Interesting Links for 26-09-2016

[swampers]

Am I Introverted, or Just Rude?

(tags: society introversion psychology via:andrewducker )

Tattoos and politics

(tags: politics tattoos UK )

Gender Representation in Popular Films

(tags: gender-inequality films data visualisation )

The Importance of Family Dinnertime

(tags: family food psychology )

How to know if you are a good person

(tags: morality psychology )

Collectors? Corner: The Rules Of Tabletop Gaming

(tags: finance boardgaming collecting )

One-Third of U.K. adults check their phone at night

(tags: phones UK society )

A Ten-Month-Old?s Letter To Santa

(tags: funny xmas parenting )

Relationship Advice I Wish I'd Heard Before Getting Divorced

(tags: relationships advice divorce fail communication psychology marriage via:andrewducker )

Motherwell, Greenock and Arbroath are 'most affordable commuter towns' - BBC News

Motherwell??
(tags: wow commuting Scotland housing )

"Reasons to be cheerful" - a short story about happiness, and choice, and what it means to be human

(tags: shortstory happiness psychology via:andrewducker )

Bastion Wins Cosplay Of The Game

(tags: wow Overwatch cosplay )

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

From that Collectors' Corner article on tabletop gaming:

"Diving deeper still, we wondered what qualities make some games rarer and more valuable than others. “That’s a bit of a tough one,” says Bill. “But the era and the condition are definitely factors. Many of the books or older games published in the 70s or 80s won’t have lasted well, or have acquired a hard-to-find or rare status. Many boxed sets will have deteriorated or fallen apart.

For example, the H series of Bloodstone modules are hard to find intact – the first one, H1 Bloodstone Pass, came with a set of cardboard counters and cardboard buildings to be assembled. It’s almost impossible to find these intact.”


We have one in stock:
http://www.shopontheborderlands.co.uk/product/bloodstone-pass-h1-battlesystem-supermodule-add-1st-edition/

[fub.livejournal.com]

Valued at UKP 60, which means it is interesting from a collector's standpoint (if you want a collection of high-value items). But I wonder: does anybody actually buy this for that price? Because until that time it's just idle speculation that this item is indeed worth that much.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely correct that you can't judge value based simply on advertised price. (I often have to tell people that who are trying to sell me stuff based on optimistic Buy-it-Now prices they've seen on eBay.)

But for comparison, here are some recent 1st edition AD&D* things that we've sold recently and the price we got:
TSR Silver Anniversary Edition Boxed Set £150
Thieves' World boxed set £68
World of Greyhawk boxed set £60
Dragonlance: The Annotated Chronicles £50
Dragonlance Classics Volume II £49.50
Dungeon Master's Guide (2012 premium reprint) £40
Monster Manual (2012 premium reprint) £35
Player's Handbook (2012 premium reprint) £30
Realms of Horror (S1-4) £30
The Forest Oracle (N2) £30

Our highest value sales regardless of game have been as follows:
101 Robots (Classic Traveller) £160
Original D&D White Box Set £155
The Traveller Handbook (Japanese language edition) £130
Solomani & Aslan (MegaTraveller) £120
Traveller 5 Core Rulebook (kickstarter edition) £110
Pavis & Big Rubble (RuneQuest) £97.50
Azhanti High Lightning (Classic Traveller) £90
Planescape Campaign Setting (AD&D 2nd edition) £90
The Travellers' Digest Issue 3 (Classic Traveller magazine) £86
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition Core Boxed Set £84.99
Planes of Law (AD&D 2nd edition Planescape) £80
The Travellers' Digest Issue 4 £80
Dark Nebula (Classic Traveller board game) £80
Geptorem (Classic Traveller) £80
D&D Rules Cyclopedia £80
Far Traveller magazine issue 3 (unpublished manuscript) £80
Wabor-Parn (Classic Traveller) £80
Horror on the Orient Express (Call of Cthulhu, kickstarter edition) £76.99
Player's Handbook (D&D 3.5th edition, faux leather) £75
Dungeon Master's Guide (D&D 3.5th edition, faux leather) £75
Invasion Earth (Classic Traveller) £75
Beyond the Mountains of Madness (Call of Cthulhu) £75
Designers & Dragons - The Complete Four Volume History of the Roleplaying Game Industry £75
Fifth Frontier War (Classic Traveller) £75
Statis Pro Basketball (sports strategy game) £75
Adventures 1-13 (Classic Traveller) £75
The Travellers' Digest issue 6 £75
A Game of Thrones RPG £75
Encounters in the Corelian Quadrant (Classic Traveller) £70
Planes of Chaos (AD&D 2nd edition Planescape) £70
Out of the Darkness (Traveller 1248) £70
Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection (foil limited edition with slipcase) £70
The Shadow Elves GAZ13 (D&D) £70
Travellers' Digest issue 5 £60
King Arthur Pendragon 5.1st edition £60
Rebellion Sourcebook (MegaTraveller, Japanese language) £60
S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters 1st edition £60
Classic Traveller Books 1-8 £60
Birthright Campaign Setting (AD&D 2nd edition) £60
Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon RPG £60
DC Heroes 2nd edition £60
Starcrystal 1 - Mertactor: The Volantine Gambit (Classic Traveller) £60
Chaosium Basic Roleplaying (advanced readers' copy, 244 of 420) £60
Call of Cthulhu 6th edition, special commemorative edition £60
Imperial Encyclopedia (MegaTraveller, Japanese language) £60
Faldor - World of Adventure (Classic Traveller) £60
Eldritch Wizardry (Original D&D) £60
Dungeon Master's Kit (D&D 4th edition) £60
Cult Compendium (RuneQuest) £60
Paranoia 1st edition £60

So, while Bloodstone Pass is a high value item, it's by no means exceptional. I'm a little surprised that it was picked out in the article as the extreme example of "almost impossible to get". The best example of that category for D&D or AD&D would be module ST1 'Up the Garden Path', an adventure produced in very small numbers by TSR UK because for no known reason they had a stand at the International Garden Festival in Stoke-on-Trent in 1986. We don't have one of those, but you'd expect to pay £2,000+ if one came onto the market. Original D&D boxed sets of 1st to 3rd printings (look for the woodgrain box) in really good condition go for several thousand dollars.



* Obviously we sell a much wider range than just 1st edition AD&D...

[fub.livejournal.com]

That is quite the interesting list! I am surprised to see a D&D4 item in the list, given the fact that it's not that old and that D&D4 wasn't that popular. Or perhaps it's more expensive because it wasn't popular and thus there aren't many copies on the market?
It also makes me wonder what my little collection is worth. I don't have that much older stuff, and it's certainly not in mint condition if I do... And I'm not looking to sell anyway.

I came up ST1 through a review up on RPGGeek -- it's apparently not that good. The item itself does have a scan of the map, which is interesting.
And through that, I came to the Geeklist of collectible RPG items, which is also fun to look through. The definition of 'collectible' seems to differ wildly between contributors.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I'd missed that RPGGeek article (I use RPGGeek a lot). It's quite interesting, if only as a list of targets we should try to get in stock! We've had some:

1. 7th Sea Player's Guide - Nope
2. Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier - Nope
3. Beyond the Mountains of Madness - Yup. Sold it for £75. Would probably price it somewhat higher now. I've actually run this campaign for my own group. It's superb, although groups that really don't like being railroaded might not like it.
4. Bunnies & Burrows - Nope, although we do have The Warren in stock, which is a similarly rabbit-themed Watership Down-y kind of RPG.
5. WFRP 2nd edition Career Compendium - Nope
6. Castle Drachenfels - Nope
7. Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works - Nope
8. Central Casting: Heroes of Legend - Nope
9. Courting Madness - Nope
10. Dark Sun boxed set - Yes - sold for £35. The valuable one isn't the boxed set in the picture, but the revised edition with the cloth map (or 'tea towel'), which we have in stock priced at £67.50.
11. DC Heroes 3rd edition - We've sold a 3rd edition for £48 and a 2nd edition for £60.
12. Deities & Demigods (early printing with Cthulhu, Elric etc) - We've never actually had one. Not actually as rare as people think they are though, especially in the US. The price is as much due to high demand as low supply.
13. Delta Green: Countdown - Nope (in fact I don't think we've ever had any Delta Green, which is a bit odd)
14. Delta Green: Eyes Only - See above
15. Doctor Who - In our sale at £52.50. We actually have most of the supplements and adventures published for this RPG in stock (and in really nice condition) because I bought a collection from a bloke in Germany.
16. Dune: Chronicles of the Imperium - Nope.
17. Up the Garden Path - I wish...
18. D&D Woodgrain and White Box - We've sold a white box set for £155. Never had a woodgrain. I suspect that very few made it over to this side of the Atlantic.
19. Empire of the Petal Throne - Nope
20. Empires of Magira - Nope (and I'd never heard of it until now!)
21. Ghostbusters - Nope
22. The Great Pendragon Campaign - Sold one for £60. Available as a print-on-demand title, so not really as collectible as it might be, although Pendragon stuff in general is usually quite valuable.
23. The Bloodstone Pass Sage - As I mentioned above, we have H1. We also have H4 (for characters up to level 100!) which is rarer. One of our competitors (someone with quite a black reputation in the collecting community) actually tried to corner the market in this series by buying up all the copies he could. I've never actually seen H2 or H3.
24. H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands in German, 4th or 5th edition - Nope. Actually, a lot of foreign language editions go for high prices, especially foreign versions of D&D, especially especially where two or three modules were combined into one only in one country.
25. Horror on the Orient Express - We originally had the rare 1st edition on sale for £150, but had to drop the price when the 2nd edition was published (a very successful kickstarter) and sold it for £37.50. We've sold a brand new copy of the 2nd edition for the RRP of £76.99. Great campaign, and another one that I've run for my group.
26. Iron Kingdoms World Guide - Nope
27. KotDT Issue 150 - Nope
28. Ringworld - sold a Good condition copy for £60 and a Near Mint copy for £97.50.
29. The Last Command - Nope
30. The Lost Supplements - Yes. We had the full set and sold them individually for about £60 each.
31. Marischal Adventures - We've had one four page adventure and sold it for £40 believe it or not.
32. Melee - Nope
33. Metamorphosis Alpha - Not the original, but we did have a couple of the kickstarter giant hardback reprints (brand new) and we have the more normal sized softback reprint in stock right now (also new).
34. Nexus: The Infinite City - Nope
35. Nobilis 2nd edition - Nope
36. Palace of the Silver Princess - Nope, at least not the rare orange edition with the infamous artwork.
37. A Private War - Yes, a near mint condition copy added this month in fact.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

38. Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire - Nope
39. Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness - Nope
40. Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned
41. Seeker Gaming Systems deck plans 15mm scale - We've sold one set for £20 and one set for £10, and clearly that was too cheap! He's right that the 25mm versions are much more common.
42. Steve Jackson's Sorcery! bundled set - Nope
43. Tact-Tiles - Nope
44. Tomb of Horrors - Not sure why this is on there. It's not that rare. Having said that, we don't have an original in stock, although we do have two copies of the Return to the Tomb of Horrors boxed set, which includes a reprint of the original module.
45. TSR Silver Anniversary Collector's Edition - Yup. Sold for £150.
46. Up the Garden Path - See above
47. Vault of the Ni-er Queyon - Nope
48. The MegaTraveller Alien, Volume 1 - On sale now for £46.75. Volume 2 is much rarer, but we have that for £102. Almost everything published for the first several editions of Traveller is copyright to Marc Miller's company Far Future Enterprises and available in PDF form on very cheap CD-ROMs. The exception is stuff originally produced under licence by Digest Group, which is why their stuff goes for much higher prices. We still have a lot of it though.
49. Walker in the Wastes - Nope. Anything by Pagan for Call of Cthulhu attracts big money.
50. WFRP Realms of Sorcery Limited Edition - Nope
51. Wings of the Valkyrie - Nope


Someone mentioned Classic Traveller fanzines. He's right - they do fetch good prices, and we have quite a few of them.

[fub.livejournal.com]

I'd missed that RPGGeek article (I use RPGGeek a lot).
There's so much content on the site that it's easy to miss stuff. :)

Thanks for this insight into the actual collector's market! You should totally add it as a comment to that list!