Mertwig's Maze

Mertwig’s Maze was one of my favorite games when I was a kid. I bought it at the local hobby shop and played the shit out of it with my brother and friends. Really, it was awesome. Tons of fun, great sense of humor, didn’t take a ton of time. Unfortunately, like so many other childhood artifacts, it has been lost to the sands of time, misplaced in a series of moves in my late adolescence most likely. Recently I have sought to acquire a copy of it and have been amazed by two things; the cost of it and the condition of it.

Mertwig’s Maze comes up on ebay a couple of times a month and rarely does it go for less than $60. I should mention that the components of the game are very low cost and are all paper, which made me think it would be cheap. I think I paid less than 10 bucks for it originally (granted, this was probably around 1990). But I understand supply and demand and I see that I am not the only person who remembers this game fondly.

The other thing that amazes me is that there seems to be no shortage of mint condition, still in the shrink wrap copies of the game. This thing came out in 1988. Who has been hoarding Tom Wham gamefolios all these years? Former game dealers? Tom Wham himself? King Mertwig? I find this very strange.