High Bid
The Auction Game
3M Company - 1965
2-4 Players
In High Bid the players are collectors competing in an art and antiques auction. They bid on various items which they can either keep or sell in hopes of making a profit.
Items are represented by cards. Players initially buy items by bidding on them from the "auction block". The player who wins the auction gets the item for the price bid. That player can then sell items which were already in their hand by rolling a die to determine if the item is sold to a collector, gallery, dealer or if it goes to a warehouse. Players can also buy items from these locations.
All items are part of a set. For example, the "Antique Clocks" set consists of a Grandfather Clock, a Mantel Clock and a Cuckoo Clock. If a player has the entire set it is worth more more than just having the individual items.
When the first player gains a net worth of $5,000 in completed property sets the game ends and that player is the winner.
There are several auction games (Parker Brothers Masterpiece comes to mind) and High Bid is a very good example of one. At its heart it is a card game (and 3M later released a gamette version as a card game) but it does very well. This can be a quick fun game.