Thenraine wrote:There seems to be a good and bad side to just about everything! The acaeum provides a very useful service and i have enjoyed viewing the forums quite a bit over the past few days! The listing of prices and information in an organized manner can be critical to the collector trying to make a purchase at a fair price. Those using this site can be assured that they can purchase collectible tsr items at fair market value! The only thing i see as a negative is that an organized listing of prices will eventually lead to one thing for the collector-PRICE INCREASES!!! Why? Let me see if i can explain my theory intelligently! First off, they say hindsight is 20/20
so lets take a look at another collectible i am familiar with that past the stage D&D is at now some 30-40 years ago-comic books. Comics starting sellling in the late 30's at a dime a piece at first they had no value. By the 60's they were selling at 12 cents right off the rack and few had any real appreciable value. Then in the 60's a few people nostalgic about the good old days and the comics they read as kids, started to collect them! they had already become hard to find in nice condition because of their disposable nature and the great comic book scare of the mid 50's(seduction of the innocent) in which many parents burned or threw out entire collections because of what was deemed questionable content! Ok,
so these pioneers in collecting snatch up all the books and for the most part at relatively little expense.Probably their only pitfall at this stage was hunting down copies in absolute pristine condition. what happens next?-A group of these pioneering collectors get together and decide there is a need for a price guide. Now everbody in the hobby has a reference to what the current sales are of these books, word spreads among those who don't collect not to throw out your books because they are worth $$$(once again a double edged sword because now rare copies that would have been doomed to trash bins are saved but also less and less people are parting with their books for next to nothing!) and also those who have "rares" use the guide to drive prices!!! Always it seems if someone has a rare item and a price guide lists it value they try to push that sale they are making to 2X,3X guide or even much more! Eventually this listing of prices will become a sellers tool more than a buyers because of this and while a collector should still be assured the ability to determine current market value accurately due to this listing they can also be assured that over the next 20 years these prices will be consistently higher due to the listing-one more example from comic books-action comic#1 first appearance and origin superman-sold for a dime in the late thirties- in the sixties 20+ years later it would cost anywhere from nothing to a few bucks to get one depending on where you found it. By 1970 with the guide out and demand starting to surge from collector interest you could still get a NM copy if you could find one for a few hundred $$. Recently a legitmate offer was made by a major dealer of 1 million dollars to purchase one of the only known existing copies in NM!!! i don't even think this copy is certified and even still the collector refused!!! If dealer will offer a million he must think he can sell it for at least 2 probably more!!! Point being witnout a guide this never would have happened!!! as much as anyone would like argue otherwise it is impossible for such a thing to take place without a guide. Without any guide at all the hobby would have remained totally chaotic and i seriously doubt prices could go above a few grand for such an item!!! Determination of value is to me a driving force in the mind of many a collector(certainly in the mind of a seller) and inevitably causes the collector to covet more what he is after.Prices will go up-will they go up astronomically like comics? Probably not to that degree as has been mentioned by one of the founders of this site(i believe in an introduction to collecting thread) the exposure just isn't as great as comic books. However, that ST1 that sold for $2500 recently could easily be going for $10,000 in 20 years!!! This makes me think of where we are now! As collectors we are in a great place! We are still essnetially in the "pioneer'
phase comics were in 40 years ago. Prices actually are very cheap and as we trust in the quality of the product than we believe demand will increase for these older items as time goes by and more newbies become aware of the past!If we buy pristine and shrinkwrapped condition items now it seems unlikely we can go wrong -any experienced collector knows condition is the key -the future looks very good to me for the prudent collector! Sorry if i rambled a bit-thanks for listening!

You bring up a lot of good discussion points.  I've myself often compared a lot of the aspects of the collectible comic market to gaming.  However, I don't think the dire circumstances you fear will ever come to pass.  Here are a few of the points I'd throw out for discussion:

1. Speculator market:  There will never exist for paper gaming products the kind of speculator market that drove comic prices in the 80's/early 90's.  As a background, baseball card dealers and speculation exploded in the 80's.  Looking for somewhere else to move into, many of the same dealers began buying and reselling comics at a profit almost immediately after publication. The comic dealers themselves fed into this market by issuing special covers, limited editions, special event issues, etc. Three events at the same time really fed into this craze.  One, the Batman movies that were released in the early 90's were well received and got children (kids) interested in comics again; two, the same kind of dealers and kids who were cornering the market and profitting on baseball cards moved into comics, and none too subtley; three, the ground mark "Death of Superman" by DC comics was hyped by the media at the time and became a blockbuster bestseller for them, and helped comics in general as "everyone" wanted to get in on the hype and rushed to their local comics store to pick up the series, including adults who hadn't read comics in years, casual collectors, and of course speculators; Four, probably little remembered now, but an upstart company called Valiant comics started by ex-Marvel staffer Jim Shooter and other ex Marvel writers and artists had just started becoming a darling of the critics and was beginning to get a lot of hype. The comics were very well written and illustrated, were based on old favorite Gold Key comic characters such as Magnus Robot Fighter and Solar, and most importantly had very low print runs (at first) and many of the first few issues had redeemable coupons inside that could be used to purchase "special" editions of the same comics...within months of publication, certain "key" issues (1st appearance of Turok, for example) had risen over $100 which was unthinkable for a modern comic up until the early 90's.  Soon print runs for "special" editions like the McFarlane Spiderman and new XMen title were in the MILLIONS, leading to the inevitable crash and devaluation of modern comics that has continued to this day (As an example comics print runs now number maybe 50,000 for a top ten seller, many lesser titles only print 30-40 thousand).
   Well, thanks Badmike for the history lesson you say.   What does this have to do with gaming speculation?  First, if you look at the factors that drove the huge jump in comics prices (price guides, excessive speculation, dramatic media event (death of superman), Iconic characters having movies, upstart companies basically "creating" collectibles, etc, well the RPG industry has virtually no parallels. There is no standard price guide for used RPG items.  There are no iconic characters or media driven events pushing the medium (the horrific D&D movie probably pushed people AWAY from ever being casually connected to gaming).  There are no successful speculators with a vested interest in pushing the product with the express desire to see the items rise in value for resell (attempts like Cougar to buy up all the H1s and resell were miserable failures).
   We are essentially collecting a "static" product. It has heavy nostalgia value among people ALREADY COLLECTING or who have already played, but has not reached out into the general public to build up any sort of interest that might drive prices stratospherically.  There is essentially no "market" for older RPG items except people already collectiing RPG items.  Even the recent sale of a ST1, while a large amount, was a "closed" sale only open to Acaeum members that did nothing to promote the hobby or the collecting aspects to a larger audience.  
  Your average 30 year old, handed a ST1, would have no clue to what it is worth, yet almost all of them handed a Giant Sized XMen #1 would immediately realize they had solid gold in their mitts.  As the hobby grows older and the target audience grows older, the sales will be members of the Acaeum essentially selling valuables back and forth among themselves.  The market they set will be an artificial one, not spurred on by any outside factors except age of the product.  
   Of course, I could be wrong, oh well.
   In another point, the presence of a forum like The Acaeum actually HELPS the hobby of collecting used RPGS immensely.  You can compare this to the collecting of pulp magazines.  For years these were considered worthless, and collectors were very happy...they were able to go to flea markets, garage sales, and conventions and pick up stacks of Black Mask and Weird Tales and The Shadow for a few bucks.  When the word finally got out that these were worth something, a lot of speculators entered the market, much to the chagrin of the "old time" collector who bemoaned that the Doc Savage #1 they could have gotten for $100 a few years before now commanded prices in the thousnads.  The hobby was "ruined" in their eyes.  But was it really?
  As a result of added attention on pulps, many, many collections came to light that might have before been discarded as worthless.  The sale of pulps on Ebay allowed people like myself that had NEVER seen a SINGLE pulp at a convention to shop at my leisure for key issues.  It also allowed competition to essentially root out many of the bad elements of Pulp collectors. Hard to believe now, but the "cream of the crop" of pulp resellers were guys advertising in the backof publications that required money orders only, maybe shipped your item if they even really had it,  maybe it was in the shape they said but often wasn't, maybe decided to ship your item in a month (I once waited six weeks for a single pulp magazine from a seller in Oklahoma, and I live in Texas....).  You pretty much had no recourse if the seller either didn't ship your goods or shipped them months late.
 Now, these kind of sellers have been booted out of the market.  What you get now are a more regulated form of dealer, who is anxious for good feedback and accurately describes their product, takes credit cards (through paypal), and the best part is you typically get a color scan or photo to see if the pulp is what you really want.  Many collections have come to light in the last few years.  Are pulps worth more?  More importantly, do they command higher prices than the days when you could buy a stack for 10 bucks?  Yes, but I say that was just the market correcting itself, and I prefer the situation nowadays where I can almost be 100% positive I am going to get the product I"m ordering, rather than the abysmal 50% or so success rate I had doing this 10 years ago.  
    The same ideas can be applied to the Acaeum.  By making more and more people aware items like at ST1, orange B3, woodgrain boxed set, Wee Warriors items, etc, are actually WORTH SOMETHING TO SOMEBODY a lot of stuff destined for the dustbin is actually making it into collector's hands (the recent sale of ST1 followed this formula almost perfectly!) instead of languishing in a closet, trash can, or given to little Billy to teeth on.  So, if prices rise a bit because of the attention the Acaeum pays to such items, it is a small "price" to pay for the eventual treasures that will come to light because of the publicity. I personally don't think the prices of RPG collectibles will rise to the level of items in other collectible categories such as comics, but the hobby is only 30 years old which makes this the equivilant of 1969 in comic book years, and we all know what happened in that hobby during the 70's.....!
  Anyway, hopefully this will cause a discussion, I know I've thrown a lot of brainpower at these issues over the years.....

Mike B.

I think Badmike summed up the demise of the comic/card market very well.
Years ago, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page story about how comics were a better investment than stocks... I knew right then that the comic market was doomed to the purist collector. The card market soon wandered down that same path... I actually had friends that thought they would be able to pay for their children's education by hoarding Shaq RC's... the end result was painful for many of them.

I do disagree with you about new collectors! I think the amount of new collectors will increase as time goes by. A site like the acaeum greatly encourages this. It bring organization, it unites the collecors.word spreads, when you look at the quality of product most of us agree it was pretty high and seems unlikely to ever reach that height again this will inevitably draw fresh blood to the hobby. It may or may not be a good thing to encourage this, depending on what your after less people= less demand=cheaper prices.....Time will tell but i think those of us who spend the money to buy cherry picked items for the long haul will be very happy with their investment in 20 years!

I agree... I think our collecting community will grow substantially, and it only takes a little spark. A "good" D&D movie for instance could do to TSR products what Band Of Brothers did to WW2 militaria like Ike jackets and 101'st patches. Let's just hope all our closets are filled with the rares when that time comes.

Yup! I hear ya Mike! Your talking about one of the pitfalls of collecting! It really helps to have about 20 years exposure like i do to comics and D&D! Yeah i never collected D&D til now only played but the exposure gives a sense of familiarity that I feel helps keep me sane and hopefully avoid bad investments!Some people just get carried away and when you combine a feverish got to have it mentality with inexperience and a lack of understanding about what really makes an item valuable- it is a recipe for disaster!!!By the way ever read any of those Conan pulps i heard those are classics!!!???

ddt58 wrote:Another example:

My father in law was one of the pioneers of fishing lure collecting and published the first guide, without prices. There was a raging controversy back at that time in the collectors' national club whether it was a good idea to put out price guides, with those opposing it believing it would lead to price inflation and make it harder on pure collectors. Both proved true, as people will pay as much for a pristine, rare early 1900 lure in a mint box as they will for a first print woodgrain.

Truly as mentioned price guides are a "double edged sword" in this respect.  But also, you have to think about how much the hobby of lure collecting has done in terms of bringing old classic (and expensive) lures out of hiding from garages, tackle boxes and storage sheds, where up until the price guides came out they would have been left to rot or rust or worse, just thrown away.  Imagine how many ST1's, Jade Hares, or R series items would have been tossed if not for this site and the collectors who gather here!
  Besides, as in the case of pulps in which I already delved, I think a lot of the hue and crying foul are a form of "sour grapes" from people that were able, up until the publication of a price guide, to basically molest unknowing individuals when it came to buying up said collectibles. Price guides in their own way "level" the playing field for collectors and non-collectors alike, making it much more unlikely for unscrupulous dealers to basically rip off clueless sellers. I saw card dealers especially perform actions that bordered on illegal highway robbery on unsuspecting dads and their sons in the 80's who were told their rookie Mantles, Nolan Ryans and Reggie Jackson cards were basically worthless, but they would throw them a few bucks to take the cards off their hands. I was witness to a large card dealer (now thankfully out of business and last I heard in jail due to tax evasion charges) slime a single mom and her two sons out of a large collection of Silver Age comics (including Avengers #1-#10, Incredible Hulk #1, and Fantastic Four #1) by telling them they were worthless and she was lucky he was such a nice guy that he would give her $100 for the box and also throw in gas money for her having driven many miles to sell the stuff.  Now I'm not against getting a good deal, but I think you cross the line when you tell someone their items are worth nothing....the ethical thing to do is make a fair offer without false pretenses and let the chips fall where they may. At least by people having access to a price guide you eliminate a lot of the predatory aspect to the dealer-reseller/individual relationship.  Besides, you'd be surprised even when people know they are sitting on a goldmine they will often take a legitimate yet underwhelming offer just to get rid of the item...  
  To make a case, last year my wife's sister and brother and law brought me a box of old gaming stuff that had found in a rental home (they own about 40 properties in Missouri) that contained some cool items including unused D&D coloring books, a Metamorphosis Alpha, and some other goodies, just because they knew I collected such items and they might be worth something.  Up until they met me, they often mentioned they simply threw away such items since they would have been astonished to find anyone who would have wanted to actually pay money for them....hopefully the presence of a site like the Acaeum will allow more ST1s and the like to be rescued from the ignomy of the random dumpster.

Mike B.

Ok... so what do you guys want?  More collectors???  -  This could make a lot of you a lot of money if you want to see these items rise in value.  
The only reason I found the site was because I started looking on ebay to find out what a GDQ1-7 I was going to sell would go for and happened across a FirstQuest Album sale.  When I looked at the listing, the seller had put a link to the acaeum price guide.  Intrigued I checked the link and the rest is history.  
Now, I'm not alone surely in doing this.  If you were to link items you were selling to the price guides at the acaeum, more people would take more of an interest in collecting.  After all in my own small way, I have, so I'm starting to increase demand??!!  But, I've only seen these links done twice in a month or two worth of looking.
Just my 2p....
what do you think?

John you ask the question "do you want more collectors" This is another good point of discussion  for this thread. Reason being I don't know the answer! What do we want?  What is our goal? Are we out soley for individual gain? Or are we trying to do something as a community. I know i would like to buy some AD&D stuff that i like for myself and i would also like to buy some Mint condition stuff for investment purposes, put these items in storage, and hopefully make a few $$$ in the long run. I personally think yeah the hobby is growing-that's cool-WE ARE HERE AT THE RIGHT TIME-buy now cry later if you don't

IMHO, the only real benefit to an established price guide for old D&D material would be simply due to the exposure it may bring. Basically what I mean is, that if this site would become reknown as the foremost place for prices of these items, it may help expose the rest of the world to our hobby, which may in turn help generate more interest which could cause prices to increase. On the other hand it very well may not, and that is why I would strongly suggest NOT using old RPGs as any type of investment tool what-so-ever. Collect because you love the game, or collect because it reminds you of great times long gone, or collect, because sh*t you still play twice a week, but I would not collect for a possible profit. If you do, you may be in for a very rude awakening. If you are looking to invest, get yourself a good stock broker.

As far as actual prices of items go, only demand will truly cause prices to increase, because as an example, I can say that I have this super duper ultra rare pencil(as it seems everything jonb sells is ) and it is worth $1,000,000.00. Reality, however, states that just because I say that this item is worth that much, that it doesn't necessarily mean that it is actually worth anything at all. It is only worth that much if there becomes a consistant pattern of buying/selling it at that price. Just my .02.

Thenraine wrote:Once again I do see a good future for rares and even common items still in the shrinkwrap. Quality of the original product was just way too high to go on being ignored. I will invest....modestly in these areas!
  Thanks clarkie for showing your true feelings about this hobby! Thats what i was just asking about a couple posts ago....what are we doing?You certainly know! I feel the same way about this as you i think. A hobby is best left to the true collectors! Still most of us feel inclined to keep in mind the invesment potential on these things...it can be fun and it is expensive to collect in the first place. For myself if I invest $1000 dollars now and in 10 years resell that investment for $1001 I'm happy-I am primarily a collector at heart! But if it resells for more thats even better!

As a note, I would say that I do not necessarily think these will not continue to have at least some value, as I really beleive that it will. Christ if they don't, I have probably pissed away $10-$15k now. Truth be told, there at least  few people now that I know of who make a pretty decent living off buying and reselling stuff.   My main point is just that I would not plan my retirement fund based on selling off my old D&D collection when I do turn 65, thats all.

Ebay really tore the A$$ out of the baseball card collector market as well. I remember seeing in USA Today back in like in 1997 that someone sold a 1968 Topps Nolan Ryan Rookie card at auction for somewhere around $1600.00 and it was a huge deal. Nolan Ryan Rookie Cards sell regularly on EBay now, and for less than $400.00 all the time, i.e:

Welcome to eBay

Granted the baseball card market really didn't do themselves any favors back in the late 80's-early 90's, when it absolutely flooded the market that saw somewhere around 15 different baseball card companies producing 10 different kinds of cards each that all had these gigantic print runs, but still that really doesn't affect the prices of the older cards anywhere near as much as the creation of Ebay. Its pretty incredible when you think about how much Ebay has changed all collecting in general.