Missing S

[redbird]

At the end of our most recent Scrabble game, I was thinking tactically, counted S's on the board, and played on the conclusion that cattitude had the last S. He then put down his last five letters to spell "beret." I hadn't miscounted--we're missing an S.

This goes some way to explain why the previous few games had been frustrating [1]. We have looked around a bit, and not found it. The next step may be more thorough cleaning (not a bad thing in any case, if I can avoid it setting off too much sneezing); playing with the travel set for a while; asking around to see if anyone has a spare S in the appropriate shade of brown [we have an earlier set which we replaced after losing letters, but it's of a significantly lighter wood, so it would be obvious that that was an S]; or just going and buying yet another set. Our third in 22 years, which isn't so horrible, but still feels slightly wasteful. Yes, I know Selchow and Richter at one time offered free replacement tiles--but even if the offer stands, it leaves us with the color matching problem. Cattitude suggested mixing half and half, but given how often we play, we'd memorize some of the shade-letter associations even if we tried not to.

[1] Even with a full set of letters, sometimes the randomized letter selections turn up lots of frustrating combinations, too many hands with all vowels or all consonants or four of a kind. But removing an S wouldn't help.

Addendum: Hasbro, which now own Scrabble, will sell entire sets of replacement tiles, but no longer single tiles.

Comments

[gothgeekgirl.livejournal.com]

Though I suspect it'd be more trouble than it's worth, you could always paint the backs of all the tiles.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Velet de Coeur on St Denis sells individual tiles very cheaply. I'm not sure about the colour though. I could get you an S next time I'm up there if it helps.

If you're counting the tiles on the board to tell who has what anyway, then surely it doesn't matter so much if the S is visibly an S? I told you about our invisible T.

[redbird]

I only do that sort of thing at the end of the game. I'll also count how many u's are down, when trying to decide whether to play the Q cheaply, wait for a u, or throw it back.

I'll get back to you on that S, unless you're planning to be up there today, in which case please do get one. (I still have some hope of finding the missing one.)

[redbird]

If they have one that you'd call brown rather than cream-coloured, yes, please do get us a spare S.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

You could paint the backs of the tiles a uniform color?

I played for years on a set down three letters without realizing it (I think it was an A, an R, and an S). No WONDER the endgames got so painful.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

You could check thrift shops. If you do buy a new complete set, keep what you have for future spares. Soak them all in dye. Paint a bunch of random letters on the other side. Buy some non-English tile sets and really go nuts.

Hasbro, I believe, operates out of Springfield (and a couple of other places), the big city across the river. They also own Milton Bradley, which explains the presence of a Milton Bradley elementary school I saw while driving around.