Record Prices for Collectibles
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Post Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2020 2:32 pm 
 

I have to admit, I was on record as a believer that the global pandemic would cause a severe recession which would have a dramatic negative effect on the prices of collectibles.  In fact the exact opposite has occurred.

Regarding our hobby, prices have increased greatly on many of the items I search for on Ebay.  Common TSR modules in worn condition condition rarely sell for less that $25-30 each now.  Brown boxes are setting records and items selling for thousands of dollars seem more and more commonplace.  I remember not too long ago when shrinked modules would sell for $40-$60 each, now they all seem to be in the hundreds and box sets sell for several hundred.  

RPG's are not alone in this phenomenon.    Comic books and baseball card prices are exploding upward as well.  

"Wealthy people pulled their money out of the market and they want hard assets. It’s been on an upward trajectory for the past several years but the past six months have been unbelievable. And the past three months have just been shocking."

Why baseball card and memorabilia buying is booming amid the pandemic

Neal

  

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Post Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2020 7:26 pm 
 

I agree with you that prices for collectibles have definitely increased.

For whatever reason, I had never bought the AD&D adventures, UK2 The Sentinel and UK3 The Gauntlet, even though I had heard some good reviews for them overall.  Since I have been a member of eBay for 25 years, eBay had sent me a promo code to get $25.00 off any eBay win of $25.01 or more!  Woot!  I thought I could get at least one in the set for little to nothing.  But when I started looking at prices on eBay, I was stunned.  They used to go for $10 to $20 each, and they were easily double that.  And the lower priced ones were not in good condition.

Fortunately, I found a listing with UK2, UK3, and UK6:


** expired/removed eBay auction **


I made an offer of $55.00 and the seller took it!  So, once I sell UK6, if I sell UK6, I'll basically end up with both UK2 and UK3 for almost free!   :D


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2020 9:26 am 
 

benjoshua wrote in Record Prices for Collectibles:
So, once I sell UK6, if I sell UK6, I'll basically end up with both UK2 and UK3 for almost free!   :D


Well!  That was quick!


** expired/removed eBay auction **


8)


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2020 7:30 pm 
 

Perhaps it's because this isn't a typical recession? People are at home, bored, and looking for socially distant activities to take their minds of the imploding world around them. Hopefully we're not in a collectibles bubble!

  


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Post Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2020 8:22 pm 
 

I don't think it is just a collectibles bubble.  Home prices are selling for records.  A relator just told me asking price is just the starting price and that homes are selling for $100,000 more than asking.  Stock prices are completely ignoring any types of historical fundamental ranges with companies that trade at ridiculous valuations.  

Regarding TSR items, I am not complaining but I wonder how sustainable these increases are.  I guess you can make an argument that Brown boxes and rare modules should be worth a lot, but common items selling for $30-40 each seems a little crazy.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2020 10:04 pm 
 

1st print Chainmail hits $11,600.  Wow!

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Post Posted: Tue Sep 22, 2020 11:45 pm 
 

When people can spend their money on entertainments outside the house again (restaurants, movies, concerts, etc.) maybe demand will drop and prices will follow.


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Post Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2020 8:44 am 
 

Mars wrote in Record Prices for Collectibles:1st print Chainmail hits $11,600.  Wow!


That surprised me too. Having said that, there are almost certainly very few of these out there in such good condition. Interestingly, the winner - who outbid some big collectors - only had 49 ebay feedbacks. Maybe a new buyer with big ambitions?
If they are lurking here, maybe they could drop by and say hello!


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Post Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2020 2:09 pm 
 

I don't think it's a bubble per se. D&D has roared into the mainstream, and many of those new and returning gamers want the classic stuff for inspiration or bragging rights. That's my opinion, based off a few conversations I've had with customers.

WotC has mostly made smart decisions since the advent of 5e. But if they continue confusing Twitter busybodies for real D&D players, kneecap 5e with poor decisions or jump into 6e too soon, the trend could turn down I think.



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Post Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2020 11:24 pm 
 

As I expressed in an earlier thread, this is almost entirely due to fed policy. If/when that changes you'll see a massive correction. Till then "enjoy"!

  


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Post Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:50 am 
 

Waynes_Books wrote in Record Prices for Collectibles:I don't think it's a bubble per se. D&D has roared into the mainstream, and many of those new and returning gamers want the classic stuff for inspiration or bragging rights. That's my opinion, based off a few conversations I've had with customers.


Yes. And with early gamers getting to 50 or 60 now, some (though of course, by no means all) will have enough money to say - actually I do fancy an expensive 1st print Chainmail up on the wall.


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Post Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 10:54 am 
 

Sea-to-sky-games wrote in Record Prices for Collectibles:As I expressed in an earlier thread, this is almost entirely due to fed policy. If/when that changes you'll see a massive correction. Till then "enjoy"!

How can the fed possibly increase the value of the dollar?
The only way prices come down is when sellers become desperate to sell, in a market where buyers don't have the money to buy anything, and in that environment sales of the types of things we collect will likely occur through private arrangements between sellers who know which buyers to go to. Every country on the planet is printing and bringing down the value of currency almost in unison, so the relative values of currencies remains the same. 90% of people don't see the depreciation and just think it's more expensive these days to print a book, build a house, or get a chicken to lay an egg. That's how dumb we have made our citizens.


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Post Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:08 am 
 

red_bus wrote in Record Prices for Collectibles:... actually I do fancy an expensive 1st print Chainmail up on the wall.


In a world where practically every single RPG item is available online (with 90% of them being available for free courtesy of a Google search) all the gaming materials you could ever want are there for you to read at no cost to you (other than an internet connection). If I'm going to spend money I'd rather back someone or something I see merit in, than collect hardcopy (I have a collection now that fits in a single box.) I can see the value in Rare D&D as a collectable commodity, but I have always been more interested in the ideas contained within, than anything ephemeral the physical product may offer. The ideas contained in the writing transfer just as well into PDF, and are far more compact and less prone to destruction in that format (EMP being maybe the one exception to that rule.)

I have bought 'books' in PDF, but the last physical book I bought was probably Yggsburgh when it came out, and only because I couldn't convince anyone at TLG to give me a PDF.
As far as I know, there is no Yggsburgh PDF in the wild (although someone has photographed all the pages I think.)


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Post Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:40 am 
 

DnD items, Pokemon and some other items have been trending up for years.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explor ... Fm%2F026q9

IMHO, edit: in which I have about 12% confidence, prices for vintage gaming will continue to go up until we begin departing the Earth. Sure we can have a year or two of "down" that will be followed by years of "up," but some markets grow until the largest collecting demographic die. There are always a few others that carry the torch, but it can be generational.

Less money being spent on travel and cloths, fiscal and monetary policy etc is sure helping, but that's not going to change for years. Even when it does, few are going to sell their OCE boxes at a loss. They will just continue to enjoy them. Until they die. Then our kids will sell them for whatever...

Keep in mind, buying a 4th print for $10 in 1975 as an investment was a terrible idea, even if you "knew." Equities just preform better. Buying one three years ago for $299 with all five supplements was a good idea though. :)


Last edited by Tszii on Thu Sep 24, 2020 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
  


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Post Posted: Thu Sep 24, 2020 5:06 pm 
 

I think we all agree that prices have been trending up for a long while, that is easy to see.  But in the last 8 months, prices are increasing at a massive rate, even for the most common of rpg items.  

As mbassoc2003 clearly points out, the reckless global monetary policies are having a dramatic effect on just about everything we buy.  The government tells us there is no inflation, yet we all know that to be false other than the low energy prices.  

Sellers may become desperate to sell when they cannot afford to pay their monthly expenses and then you may see prices start to moderate or maybe even come down.    I hate to be gloomy but I just don't think increases like we have seen are sustainable.

  

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Post Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:13 am 
 

Regardless of buyer or seller, a collectable item of rarity retains its value, even if it does not gain value (unless you allow them to rot.) A currency unit is guaranteed to lose value. That is a 100% guarantee. The only currencies that gain value do so many years after the death of those currencies (at which point they are collectables and rare.) I can see that exchanging your currency for an contract of equity with a 3rd party being profitable, but in a climate when currency is being threatened, the value of equities is only backed by the integrity of the companies being contracted with, and the robustness of local laws (all of which are subject to change without notice and at the behest of those with more resources and an interest in any given outcome that conflicts with your own.)
A commodity in your hands in a volatile environment still trumps a piece of paper with a third party's promise to pay in a currency guaranteed to lose value.


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2020 1:16 pm 
 

mbassoc2003 wrote in Record Prices for Collectibles:
In a world where practically every single RPG item is available online (with 90% of them being available for free courtesy of a Google search) all the gaming materials you could ever want are there for you to read at no cost to you (other than an internet connection). If I'm going to spend money I'd rather back someone or something I see merit in, than collect hardcopy (I have a collection now that fits in a single box.) I can see the value in Rare D&D as a collectable commodity, but I have always been more interested in the ideas contained within, than anything ephemeral the physical product may offer. The ideas contained in the writing transfer just as well into PDF, and are far more compact and less prone to destruction in that format (EMP being maybe the one exception to that rule.)

I have bought 'books' in PDF, but the last physical book I bought was probably Yggsburgh when it came out, and only because I couldn't convince anyone at TLG to give me a PDF.
As far as I know, there is no Yggsburgh PDF in the wild (although someone has photographed all the pages I think.)


Most people still buy gaming items for the content. A subset of our hobby now buys gaming items for their sheer collectability, regardless of the quality of the content. This is what happened with comic books. I have stated many times that I  expect prices to continue rising dramatically and I don't see an end in sight. I am not referring to common items by the way. In terms of cultural zeitgeist I don't see why a Brown Box should be less valuable in 100 years than a Superman #1, but time will tell. Perhaps they will both have risen and fallen dramatically between now and then. But I doubt it. I think a Shakespeare First Folio or a Gutenberg Bible will still retain their value in centuries to come. I think these pop culture items will as well.


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Post Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2020 8:02 pm 
 

I just read where eBay's stock shares have gained more than 30% year to date amid greater demand for e-commerce.   8O

I continue to prefer to keep my investments largely separate from my collectibles.  Studies repeatedly show that over time, the stock market is superior.  There are exceptions like classic cars and fine wines as they have done better than US stocks.  Part of my reasoning is that collectibles have to be managed and stored, whereas investments can all be managed on-line.

On the plus side, they are exempt from wealth or capital gains taxes in several countries.  Also, the complexity of the markets coupled with inefficiencies may represent an advantage for insiders or people in the know.  On the negative side, illiquidity, mold, mildew, rust are potential drawbacks as well as high transaction costs, costs of storage, insurance etc., all of which can decrease returns.

I'm not saying anyone should do away with collectibles.  I am saying that I rarely have them as a financial investment.   8)


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