Buried somewhere in the bottom of a garage
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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:23 am 
 

Okay - seeing if this works. The first few scanned images:

1987 AD&D Open cover letter. As mentioned previously I have my DM copies of many of these scenarios.

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1986 AD&D Open cover letter - same.

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Tomoachan 154

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Sorry about the super teal color balance on Tomoachan. Cheap HP printer / scanner plus inexperienced operator!

Thanks for the tips in helping to get these first items up!

  

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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:56 am 
 

Those open tourneys should fetch a tidy sum.
Looks like you have a garage well worth looking through.


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 11:59 am 
 

I also found a copy of an AD&D play by mail game from the 1980s. I think I played a single turn. Will try to get a scan up of this as well this weekend.

Most of the stuff I scan will be of things I cant find easily on this site, or may be difficult to value. I was noticing that the "last updated" column of the charts here seem to be pretty out of date. Are the listing reliable? Maybe that column just doesnt update?

  


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:31 pm 
 

Haunted wrote:Are the listing reliable?


In statistical terms, any study of old-school D&D prices will suffer from "small sample size." With the numbers sold being smaller than something like Marvel comics or Pokemon cards, one can't tell whether a given sale price is typical or atypical. You can record & graph these prices to find what appears to be an average price, & outliers that are very cheap or very expensive, but the next bunch of sales you look at may totally contradict your first study.

If you look for anecdotal evidence, in other words just ask, you are guaranteed to encounter the effects of personal aggrandizement. Folks will say something like "I'm such a bad-ass veteran collector, I can find a 1st print 1974 copy of D&D for about fifty bucks. I never pay more than $10 for Wee Warriors, & I use Deities w/Cthulhu for lining birdcages because I can find it cheaper than old newspaper."

  

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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 1:52 pm 
 

The 'last updated' column is the date the information about the item was last updated, not when the valuations themselves were last changed.

Considering how often this comes up, maybe FoulFoot needs to make that more apparent.  :?:

  


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 4:23 pm 
 

Sounds good, Haunted :D

Do you think that you have any other tournament info/history/memorabilia in the garage?  Just curious, since tourney histories are a particular interest of mine (as well as the Greyhawk setting).


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 6:14 pm 
 

Found the PBM at Tome of Tresures:

http://www.tomeoftreasures.com/tot_firs ... bymail.htm

Dont know how current the nm value estimate is ($80). Sound right?

Noble Knight has two numbered Tamoachans up on Ebay. Around $1300 for a well worn copy, and around $2000 for a NM. From the scans, mine more resembles the NM. Order of magnitude value around $1500?

I havent started looking through the garage stuff yet - this is all from an old file cabinet that sits near enough to my computer that I havent had to expend much effort yet.

Any order of magnitude type estimates on what the AD&D open convention modules might be valued at? Are similiar things ever seen at auction, or are these fairly unique? I will try to get front page scans of each that I have posted this weekend. These have TSR copyright logos on them. Is it inadvisable to post more complete scans?

I appreciate all the feedback so far. ATM I am aiming towards a collection estimate for possible insurance, and not rushing to sell anything. So please feel free to give me honest feedback on what you or others might value items at if they were in your own collections, and not worry to much about me holding you responsible for an innacurate auction estimate.

Once I decide how to disposition stuff, I will give Acaeum forum members first notice. Fair?

@grodog - I will likely find more convention stuff. I started attending GenCon regularly around 79-80 (high school sophmore), my parents driving me from St Paul suburbs to Parkside until they trusted me and my other geek friends to make the drive ourselves.

For example - last night I found a handbill for the 2nd Dragonlance reading from the first year at MECCA. It seems I was reluctant to throw away almost anything, so as stuff reveals itself I will get it posted here.

  

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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 6:28 pm 
 

Those prices are the extreme high end (that comment deserves to be in bold).. a see a couple of the Adventure Guide stuff bairly recieved bids at $50 and aaron is "trying" to sell them for $200? (sorry didn't look)...

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Post Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2011 9:14 pm 
 

Haunted wrote:Noble Knight has two numbered Tamoachans up on Ebay. Around $1300 for a well worn copy, and around $2000 for a NM. From the scans, mine more resembles the NM. Order of magnitude value around $1500?


I've seen a mint (seller's comment) Tamoachan sell in Oct of 2010 for $1226
and another in mint from the same seller in March of 2009 for $1275

Those are the only two 'recent' ebay auctions that I've saved. Hope that helps

  

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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:11 pm 
 

SimperingToad wrote:The 'last updated' column is the date the information about the item was last updated, not when the valuations themselves were last changed.

Considering how often this comes up, maybe FoulFoot needs to make that more apparent.  :?:


I never knew that!

Certainly, the way the information is presented, that's unclear.


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:01 pm 
 

misterspock wrote:
I've seen a mint (seller's comment) Tamoachan sell in Oct of 2010 for $1226
and another in mint from the same seller in March of 2009 for $1275

Those are the only two 'recent' ebay auctions that I've saved. Hope that helps


In addition I have:

Sept 2008: #225 sold for $938 (minor creases, bends and a couple of pencil marks)

Three sold in March 2008:

#72 sold for $1,026 (one crease, author's signature)
#184 sold for $1,250 (very minor wear apparent)
#5 sold for $1,636 (complete but some damage)

Through 2006 and 2007 a half dozen or so with prices ranging (approx.) from $1,250 - $1,700.
Interestingly, more often than not in very good condition.


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 1:26 pm 
 

sauromatian wrote:
In statistical terms, any study of old-school D&D prices will suffer from "small sample size." With the numbers sold being smaller than something like Marvel comics or Pokemon cards, one can't tell whether a given sale price is typical or atypical. You can record & graph these prices to find what appears to be an average price, & outliers that are very cheap or very expensive, but the next bunch of sales you look at may totally contradict your first study.


Spot on! Understanding statistics well is really important for many areas of life.  Personally I think it ought to be studied in school as a separate discipline to maths.


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 5:54 pm 
 

red_bus wrote:Personally I think it ought to be studied in school as a separate discipline to maths.


There are university-level courses here like Stats for Social Sciences. On the other hand, the sort of info we get from politically correct studies often rests on shaky statistical grounds, so maybe it's not such good idea to separate it from the Mathematics Dept.

  

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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:23 pm 
 

The most important thing about selling an item is asking what you, the seller, actually want for it. A rare, expensive item just doesn't track the way more common items do, and LT is both extremely expensive and extremely rare.

You have to ask yourself whether what you want is money quickly or if you want to maximize the selling price. Recently (and I'm not sure if this is still true) you could list such an item on ebay at no upfront cost, and continue to do so as long as you wanted, at either a Buy it Now price or any starting bid.

LT is an item you would want to put up at Buy it Now and at a high price. You can always lower it (and after a month or two you may want to do so) but if you put it up at a low price or even a moderate or reasonable price, it is then gone. You will not be able to replace it and you will have no chance of making top dollar for it.

The listing cost for Buy it Now on ebay used to be standard regardless of the price you were asking. I think it was something like .50c a month. That would cost you $30 to list it for five years. This gives a seller the ability to start high and lower their prices till they find the buyer they are looking for rather than trying to drop the price dramaticly to encourage a reluctant buyer.

In the end this is just a piece of paper and who knows what, if any, value it will retain in the present economy (though the same can be said for greenbacks). If you really don't need the money right away you may want to experiment with the high end first or open it up to offers before slapping a price on it.


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Last edited by JasonZavoda on Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
  


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 7:43 pm 
 

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Starting to scan the AD&D Open modules. These also have several pages of character sheets, intoductions, backgrounds, DM guidelines, etc.

In no particular order.

Maiden of Pain:

Image

  

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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:07 pm 
 

8O

Did I read that correctly?

The C in C1-2-3-4, etc. was originally meant to designate Collectors Edition...not "competition" as it eventually became?


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 10:40 pm 
 

Thork N Hammer, Esquire wrote:8O

Did I read that correctly?

The C in C1-2-3-4, etc. was originally meant to designate Collectors Edition...not "competition" as it eventually became?


I have a feeling it's just a coincidence since these weren't mass produced at that time, yet that's an interesting find.

LOST TAMOACHAN: "The Hidden Shrine of Lubaatum", is the first in a new line of Collector's Edition modules from TSR.

  


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Post Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:13 pm 
 

Haunted wrote:Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Starting to scan the AD&D Open modules. These also have several pages of character sheets, intoductions, backgrounds, DM guidelines, etc.

In no particular order.

Maiden of Pain:



Haunted,

The "Maiden of Pain" module series, co-authored by Bob Blake, was published by TSR in Polyhedron issues #33-36 (Jan-July 1987). I would mention this if you auction your copies, since the tournament versions are essentially pre-publication versions of the published magazine modules. This module series is based on Finnish mythology, similar to how his earlier Prophecy of Brie series was Celtic-flavored.

Bob Blake (also credited as Robert J. Blake) is generally undervalued as a contributor to RPGs. Most of his published modules started as tournament scenarios. The first ones were for Judges Guild, and include Gen Con IX Dungeons and Skulls & Scrapfaggot Green. TSR published the Prophecy of Brie series as RPGA3-8 (the first two as stand alone TSR modules, the rest in Polyhedron), and then as modules C4 and C5. He also wrote IM2 Wrath of the Immortals. Later he contributed the Town of Baldemar module to New Infinities (Gary Gygax's post-TSR company), and co-authored another (Aesheba). Frank Mentzer had a connection with him through the RPGA (getting him to submit his mods for Polyhedron).

Frank wrote this about him another Acaeum thread earlier this year:
The late Bob Blake, author of Baldemar and co-author of Aesheba, had a long and storied history with Judges' Guild and was also the Coordinator of the GenCon Open (AD&D Team Tourney) in the 1970s and early '80s, writing/co-authoring/managing all the tournament writing during that time. I offered him the job of running the RPGA after I set it up, but he stuck with his job & family in Indiana. (As a pharmaceuticals regional manager he made a lot more than TSR could offer.)

Tutored extensively in the D&D school of hard nox, Bob was one of the best in the world at writing and running adventures, a huge talent now almost forgotten. In the DM's Invitational of 1980 (the last major DM competition of record iirc), he took second place by only 1 point out of 300 (players/voters/evaluators being Gary, Brian Blume, and Jim Ward).


Did he also write the 1987 tournament series that you have?


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