I don't want to be a D&D collector

[warlord]

Nothing D&D is worth money unless you have an original mint condition temple of elemental evil or the blue box set or brown box set everything else you can find for about a 10$ so try and get over your problem.

 

[Greylock]

I'm pretty particular about keeping most of my books neat and clean, but not my PHB. It's first and foremost a tool, and I don't have the brain capacity to mentally index the book. Although I don't take it too far, I do make margin notes in mine, and have made several highlights. It's like a textbook to me.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

How does not wanting to write in your books make you a collector? I just plain don't like writing in my books, and I'm not collecting these things. If I have things to go with them, changes to make, etc, I may throw a piece of paper in there, but I just don't like writing in my books. Never have.

Me, too. I was always taught that you NEVER did anything to mark up a book. It isn't due to resale value, as no books I have could be collectors items. One of the people in our group heavily highlights his books, and I have to look away from the horror.

Brad

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

If anyone thinks that these new Star Wars figures are going to be worth anything in 10 years they've got another thing coming. I did, however, purchase a Leia-Jedi figure that was only available from the magazine. I figure it's value could only go up, since it's probably fairly rare.

There are some Star Wars figures that are fairly valuable; certain limited runs or common mistakes, like shipping characters with lightsabers that are too long, or the variant Boba Fetts with slightly different color schemes. Certain of the Action Fleet vehicles (like the Imperial Transport) that appeared for a short time are also fairly sought-after.

When purchasing, you also have to be careful of the manufacturer. As an example, in April of '99, Darth Maul was IMPOSSIBLE to find, because collectors gobbled them up and no new ones were forthcoming for three-four months. A MOC (mint on card) Darth Maul could go for $10-$20...until more came out. Similar things have happened with LotR figures; my Strider figure was somewhere past $20, and then he got re-released in the most recent wave. On the one hand, it's good that people can get those figures, as the real reason for the hobby is the fun that you can have with these. On the other...it's annoying to have the effort spent looking through every store in the DC area to find that figure wasted. But, hey.

I have two loose mint (or nearly so) figures that are worth something...an ARAH Storm Shadow (circa 1986...missing his nunchuks), and a San Diego ComicCon Keldor figure (Skeletor, before he was Skeletor); I could probably get about $50 each for them on eBay, if I felt like parting with them.

D&D books on the other hand, won't go up, although try to find a copy of Death in Freeport, and see what they sell for on Ebay.

Book of Magecraft, for Birthright, is somewhere close. I paid $45 for mine, though that was probably too much.

Brad

 

[Wombat]

I got over the "Don't Write In Books" idea when I was in college. I don't tend to mark up novels, but histories, biographies, technical books and, of course, roleplaying books all have underlined passages, annotations, cross-reference notes and the like. Books are tools and I want my tools to be as useful as possible, which includes notes. Of course studying medieval marginalia probably didn't help that habit...

One thing I learned early on -- books, with the exception of a few first editions that are 50+ years old, are almost never worth anything other than the sheer pleasure of reading. Never worry about resale, unless you are just a book borrower. RPGs are even worse -- they resell better than old computer manuals, but certainly not by much.

 

[was]

Buy things you love and use them well. I never understood people who collect stuff just because its valuable. Half of the time they don't even like the stuff that much, but they keep it because it's valuable. If you love to game then go ahead and write all over your books. If you're looking to invest your money, seek a good financial planner.

 

[Zappo]

I don't usually write on books, but that's just because I don't need to. I've written the errata on a few books, and that's about it.

OTOH, I would never write anything on my Planescape books. Some are signed, and I've seen a mint Planes of Chaos going for more than twice its cover price at a con; besides that (I would never sell them), I just love them too much.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, it's definitely going a bit extreme, but if you want to try staying away from collection manias, you may start thinking of what will happen of you collection after you die? Do you think anyone else is going to "love" it just like you did? If you don't ask for it to be buried with you, or you don't sell everything in time (a thing I doubt real collectors would want to do), it's probably going to be trashed by someone who doesn't appraise its real "value"

BTW, I also don't like writing on books in general (although I obviously did it a lot at school), the reason being that I'm afraid to write something wrong and mess the whole thing up

 

[Narfellus]

yeah, most of this DnD stuff won't be worth much at all, other than the small press, short run books that also happened to be exceptionally good. For example, in ten years, a pristine, unused copy World's Largest Dungeon would be a great collector's item.

As for the minis, i hate the way WotC does this, but it's genius marketing wise. Introduce a good product, pull it off the shelves quickly, and drive up demand. Fortunately, i've been collecting minis for years and i have most of the "groundwork" fantasy archetypes. The minis i like best are the quality monsters, which have always been harder to find even in pewter or lead.

 

[der_kluge]

I got Gygax to sign my 3.0 PHB. I actually met Arneson at a con in Tampa, and stupid me - I forgot to get him to sign it. I can't imagine what I could sell a Gygax/Arneson signed PHB for.

I got Monte to sign my Planescape DM screen.

I like the idea of getting ENWorlders to sign my PHB. I think I'll do that next year at GenCon. Like a big high school annual. That'd be cool.