The Phantom Board Game (1966)

After not having been in a few weeks, I decided to hit up Savers thrift store yesterday. They always have an assortment of books, toys and games but I'd never found anything really interesting until yesterday. As I was browsing the shelves stacked with board games, I saw "The Phantom Game" calling my attention.

Being the Halloween geek that I am, I had to pull the box out and have a look at it! Well, it wasn't that kind of phantom but the pulp hero. I've never gotten into The Phantom like I have other heroes such as The Shadow or Doc Savage. I've seen both modern movies, read a few comics and saw him on the Superfriend-y Defenders of the Earth cartoon.

As I inspected the box I noticed it was from 1966 so I popped it open to check the contents. The rule sheet was right there with a list of parts. Excuse me, not parts, implements. That's what they call the contents. Everything was there (and musty!) except for The Phantom Ring. Yet I noticed one of the "implements" was clay which was still in the box. Yep, I said clay...more on that later. Most pulp heroes have their trademark that they're known for and as little as I know about The Phantom, I know his skull ring is how he leaves his mark.
Would the game still be playable without it? At $1.99 I didn't care.

For the most part, it's in great shape considering its age. The right side of the box has a ding/dent in it but it's nothing too major. The clay has been removed from the box and game pieces and thrown out.  You're probably wondering why a board game came with clay. Each player has to complete missions on the board. The way you mark them complete is by placing one of your colored tokens on it and putting a blob of clay on the token. You then press the skull-shaped Phantom Ring into the clay to leave the mark of The Phantom.

An original Phantom game ring. Image from BoardGameGeek

So you can play without the ring but you need something to replace it. Only one player can have it at any time but there are spaces you can land on to steal it. Since having it is the only way to score missions, it sounds like players will be fighting to be the one true Phantom!

Usually when I find something like this, I scope out Ebay on my phone in the store for fun. But this was so cool that I just grabbed it and didn't think to check until later last night. Come to find out, complete copies in decent shape are going for around $150! I don't think my copy would go into triple digits, but on the other hand, I don't know how rare it might be.