Larry Collins just wanted to order some replacement cards for his favorite board game, 5ive Straight. But when he discovered that the maker of the game had gone out of business, a journey began that ended with him buying the rights to the 43-year-old game in May 2011.

Collins, a retired small business owner who lives near Indianola, recognized an intriguing investment opportunity and entrepreneurial challenge, all wrapped in a neat rectangular game box.

“What really excites me about it is that the interest is already there; it’s a game that’s already recognized,” said Collins, former minority owner of American Business Phones in Des Moines. “So I’m not starting from scratch; it’s a known quantity. What I also like is there aren’t too many games like this out there.”

First introduced in 1968, 5ive Straight is played on a pegboard with holes numbered zero through 99 and cards numbered zero through 99. Players are dealt four cards and on each turn must choose between placing a peg or drawing another card. Pegs can be placed on the number on the card or any number above that, which makes low-numbered cards the most desirable because they offer the most options. The object of the game, as the name suggests, is to be the first to get five pegs in a row while preventing your opponents from doing so.

“It’s a strategy game, and that’s what makes it fun,” said Collins, who has been a 5ive Straight aficionado since first playing the game during a ski trip in the late 1980s. “I think it’s most fun when you’re playing with four people, so you have a partner.”

In its first month of business in October, 5ive Straight Products Inc. generated $8,500 in sales, Collins said, all by notifying retailers across the country that had previously carried the game that it was again available. 5ive Straight was rated as a Top 100 Game by Games magazine in 1999. He declined to disclose how much he paid for the business.

Several Central Iowa specialty retailers are already carrying 5ive Straight, which had been out of production since 2008. Corinne Harrison, owner of Games & More in Valley West Mall, said she’s excited to be able to again stock the popular game.

“Larry notified me that it was coming back, and I was really tickled,” she said, noting that a number of her customers had asked about the game since it went off the market. “I’m tickled too because he’s brought it back to Iowa, which is neat.”

The suggested retail price of the game is $24.95. In addition to being distributed directly to retailers such as Games & More, it’s also sold on Amazon.com.

“I think where a lot of the traction will take place is on Amazon,” Collins said, “because this game has been sold all over the world, and it has instructions in several languages.”

In the company’s first 45 days of sales, it sold approximately 1,400 of the games through Amazon, nearly as many as the former owners sold in their last year of operation, Collins said.

George Davies, one of the founders of the partnership that introduced the game in 1968, operated the business for years out of his home in Tarzana, Calif. Davies’ granddaughter, Randee Whitmore, took over the company in 2000. After eight years, however, she and her husband decided they no longer wanted to juggle operating the business with taking care of their full-time jobs and three young children, according to a history of the game at www.5straight.net. The couple were still individually silk-screening the game boards and sorting and packaging the components by hand.

“That’s why this game got taken off the market; the process of putting it together was so cumbersome,” said Collins, who tracked down the Whitmores with some help from a private detective. “I tell you what, if you sold 100 games, you would dread putting those games together.”

Collins addressed the production issue by contracting with a custom plastic molding company in Guttenberg, Guttenberg Industries Inc., to manufacture, sort and package the plastic pegs as well as make the game boards. He hopes to bring production of the game boxes, which are now being printed in California, back to Iowa as well. He said he’ll probably have to continue to purchase the playing cards from China, though, because the manufacturer there is by far the least costly source for the most expensive component of the game.

Collins runs the distribution end of the business from his rambling three-story Warren County home. As orders ramp up, he plans to recruit Simpson College students who are looking for part-time work.

The company’s plans include connecting with major national game distributors as well as big retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. He said he’s confident he’ll have the production capability to eventually supply some big retailers.

“It would be very easy, because that’s what Guttenberg Industries does,” he said. “It’s just a matter now of getting the wheels turning.”