grodog wrote:

mbassoc2003 wrote:All the evidence I have seen seems to show that prices are increasing. Over the past two years the price of the JG rares has almost doubles in some cases, and the non-TSR rares and uncommons are seriously going up in price. Its also not unknown for certain TSR items to top $2000.

Well, a good chunk of the non-TSR price increases can be laid at your doorstep, Ian  Seren Ironhand used to sell for $25-35, for example.  It doesn't go for less than $50-60 now....

As a manual sniper, I've learned to live with being beaten out on items I want, which is fine because in most cases they'll come up on eBay again some other time, and perhaps the price'll be cheaper.  Patience is the key to finding the items you want at the prices you want; I think Seren Ironhand is the only book that I bought recently that feel like I paid more than I wanted to, but I didn't really have a choice anymore.  I was able to find Calthonwey, Booty & the Beasts, Outdoor Geos, etc., etc. on the cheap by waiting for the right price, and then getting lucky.  I certainly got outbid in many cases during that process, but eventually something came through.

Atlas Shrugged First Printing | eBay

Too bad about that Star Probe eh Allan?  I thought about putting a bid on it but then decided not to.  Ended up having to go buy a new hot water heater instead.  

I don't think an overall increase in prices has much to do with sniping.  I think it has more to do with math:

1980 + 26 = 2006   and   1970 + 36 = 2006   and   1960 + 46  = 2006

   The second best way I know to drive up the price of an item I want is to bid on it early.  (Although...on some items this works.)

   The best way I know to drive up the price of an item I want is to counter another bidder by raising my own bid well before the end of the auction.

   Sniping snipers sniping each others' snipes ( ) may raise some auction prices, but usually only on the most sought-after items.

   The awareness that some items are sought-after has raised the price.  A year ago I was outraged that Inferno went for over $10.  I bought mine months later for over $20 and the last one went for...what....$80+?  

    Tegel Manor is another example.  It actually comes up on Ebay quite often, but its price has soared...mostly because a small group of collectors are obsessed with it...including one who bids on virtually every copy available.

    Meanwhile, Demons of Dundurn (which I think beats Under the Storm Giant's Castle for "worst adventure ever published") went through a burst of high prices when a group of collectors got interested...and has since dropped in value.  (Possibly due to the fact that it is positively embarrassing to read, it's so bad.)

 OK...done babbling...but sniping does not raise prices.

Mark  

MShipley88 wrote:
    Tegel Manor is another example.  It actually comes up on Ebay quite often, but its price has soared...mostly because a small group of collectors are obsessed with it...including one who bids on virtually every copy available.

   

Hey is this me  

Well...OK...I was exagerating.

  It is hard to get worse than a module where a storm giant's baby is stolen...by Satan...and the storm giant can't go after it because he can't fit down the hole...and the one place that might be interesting in the entire module is the storm giant's castle...which is the one place where we don't go.  

  And, there is the fact that the designer set things up so that the player characters could possibly burrow from level to level, right through the cloud material...but the storm giant has not thought to do so.  And so it is the PC's who must defeat Satan because they are pure of heart!

  And, there are the infamous balloon people who attack the party shouting, "Kill the pins!"  And, yes, they pop when you stab them, blowing up and doing damage.  

    Pretty tough to beat....

    Under the Storm Giant's Castle is a nice (if extreme) example of the Judges Guild policy of depending on the DM to fill out and customize  the adventure.  It is also an example of Judges Guild's early commitment to innovation that sometimes made their modules shine over TSR products.  Sometimes.

   Still, Demons of Dundurn has a good shot at challenging the champion.  It is a module designed around a castle map....which is actually just the lead-in to another, much cooler, module which was never published (The Rood of Parth).  Surprise!

    The reader turns a page in the background material and finds that the module has blown up like a Philip K. Dick novel...and is no longer even about what it was about to start with.

    The one place in the setting that might actually prove interesting...an enchanted tower...is the one place that no one is permitted to go.  Presumably, this gem was saved for the next module.  Maybe it was garrisoned by balloon people!

   IF you are like me, you actually leafed back through the module, trying to see if the page numbers were out of sequence to explain how fire demons and a band of outlaws got into the castle overnight...and why the PC's should care.

   The fire demons all have different stats...recorded elsewhere in the book... and they might or might not be somewhere unless they are also not somewhere else...and the same goes for the band of outlaws, who might be there...if they are not already somewhere else or even somewhere else before that or after that.  Really clear, right?

   Dude.  How about an overview?  How about not concealing crucial information from the DM?

    The entire module is useful mostly as wallpaper...just try getting players to make sense of the module as written and using it the way it is supposed to be played.  The huge map is neat, but also problematic because it is drawn (for some reason) entirely on hexes.

    The front cover mentions that the module is for evil characters (no explanation why).  Maybe what was meant was that it was written by evil characters.

    It is a nice example of what Judges Guild products devolved into as that company lost their "Approved for Use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" label and fell into senility. If they had not died in the early 80's, they might have recovered and morphed into what Palladium Books eventually achieved.

    At least the balloon people made some sort of sense.

Mark  

So you liked it, Shipley?

bbarsh wrote:Nothing...and I mean nothing ever printed can compare to the absolute garbage that is Under the Storm Giants Castle.

   Obviously, you haven't read Irontooth Highlands.  I did not include it in my scathing remarks because this product of Judges Guild ex-patriots does not really qualify as a "module."  It is more like a bad comic book with no pictures....or possibly a chewing gum wrapper.

   To jog your memory...the cover shows Conan fighting Alien.

Mark  

hrmm... I thought you were on commission, Allan?


well, at least it says C2...

killjoy32 wrote:that was the auction that i put up as an "interesting item on ebay".

would be very interested to know as to whether it was the real deal or not....

I see... Thanks, Al! Must've caught a blind-spot whilst scrolling or hit the clear messages button at exactly the wrong time, since that's the only post I don't remember reading and it's not at the foot of the page. Flukey.

hey david, this was the post i think:

Interesting Items Formerly on eBay • Page 18 • Collecting General •  The Acaeum

and it wasnt at the bottom either

Al