette St.”
2 Catalog? I strongly suspect that a catalog would have been included, but the set I examined did not include one.

Note: The Battlefield Edition I examined does not include an 11”x14” descriptive sheet. Although such sheets seem to have been used in all of AH’s pre-1962 titles, I suspect that the name Gettysburg was printed on the back of the mapsheet to serve the decorative function of the cover sheet.

In Memoriam: Revisiting the Avalon Hill Classics, Part II Old Games Never Die, Their Counters Just Fade Away

Introduction
Gettysburg '58
Gettysburg Battlefield Edition
Tactics II
U-Boat
Chancellorsville
D-Day
Civil War
Waterloo
Bismarck
Stalingrad
Jutland
Conclusion