I'm moving this month, and while going through some boxes of my personal collection I came upon a cache of
SW AD&D modules...nothing rare, just stuff like the U series, L series, etc. I wracked my brains but could not for the life of me remember why I put these in my personal collection and not for sale, as A) I have very nice copies of these already, and B) My nice copies aren't
SW so I can actually read through them or use them and C) I have the PDF's of most of these anyway, so if I want to use the material it's right on my computer!
This got me thinking, unlike I'm sure a lot of collectors I'm not very enamored of
SW items unless it's for eventual resale. For the life of me, I can't see buying something that I can't use, or not use without destroying the intrinsic value by removing said
SW. Don't even get me started on Slabbed Comics (I could go on a rant about this one for days...). Anyway, why collect a
SW copy of a module or game unless it's for eventual resale? Is there really any other reason except to say "Hey, look, I have one of those in my collection that's COMPLETELY UNTOUCHED BY HUMAN HANDS."
In my years as a buyer and seller of
RPG items, I've run into collectors that not only want only
SW or Mint items, but many times they want multiple copies---for their own collection (like, a
SW copy for my hardcore collection, then a
NM copy for my decent collection, and an average copy for my "use" collection). Unless it's for investment purposes, is there some other reason I'm overlooking?
This is not even bringing up the fact that unscrupulous resellers will often re-shrink items and sell them as "original SW". It reminds me of the fake autographs that are prevalent in many sports memorabilia shops....a local news team once calculated that up to 50% of so-called authenticated autographs of sports celebrities are fakes (they bought a couple of thousand dollars worth of autographed items from local stores and had an expert authenticate them, over half were fake). And if you are only going to collect items in
SW and never remove the
SW, does it even matter if it was re-shrinked? How would you even know? Or do most of you buy the
SW items and then remove the
SW?
Ok, so the questions for discussion are: Do you prefer
SW RPG items for your personal collection? Are you getting them
SW for eventual resale, investment purposes, or just because they look really cool in the crinkly wrap? Do you have a
SW copy for your collection and another copy for your own use? And if you do buy
SW items, do you eventually open them for your own use like a 50 year old bottle of rare wine? I always feel slightly guilty when I open a
SW item like this, years ago I opened a
SW U1 because I wanted to run a new group I had through it and I couldn't find my personal copy, and I only had a few hours to prepare....I felt guilty as hell and it was mine to begin with!!!!
Mike B.
