Lost Caverns of Tsojconth Auction. • Page 4 • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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Lost Caverns of Tsojconth Auction.
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Improv
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:30 pm

bclarkie wrote:The most confusing thing to me is the fact that I was pretty sure A2jeff already has a Tsojconth doesn't he?

If so it is possible the copy he has is not mint and he wants to upgrade ....

bclarkie
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:31 pm

improvstone wrote:
bclarkie wrote:The most confusing thing to me is the fact that I was pretty sure A2jeff already has a Tsojconth doesn't he?

If so it is possible the copy he has is not mint and he wants to upgrade ....

I mean I don't want to be too critical, but for $1800.00....................

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Neitzche

harami2000
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:46 pm

improvstone wrote:The auction is now at $1,825.00

Let me just say ... actually I am lost for words.... I now wonder whether it will be sold for double?

Personally, I think the third bidder knew where to stop, even if it would've looked good on the other side of the map.

Btw, Firen (in 4th) is another person who has made very high, aggressive bids in the past on various auctions, albeit mostly on Chaosium-related stuff.

Looking forward to next time. (Although I'm sure the seller's smart enough to know how/when to release any further copies they might have...).

bclarkie
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:51 pm

harami2000 wrote:
improvstone wrote:The auction is now at $1,825.00

Let me just say ... actually I am lost for words.... I now wonder whether it will be sold for double?

Personally, I think the third bidder knew where to stop, even if it would've looked good on the other side of the map.

Btw, Firen (in 4th) is another person who has made very high, aggressive bids in the past on various auctions, albeit mostly on Chaosium-related stuff.

Looking forward to next time. (Although I'm sure the seller's smart enough to know how/when to release any further copies they might have...).

Well considering for $1800.00 I could have flown to this years Gen Con, stayed for 3 days and 2 nights in an upscale hotel, and by way the while I was there picked up 2 copies of Tsojconth, all for less than the bid is right now, IMHO, it might be a bit high. :wink:

Maybe it might worth the trip next year.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Neitzche

harami2000
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:53 pm

bclarkie wrote:Well considering for $1800.00 I could have flown to this years Gen Con, stayed for 3 days and 2 nights in an upscale hotel, and by way the while I was there picked up 2 copies of Tsojconth, all for less than the bid is right now, IMHO, it might be a bit high.

Maybe it might worth the trip next year.

I'll just make sure I manage to get through on the 'phone, next time.

(Don't fly too well, anyhow...

)

Improv
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:53 pm

bclarkie wrote:
I mean I don't want to be too critical, but for $1800.00....................

True, but consider this: How much would it have sold for 10 years ago?

Also if the item continues to increase in value then it is worth the money.

Say the item sold for $10 originally

With an ave 4% inflation then it has increased in value annually by approx 30%. (hoepfully my maths here isn't too rusty ... *improv makes a saving throw against bad maths*)

Even at the price I paid the rate of return is approx 25%.

Much better than the lousy 4% a bank will give you :wink:

Improv
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:57 pm

harami2000 wrote:(Don't fly too well, anyhow... )

Al the better for the rest of us... just remember everyone to flood Frank's mobile with phone calls so David can't bid :wink:

Seriously, David it is about time we organised an Acaeum party at GenCon 2006. We could even organise some sort of gaming momento fo acaeum members that attend.

harami2000
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:12 pm

improvstone wrote:
bclarkie wrote:
I mean I don't want to be too critical, but for $1800.00....................

True, but consider this: How much would it have sold for 10 years ago?

Do you remember the oB3 bidding "spikes", Mike?

First one up for sale in 1984 went for $300 and then they languished downwards (multiple copies available from GenCon dealers in 1995 for $130-150) before finally breaching the previous high point in 1997 and going directly to $1,500+ in 1999 (thanks to eBay!) with several people talking about $2,000+ "soon", but then back down to $600-850 (generally) through 2002/3.

Who'd like to guarantee prices only go upwards?

(But even at today's "values", still a very good investment for those board members here who bought their copies in 1995).

harami2000
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:20 pm

improvstone wrote:Al the better for the rest of us... just remember everyone to flood Frank's mobile with phone calls so David can't bid

(I think he had enough trouble last time without that "help"! ).

All I need is to get through to someone in the auction area. A major bonus to get a brief expert assessment of the top-flight items from Frank, though.

improvstone wrote:Seriously, David it is about time we organised an Acaeum party at GenCon 2006. We could even organise some sort of gaming momento fo acaeum members that attend.

Is that the target release date for Steve's "Planes" material?

deimos3428
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 9:50 pm

improvstone wrote:
bclarkie wrote:
I mean I don't want to be too critical, but for $1800.00....................

True, but consider this: How much would it have sold for 10 years ago?

Also if the item continues to increase in value then it is worth the money.

Say the item sold for $10 originally

With an ave 4% inflation then it has increased in value annually by approx 30%. (hoepfully my maths here isn't too rusty ... *improv makes a saving throw against bad maths*)

Even at the price I paid the rate of return is approx 25%.

Much better than the lousy 4% a bank will give you

Sorry for veering waaay off topic but I'm curious on the math...here's what I ended up with. By "sold originally" I assume you meant 27 years ago.

At 4% inflation, $10 (27 years ago) is worth about $27.72 today (10 * (1.04 ^ 26)).

So if it sells for $1800 now, that works out to:

27.72 * ( (1+x) ^ 26) = 1800

where 'x' is the average annual rate of return in %.

Solving for x, I end up with 0.174, or 17.4% annually. So obviously I'm doing something different.

Still not bad at all, considering we had a recession in there. :wink:

stratochamp
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 10:48 pm

Hi David, as regards sales history of orange b3`s i just wanted to set the record straight. i bought the first one sold at gencon, and it was $46. i bought the next one as well for $71. the third one went for $310 (i dropped out at 250; i was 18 yrs old & that was a lot of $$ at the time). i still have that first one i bought although-horror of horrors-i took the shrinkwrap off to see what the hubbub was all about. and by the way, one had actually come up for sale 2 years earlier, but the seller wanted 250 minimum and my brother-in-law wouldn`t loan me the money so nobody bought it.

Improv
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 11:21 pm

deimos3428 wrote:Sorry for veering waaay off topic but I'm curious on the math...here's what I ended up with. By "sold originally" I assume you meant 27 years ago.

At 4% inflation, $10 (27 years ago) is worth about $27.72 today (10 * (1.04 ^ 26)).

So if it sells for $1800 now, that works out to:

27.72 * ( (1+x) ^ 26) = 1800

where 'x' is the average annual rate of return in %.

Solving for x, I end up with 0.174, or 17.4% annually. So obviously I'm doing something different.

Still not bad at all, considering we had a recession in there.

Trust a bloody Canuk to check my maths. And one from Toronto at that. :lol:

My mistake I took 20 years rather than 27. :twisted:

bbarsh
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 8:59 am

stratochamp wrote:Hi David, as regards sales history of orange b3`s i just wanted to set the record straight. i bought the first one sold at gencon, and it was $46. i bought the next one as well for $71. the third one went for $310 (i dropped out at 250; i was 18 yrs old & that was a lot of $$ at the time). i still have that first one i bought although-horror of horrors-i took the shrinkwrap off to see what the hubbub was all about. and by the way, one had actually come up for sale 2 years earlier, but the seller wanted 250 minimum and my brother-in-law wouldn`t loan me the money so nobody bought it.

I remember the $71 auction and thinking at the time the price was crazy (that was 20 years ago, or so??). My friends and I would all pool in $25 each and buy #1 Dragons on Thursday (much lower attendance at Gen Con on the first day) then resell on Saturday and double our money. We thought we were making a killing. Again, 1983-5 time period money. You could buy a crap load of D&D stuff for $50.

Just as side, for all you fellow board game enthusiastes. You could buy SPI and Avalon Hill board games for about $5-8 each back then 1983+/-. We bought loads of them on the cheap - to play actually. Most of us sold them in the early 90s to clear out closets as most of us were now married and having kids - no more time to war game. I think we would get around $10 or so and the occassional surprise $20 for most games. Talk about premature sellling. Some of those SPI games are going for up to $100!!! Damn it all...

And I could've bought these damn modules off the 1$ rack!!!

New modules for your Old School game http://pacesettergames.com/

Everything Pacesetter at http://pacesettergames.blog.com/

bombadil
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 10:52 am

bbarsh wrote: I remember the $71 auction and thinking at the time the price was crazy (that was 20 years ago, or so??). My friends and I would all pool in $25 each and buy #1 Dragons on Thursday (much lower attendance at Gen Con on the first day) then resell on Saturday and double our money. We thought we were making a killing. Again, 1983-5 time period money. You could buy a crap load of D&D stuff for $50.

No doubt we'll all be having similar thoughts about today's prices in another 20 - 25 years. Can you imagine how things will look when TSR has its 50th anniversary?

johnhuck
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:19 pm

afoolandhis$ wrote:No doubt we'll all be having similar thoughts about today's prices in another 20 - 25 years. Can you imagine how things will look when TSR has its 50th anniversary?

Hmmm, not so sure myself.

I can't provide any stats to back this up. But my gut feeling is that there is a direct correlation between the demographic profile of the collecting pool, access to items via the internet, and the prices of D&D collectibles. There are the market forces at work of supply and demand. And generally speaking we've all got more disposable income than we had 5, 10, 15 years ago. So, we can all push each other higher on items we want. And items all over the world thanks to t'internet. But I work on the assumption that there will be very few people left from the already relatively small pool of collectors that actually g.a.s. about the history of D&D to maintain ever increasing prices in the long term.

I hope that I'm proved wrong and that my pathetically rare-free collection might provide some sort of pension. But my honest opinion is that the short to medium term outlook might be rosey for the "investors" but the longer term outlook is bleak. My personal expectation is that by 2030 I will have a room full of paper that will be worth significantly less than it is now at today's prices. And I might even have a room full of paper that is actually worthless.

Call me stupid, but it still doesn't stop me wanting to spend my hard earned cash on collecting today.

harami2000 wrote:(Don't fly too well, anyhow... )

And I'm in the same boat (so to speak) as David when it comes to flying. I can only do it when I'm off my head on prescription drugs. And spending 12 hours sat next to a corpse

on the way back from Oz did nothing to help my fear. I should have sued.

bombadil
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 12:55 pm

johnhuck wrote: And spending 12 hours sat next to a corpse on the way back from Oz did nothing to help my fear. I should have sued.

Now THAT's something I'd like to hear more about. What in the hell?

FormCritic
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 1:44 pm

I think that the collector market may hold for a few more years...there are still guys who started gaming in the 80's who are not out of the Army or established yet.

I think that Dragonlance may be the hottest property for them.

There will also be a dip in the market for a few years (I suspect) and then the remaining/surviving items will begin to increase in value.

Fortunately, I am not collecting to sell. I am collecting for myself.

I remember places that do not exist. I like the Acaeum because there are people here who share the same memories. :)

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

GraysonAC
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 4:49 pm

I agree with John. Personally, I think the prices of old D&D collectible stuff will start going down in 10-20 years, and be quite low in 30-40. It's not common for folks to want to spend huge sums of money on collecting things that they don't have a personal attachment to - and not many gamers under 30 have any emotional attachment to the OD&D stuff, or even 1st Edition stuff. Sure, there's the "Hey, that's neat." factor, but I don't that's going to be enough to support spending $2000+ on manuscripts and woodgrain boxes

Add to that the fact that I think more of the older stuff is going to make it onto the market, thanks to eBay. Add to that, the original demographic of D&D gamers is getting older (and will eventually start failing those system shock rolls). More supply, lowering demand.

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