How much is your gaming collection worth?

Serious Paul · June 14, 2007, 12:28:21 AM

Earlier this evening I was thinking about just how much I have spent on gaming products. Not including dice I have purchased well over a thousand gaming books. At an average of about 15 dollars a pop, give or take, I see that I've dropped a fat stack of change in the last two decades of gaming. (Admittedly some of this is stuff I bought doubles, triples, or more of.)

Serious Paul · June 14, 2007, 12:30:21 AM

Feel free to break this number down. For instance I have never bought miniatures, or war games.

Thanatos02 · June 14, 2007, 12:53:44 AM

I've got an ok collection. Mostly some core D&D 3.5, some different settings (Ravenloft, Engel, Wheel of Time), a bunch of OMAge (Revised), and some other OOP stuff. Most isn't worth much more then what it was printed on, even if it's in good shape. If I were to sell it, I could maybe get a few hundred on a good day, after a long while of haggling.

It's probably worth about, oh, 600$ US taken at original price. It took a long time to accumulate, and much of it was gifted.

Koltar · June 14, 2007, 02:12:49 AM

Can be take inflation into account and depreciation?
Seriously I voted - but its difficult to do a "number value". My game stuff is worthe MORE to me than it is to half-price books or the local mom&pop gamestore that buys used games.

I've got some TRAVELLER books that were bought when I was a teenager in the early 1980s. Also, my purchasing has increased since I started working at a game store - more than THREE years ago. There is a discount involved, so full price was never paid on many items.

Many game books I recently got as trades with people I met on the SJG forums. Thats how I managed to finally get a complete collection of ALL the books made for GURPS:TRAVELLER.

- Ed C.

RockViper · June 14, 2007, 02:29:12 AM

I really have no idea since most of my collection is old school or was bought from ebay or half.com at a considerable discount.

Halfjack · June 14, 2007, 03:09:56 AM

"How much have you spent" is radically different than "how much is your gaming collection worth". I've lost, sold, junked, or otherwise eliminated the vast majority of what I've bought over the last 30+ years.

J Arcane · June 14, 2007, 03:17:42 AM

I've actualyl had pretty dismal luck with keeping hold of RPG books for some reason. A rather startling number of them have been stolen, like for instance after I lost my last apartment I discovered that apparently someone on staff there was a gamer, because they looted all my RPG books.

At the moment all I have is the Classic Traveller 1-3 reprint, and my Gamma World book, plus I think I have a book or two I don't really care about in my storage.

droog · June 14, 2007, 04:12:54 AM

I seem to remember that I started my AD&D collection by flogging the DMG and just about every module in the game shop. Can't remember if I paid for the PB and MM or not (I think not). Those were the days!

TheShadow · June 14, 2007, 05:44:24 AM

Spent way too much, traded away and sold way too much over the years. Now spending way too much trying to get it all again from ebay.

good gaming to you,
The Shadow

Jason Coplen · June 14, 2007, 08:33:47 AM

I'm not sure what my collection is worth, but I know I've spent 5k+ on books over the past 25 years.

Mcrow · June 14, 2007, 09:18:21 AM

I estimate that the cover prices of the 200+ RPG books I own are ad upto ~$6k. That's after selling off about 100-150 books.

I have to note that I recieved probly 50 of those as gifts or review copies.

Nicephorus · June 14, 2007, 09:43:34 AM

I started out as a wargamer before I was a roleplayer so I have a decent collection of old wargames. I have a sprinkling of cards and miniatures and a fair number of board games as well. Currently, the majority are rpgs.

When I was a kid and in college, I had very little money so I had only a handful of games. Since then, it's been only a few hundred a year, with a short peak of a hundred a month. I have a reasonably big collection but much of it was bought used. I've learned that many games aren't even worth the time to read them so I've grown picky and buy only what I might reasonably use or what is cool and very cheap.

Mcrow · June 14, 2007, 09:46:14 AM

I think my board game collction is worth about $1000 and I just sold off most of my VTES CCG cards for about $850. Minis, I only have about $400 .

So all together about $8k.

Grimjack · June 14, 2007, 10:36:12 AM

I voted in the 1-5k range but I didn't take into account the wargames I bought throughout the 70's from Avalon Hill and SPI before I got into RPG's in 76 or so....crap.....that is a lot of money.....I still have it all too, it is a shame those things don't go up in value much.

Serious Paul · June 14, 2007, 11:57:21 AM

Quote from: Halfjack"How much have you spent" is radically different than "how much is your gaming collection worth". I've lost, sold, junked, or otherwise eliminated the vast majority of what I've bought over the last 30+ years.

Absolutely. That's why I tried to leave it open ended, because I figured some of you have dropped a lot of cash over the years on just supplies (Pencils, pens, and paper), let alone how much money has gone into say board games, and video games, and the like.