Auctioning Gaming Materials

[Mark]

A friend of mine has recently been looking at culling his collection of gaming materials. He managed to sell a small lot of some early non-D&D RPG stuff, circa 1978, for a few hundred bucks. Regardless of game or edition, what sort of luck have you had selling off older gaming materials via auction or to collectors or game stores that buy gamers out?

 

[Mark]

There is someone with high hopes for a woodgrain (O)D&D boxed set on ebay currently -

Dungeons & Dragons woodgrain set w/goldenrod ref sheets - eBay (item 270579882319 end time May-23-10 09:39:46 PDT)

 

[Crothian]

Selling to game stores and such I never feel like they give a good value becasue they are looking at their own bottom line. So what they buy it for has to be a percentage of what they think they can sell it for.

Selling to other gamers I've gottena bit of better value but ever since the economy went south that has dried up as I haven't gotten a fair (what I cosider fair) offer from a gamer in a few years.

That's why mostly I try to trade with people. It is tougher to do but the value for both sides seems to be best. I usually make a few trades a month most a book or two for something similiar but in the bast month I've made trades of a half dozen and a dozen books at a time.

I have a huge list of items I'm trying to get rid of, see the sig

 

[Steel_Wind]

If you are selling the true rare RPG collectibles? Well - you can try eBay with a reserve and make sure the existence of the auction is drawn to the attention of the serious collectors on the Acaeum.

But true collectibles go up for sale pretty much at one place: at Gencon during the collectibles auction. The guys who have the bucks and know their stuff are there. You will never find more of them in one room all at once other than that one night of the year. (Origins is good for boardgames and wargames, but the price for rare RPG stuff tends to sell much better -- and for higher -- at Gencon. I'd argue, generally, the better of the two auctions is still Gencon, overall.)

The Gencon auction is one my favorite things about Gencon and the collectibles auction segment is one of the highlights of Gencon for me.

Last time I sold anything off of real value was 1993. That was prior to pre-ebay and prior to the bigger event -- the popularization and circulation of pirated .pdfs over the Net which significantly drove prices down across the board by... well....a HUGE amount. It's just not possible to compare auction prices without taking into account those two events, which have dramatically altered prices in the used RPG market. So my comments from that time are not going to be at all helpful to you Mark.

 

[grodog]

Mark---

If you're looking to get an estimate of the value of your friend's stuff, I'd be happy to help out: shoot me an email and I can give you my sense of the value of the books/etc. (if they have a list of them all, that helps, obviously ).

If you are selling the true rare RPG collectibles? Well - you can try eBay with a reserve and make sure the existence of the auction is drawn to the attention of the serious collectors on the Acaeum.

That helps quite a bit, for sure: auctions that are posted there do better than those that don't, in general.

But true collectibles go up for sale pretty much at one place: at Gencon during the collectibles auction. The guys who have the bucks and know their stuff are there. You will never find more of them in one room all at once other than that one night of the year. (Origins is good for boardgames and wargames, but the price for rare RPG stuff tends to sell much better -- and for higher -- at Gencon. I'd argue, generally, the better of the two auctions is still Gencon, overall.)

I disagree: in general it seems like GC auctions for good run of the mill rares (like shrink wrapped modules, White box OD&D sets, etc.) tend to sell for less than they do on eBay, overall. Some items may do better, but in general you'll have a world-wide audience for your stuff for a week to 10 days on eBay vs. one evening at GenCon.

The Gencon auction is one my favorite things about Gencon and the collectibles auction segment is one of the highlights of Gencon for me.

I agree: it's always a fun spectacle, even if I don't usually end up winning what I'm looking for....

A good alternative to eBay for selling non-rare stuff is RPG Marketplace which was started by folks from the Acaeum who were fed up with the 20%+ fees that eBay and Paypal take out of the seller's pocket. If you promote your books for sale there on sites where the audience is around, you can do pretty well.