I haven't collected the Necromancer Games products seriously yet, and I'm wondering what their content is like and which ones are htf.
Can anyone tell me where to start?
The copies I have (through chance good deals, from what I can tell) are G4 and G6.
Gary

Some "experts" here are probably going to say that these are ultra rare but really none of them are rare but certainly some are more in demand than others.  By in demand it means that they sell for around 1-1.5 time cover price.  The most in demand is the Rappan Athuk Reloaded boxed set and it is probably the rarest with "only" 1000 copies being made.  Valuations are up and down.  Noble Knight had copies for sale and 1 in shrink for $160 (I think) a couple of months ago - probably $150-$180 is about right (cover price was $100).



I'm not sure if any others are really worth significantly more than cover price.  The Wilderlands boxed set come in around $75-$100 with cover price of $70.  CSIO hardcover book currently sells around $45 (cover price of $35).



Lots of people seem to like boxed sets.  The other Necromancer Games boxed set is City of Brass but that can be had for less than cover price.



Necromancer Games themselves have a lot of stuff on Ebay right now:



eBay listings



But most of their valuations are flat out ridiculous.  They do however suggest that the K series might be less common.  A seller last summer blew out a number of these sets of books for cheap though so I think it means that they probably have a ton of copies left.



Most of their books are good.  If you are thinking about trying to get a set of them all, then I would start by finding most of the common stuff that is going for $5 or less and in the meantime, keep your eye out for some of the more in demand books that might sell a bit on the lower side.

Hey, new collector!  

I am not a real clever collector.  I am more of a hobbyist who bumbles about like Peter Rabbit in Mr. MacGregor's garden, hoping the cat won't get me and losing my coat crawling under the gate.

That said, from the point of view of someone who is not a re-seller and (relatively speaking) not a big spender, I offer you the:

D20 COLLECTING ADVICE OF THE DAY

Watch for sell-offs.

A lot of D20 stuff originally hit the market for way over-inflated prices.  With so much material on store shelves those modules sat there for half a decade until D20 was supplanted by D&D 4.0....WOTC's own version of New Coke.

Most game stores discounted these items and unloaded them.  The other game stores did what game stores usually do...they went out of business.  

Most game store owners are also hobbyists, who fully intend to re-open.  It takes them a year or two to figure out that is not going to happen.  Then they unload the boxes in their garage to a distributor like...for instance...Troll and Toad.

If you watch, you will notice a tendency for numbers of similar products to appear on the market at the same time for a very reduced price.

Mayhemcomics (mentioned above), for instance, has obviously acquired the stock of a failed store, or some similar source, and they are dumping the modules for cheap.  The fire sale will last only as long as Mayhemcomics has stock to dump.  Then it will be gone.

The same thing is happening at Troll and Toad right now, where the entire run of Goodman Games' 4.0 Dungeon Crawl Classics line is being dumped off in complete lots.  Troll and Toad has a lot of them, so the source was probably Goodman Games themselves (because of the whole D&D 4.0 New Coke thing).  They have so many of these lots that the price has actually dropped in recent weeks.

These sell-offs do not last.  The seller runs out of dump-off stock.  The dump-off stock was bought by small collectors and enthusiasts, who will hang onto it forever.  But a lot of it was purchased for re-sale by second tier Ebay re-sellers.  

When the dump-off ends, the D20 items re-appear on Ebay, listed by the second tier re-sellers.  Sometimes, the second tier re-sellers actually have the dump-off stocked marked-up on Ebay before the dump-off sale ends, because there's always a buyer who does not know the score.

If you want a D20 item, the time to buy is during the dump-off.  Don't be disuaded by the idea that no one wants these items and they will always be around.  They won't.

A good example of this can be seen in what happened to Judges Guild collecting over the past five years.  When I got into collecting Judges Guild stuff there were a lot of items listed for 99 cents.  The prices for more rare items ranged from $3 up to $30, with a lot of mid-range popular publications up around the $15 mark.  

There were a lot of Ebay Judges Guild re-sellers around because cargo container stocks of the publications had surfaced in two or more locations around the country.  The stock passed around in very large lots between re-sellers and appeared on Ebay from multiple sources.

Now, Judges Guild common items are still available in the $3 range.  There are very few 99 cent deals.  The  $30 items are now around $75-$100.  Those items are not what I'm talking about here.

It is the mid-range items you should pay attention to.  I bought several of the Wilderlands adventure series modules in the $15 range.  I bought Dark Tower for $20 and a second copy for $9.95.  I bought two copies of Caverns of Thracia for around $5.  I bought Inferno, just as it started to take off, at under $20.

Go and check on the prices for those items now.

Judges Guild is not a perfect metaphor for the D20 items because the glut was so huge.  But, just for fun, check on the prices for shrinkwrapped bundles of Judges Guild magazines.  I have several of those shrinkwrapped bundles because they were around $2 apiece and no one wanted them!

My interest in Judges Guild led me to Necromancer Games.  Back a few years ago, copies of the Necromancer Games City State of the Invincible Overlord were sometimes getting no bids in the $10 range.  I picked one up at $10 thinking I was being foolish.  

I stupidly passed on copies of the Necromancer Wilderlands of High Adventure boxed sets for $12, $15, $25...$35...and then I realized that I had been stupid, but it was too late.

Point is...in case anyone is still reading...dump-offs are a limited opportunity. They go away.  Higher prices follow.  Do not be lulled into waiting on these items just because they are only 99 cents.  Get them now, or pay the re-seller much much more than that a year or so from now.

The D&D Encounters adventures seems to fecth a nice price (nice if you are the seller of course   ): I sold some days ago a copy of the first Undermountain adventure, with admittedly a lot of extras, for around £ 50   Am I the only seller to have such experience?

Mars wrote:
Do you mean the D20 Expedition to books?  Or is there another Undermountain book?  I'm not familiar with the "D&D Encounters" line.

With minimal searching, the Expedition to books can be found for less than $10 each.

Where could I find Expedition to Castle Greyhawk for that price?

FormCritic wrote:

Where could I find Expedition to Castle Greyhawk for that price?

** expired/removed eBay auction **




No idea what the final bid will be, the next lowest is $15 + shipping.



These were going for under $10 several months back, but recently the price has creeped up to around $15 + shipping.



I did see one sell for $5 but the shipping was $14



It is a common mistake , or an easy way to try to undervalue an item, by ignoring the shipping cost. The tactic by sellers on ebay is to offer low prices but heavily pad the shipping costs.  You have to take the cost+shipping to actually value an item in these cases.

FormCritic wrote:
It depends on what you consider "golden."

Pretty much whatever was current whenever you were 12

(formula works for basically anything that would have a 'golden age': baseball, movies, etc.)

Thanks for the D20 write-up Mark, I agree there's still lots of decent stuff the might turn into long-term collectibles, and at sell-off prices, it's not too tough to put together a collection of good quality material.

FormCritic wrote:Where could I find Expedition to Castle Greyhawk for that price?

I think I have 7 copies of them.  There is a UK seller that is dumping all of these books for under $10 each so that market is completely flooded:




** expired/removed eBay auction **




But shipping the North America is high (for those that need to do it) - I bought a large stack of stuff from here when he was offering shipping for 1 pound sterling in the UK.



I also ended up buying 2 or 3 copies at Christmas time locally for $2 each (no shipping cost).  From this place:




** expired/removed eBay auction **

Mars wrote:

Do you mean the D20 Expedition to books?  Or is there another Undermountain book?  I'm not familiar with the "D&D Encounters" line.

With minimal searching, the Expedition to books can be found for less than $10 each.

Not at all. WotC launched an organized play (sort of) this year with an adventure divided in various chapters, each chapter to be played each week. They produced a complete module, Halaster's Lost Apprentice, for D&D 4.0 along a series of playing aids (full colour character sheets, Monster token and so on) to be used during the weekly gaming sessions. I had one copy to spare and after finishing the program (next week a new Dark Sun Module starts to be used) I checked prices on eBay and... WOW  



This was my own listing. It lasted two days!



http://cgi.ebay.com/D-D-Encounters-Hala ... 563d07c559



PS: I have a copy of the Dark Sun module to spare too, but I will NOT sel it until the program is finished.