Anyone want to weigh in on whether I should bust up my MERP for sale or offer it as a lot? I'm not terribly concerned about milking every penny I can out of it, but if it would make a $500 difference, I'd rather break it up. I have most everything, some shrinked, and multiple printings of a lot of them. Everything has the appropriate maps.

Whale Tagger wrote:I'm not terribly concerned about milking every penny I can out of it, but if it would make a $500 difference, I'd rather break it up.

I think the answer depends on exactly what you mean by "most everything" and which items you have multiple printings of.

These days, I'd have no interest buying MERP stuff via a large lot. There are only a few printing variations I'm looking for, so a large lot removes at least me from the bidding.

There are about 100 items in a complete MERP condition, if you ignore printing variations. Only about 20 of those are on the high end of MERP valuation, going for $50-100 or more. Maybe 40 or so are are in the middle range, going for $30-ish. The other 40 are low end, going for $10-20. (Those are all approximate values for ideal conditions and a healthy auction environment, and I'm out of touch on some of them, so YMMV.)

*Very* roughly that puts a total value somewhere in the $3000-$3500 range in a robust situation.

That's a high enough number that -- if it were me -- I'd assume I'd lose $500 of that if I sold it as a lot.

JasonZavoda wrote:
Normally I say break it up, but ebay has been crazy with the auction lots lately. Anyone following the merp auctions on ebay?

If you know what you want for them you might consider offering them for sale here or DF or RPGmarketplace with buyouts (since there is no fees).

Actually, I have been monitoring prices on the Acaeum Wiki auction tracker (partly to help grubbiv iron out bugs).

http://wiki.acaeum.com/wiki/Prices:MERP

There is heaps of overpriced store stuff on Ebay - I doubt they are selling much as auctions seem to be going for less than half the average store price.

The second edition campaign items, Umbar, Ardor, and the boardgames seem to be maintaining the highest prices.

I think that is what I'll do. Thanks, guys.

I've been surprised lately how much lower MERP are going for compared to store prices. Check out this difference:



Halls of the Elven-King - auction, winning bid $5.50



Halls of the Elven-King - store price, $135.99



The last one I saw in Australia went for $40 to $50.

I got a good reading copy of Theives of Tharbad last night for $5.98....with the maps this time.

Did I do OK?

Was looking on Ebay for the ICE MERP Poster Map, but came across these two from 1970. Cool looking posters:




** expired/removed eBay auction **





** expired/removed eBay auction **

I've got about ten MERP auctions ending in about 7 hours or so- check the classifieds section for my link. I'm ericthecleric2009 on ebay.

Those MERP values are not accurate, at least not across the board. Most aren't accurate even within one significant digit.

Lords/Creatures/Treasures of Middle Earth, for example, are probably worth only $10-15 on a good day, not $40.

I haven't seen an Ardor go for $150 in a long time, and I can't *ever* recall seeing 1st ed Moria going for $85. (Moria goes for $20-30 on a good day.)

Several of his 2nd edition MERP items appear to be under-valued.

That page looks pretty old on many fronts (it refers to the dead Other Hands web site), and probably reflects prices from more like 5-10 years ago.