If you are an Avalon Hill collector, this game is certainly one of the Holy Grails. Possibly the hardest title to track down. This is JZ, a.k.a. WJZ , the game created by WJZ-TV channel 13 in Baltimore, copyrighted by the Robert Goodman agency, and produced by Avalon Hill in 1962.

According to AH: “WJZ was never in the Avalon Hill line; having been the only game Avalon Hill ever published as a private-label job.” JZ was thus never included in the standard AH product line. Aside from the copies retained by AH personnel, all copies of JZ were delivered to and distributed by WJZ-TV.

As a result, while JZ may not be as hard to track down as the original 1952 game Tactics, it is considerably harder to track down than other obscure Avalon Hill family game rarities such as Journeys of St. Paul and Year of the Lord.

JZ bills itself as: “The TV ad man’s game.” Two to six players compete for high score in the form of advertising accounts and advisory fees. Players can make their accounts more valuable with fortunate advertising time purchases.

A contents list is not given, and there don’t seem to be a whole lot of copies of this game to be found for comparison. JZ comes in the standard flat box form typical of AH games made in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The “Buy Time” cards are, of course, an exercise in shameless self promotion by WJZ’s advertising department, both for the station and its parent company, Westinghouse. Some of the cards are also a bit dated, with references to buying time on the Buddy Deane Show and the Steve Allen Show. Luck plays a far greater role than skill. Still, the game is entertaining, and may be nostalgic for fans of the TV programs mentioned above.

Components

1 Instruction sheet
1 Game board
2 Dice
6 Pawns
6 Strips for marking each accounts' class
24 Pink Buy Time cards
12 Green Regional account cards
12 Blue Local account cards
8 Brown National account cards
2 Small cardboard storage inserts
1 Box

JZ CRAZY

On December 8, 2002 a record setting eBay auction ended. A copy of the Avalon Hill board game JZ closed with a bid of $2247. This marks the highest price I’ve ever seen paid for any Avalon Hill game. Prior to the JZ auction, the highest price I’d heard reported for an Avalon Hill game was around $1000 for an unplayed copy of the original Tactics bearing the signature of Charles Roberts (technically not an Avalon Hill game, but well within the pantheon of Avalon Hill collector’s items). I believe that sale occurred at an Origins auction in the 80’s.

(I thought I remembered an AH ad asking why anyone would pay $2000 for a copy of Tactics -ed)

A skeptic might consider the JZ auction result to be some sort of a prank, as it just seems crazy to drop two grand on a copy of JZ. However, I am informed that the sale went through and I give my hearty congratulations to the seller, “game collector” and “all around nice guy” Tony Nardo. Tony was selling off this copy of JZ because he had purchased a second copy at the auction of Sid Sackson’s board game collection. So why do I say it is crazy to spend so much on JZ?

Here’s some food for thought. In the last issue of Simulacrum I analyzed the “hot commodities” (games with average auction values of $100 or more) listed in the latest edition of Boone’s Internet Wargames Catalog. In that article, I noted that the average auction values for the ten highest priced games in Boone totaled out at $3089.

Now when I wrote that article, the thought of spending around three grand on just ten games seemed a little bit outlandish to me. But given a choice between that and the JZ auction, I’d have to say a $2200 chunk of the hot commodities would definitely give you a lot more bang for your buck.

When I say that the JZ auction result was “crazy”, it boils down to an even more objective analysis. Consider the other “pedestrian” wargames and board games you could get for two grand. JZ’s rarity just doesn’t merit the price. Nor does the game appear to offer near the play value that would make it comparable to the dozens of games one could amass for the same cash outlay.

Of course, in the end, collecting games (or anything else one might decide to collect) is usually not at all about objectivity. As has been mentioned in the pages of Simulacrum before, when a bidding war gets started on eBay, look out! So many games, so little time -- to each his own. But I still say you’d have to be crazy (in the most charitable sense of the term) to spend that much on JZ, or any other board game. Period.

The Man Behind the Bid

I was fortunate to be able to make contact with the winner of the JZ auction, Hideaki Tarui. He is a 41-year-old board game collector who lives in Japan. Surprisingly, he does not even have a PC. He was only able to bid on JZ with the assistance of a friend who had an eBay account.

I was pleased to find that Hideaki sounds like someone that any reader of Simulacrum could identify with -- a die hard game player and collector! However, he definitely prefers the former label: “I’m not a collector. Because I get the games to play.”

Hideaki reports that he has been buying Avalon Hill games since 1975 and has approximately 334 different boxed AH and Victory Games items (broken down into 251 games, 47 modules, 15 unboxed expansions, 21 book-type modules). He also owns a set of Generals from Volume 1 No. 10 through the final issue.

He believes he has played approximately 230 AH/Victory titles. He intends to try out JZ with his wife and some friends (but he will use reproductions of the cards and classification strip because “it was too much price.”)

Prior to his record setting bid on JZ, the highest amount he had paid for a game was $350 for a mint copy of AH’s Air Empire at Origins’90. He reports that within a week he had punched the counters and played the game using the original log pads.

Hideaki has been involved in wargame distribution since 1989. Currently he only distributes to one shop in Tokyo. He indicates that he has written for the Japanese edition of Command magazine for eight years but has never been paid (something that will sound familiar to the Simulacrum editorial staff!) He also designed several wargames under the pseudonym Jun Sawada. See below for his list of published titles and upcoming releases.

Hideaki is looking for every boardgame published by Avalon Hill, including variant editions. He reports that he is specifically looking for Imagination (flat box edition) and #550 Choice.

Mr. Tarui, your fellow wargame collectors and players around the world salute you. It sounds like you have shared in, as well as contributed to, the hobby which we all enjoy. And if you ever decide to get rid of that copy of JZ, I already have a space on my shelf reserved for it...

• Blackwidow (published by Work; OOP) Air to Air Combat Card Game
• Senior Service (OOP) WW2 Naval Strategy Game
• Senior Service Expansion Kit What if scenarios and counters
• von Vietinghoff’s 10th Army Salerno Landing
• Wehrmacht; First Defeat Operation Typhoon with Leningrad
• Wehrmacht; 5th Blitzkrieg (June 2003) Operation Blau with Leningrad and Crimea; Campaign game start 2nd battle of Kharkov
• 5th Blitzkrieg expansion kit (Aug 2003) Game will start 23rd August 1941

JZ Crazy Like a Fox