Charlie's Angels EM. Version #1001. I searched HARD for the game for 12 long years, replied to every for sale ad and lead that there was....usually it averaged about one lead a week but it always turned out to be a SS version. Heck I even offered a $100 finders fee if anyone hooked me up with one. Through all my travels of going to shows, warehouse raids, other people's collections, auctions.......I'd never even seen one in person (and that remains true to this day even). Back in 2002 I think it was I had just missed out on the first one to surface, even though I hadn't see it in person to verify it was the EM. version, but before I could get there someone in Wisconsin bought the game out of Canada before I could. After a couple of years I found out who it was and pestered him to sell it to me but he said he was like "a kid in a candy store" with it. We'll I must have worn him down and one day in 2008 I got that phone call that he was ready to sell but it wasn't going to be cheap by any means and he knew I wanted it bad and had been looking for 12 years at that point. I agreed on the price (there was no haggling) and he brought it to Expo for me and we did the deal in the parking lot for it and the NOS playfield that he had for it.
After owning it for 5-6 years I was starting to wonder if I should keep it or not as I'd sorta had my fun with it, the search was over and space was getting limited here. One day in 2014 I get a email from someone that wants to buy it for a large amount of cash. Now granted, it was a lot of money but I was torn between selling it or not as I knew if I did I'd NEVER find another one so this was not a instant decision and it kept me awake at night. About two weeks go buy and the offer got to be even higher, like as in HOLY CRAP higher!! I said sold and the game was shipped out to the west coast and I regretted it immediately. Thankfully I kept in touch with the buyer for the next two years and one day in 2016 he's now ready to sell it back to me, HOWEVER there was quite a bit of negotiating back and forth and after it getting LOST on it's way back here (thanks to STI)....in the end it came back where it belonged all along. Now I know it will never leave here again until the day I sell out everything. The game is part of me now and holds a special place in the collection, granted it's not the most exciting game to play but it's rarity and story of how I got it once, sold it and was lucky enough to buy it back will always mean something special to me.
John
P.S. I tried to insert the pictures where they would have made more sense in the story but I can't ever figure out how to do it so use your imagination.....LOL.
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