Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1005186It's not the modern WoTC reprint, it's one of the first series of printings.

The brown-box sets are all extremely rare:  the first printing, Dec 73/Jan 74, was 1000 copies, the second printing, Jan 75, was also 1000 copies, and the third printing, April 75, was either 2000 or 3000 copies.

If you're a collector, it's all about the rareness.  By contrast, the first white-box version was printed in 25,000 copies.

But I still think collectors are nuts.  It's a game, not a religious artifact.  Or a sex toy.

Oh, all right. That's at least more comprehensible.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1001422That's very interesting. There were three separate new bidders in the last hour and six minutes of this auction. Let's see...

This whole post is just great. I love the casual reference to DEA in 90's Miami, the heyday of the new-school drug traffickers in the region. I am picturing a GameDaddy too cool than he probably deserves to be and also a lot filled with fascinating yet totally cocaine-stained items and many very shady characters fed and non-fed alike bidding on those same items and then ambushing each other outside the auction when they don't like the outcome.

This is literally a David Caruso moment right here...

Okay... so today's auction of one of the 1st printings of Dungeons & Dragons netted the seller $11,975.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Dungeons-and-Dragons-1st-Edition-Brown-Box-1st-Printing/222700824036?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

Also, Ebay is being lame. I can't see who bought that boxed set. I like to see who is bidding to determine if there is anyone who really isn't interested in buying, however who is simply bidding just to inflate the sales price...

Holy crap.  My copy is in better shape, and it's got better provenience.  Wow...

Holy fuck. Seriously, these are insane prices. It's like some kind of a bubble. There's no way these sets are so rare as to figure those prices. I mean, considering how many are being sold right now.

It's insane, but it's ALWAYS been insane.  There are about a dozen rabid collectors who apparently shit money; one guy has like a dozen first-printing copies, out of 1000 printed ever.

I have no idea what you do to even get that kind of money to pay 11 grand for something you put on a fucking shelf.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1006741Holy fuck. Seriously, these are insane prices. It's like some kind of a bubble. There's no way these sets are so rare as to figure those prices. I mean, considering how many are being sold right now.

Actually they are really rare. I bought my first set in 1977, a mixed white box set containing a couple of the older books from brownbox. My second set was purchased in 1978 after trading in the original set for 4x its original $10 value, ...this even after the box had broken apart. Then a third new whitebox set in 1982, this was with the red label, a collectors edition. My Ex-wife sold all of the D&D stuff in 1985, during our divorce, except for the newest whitebox which I had with me, and had taken to Korea. In 1987 I bought another whitebox for $35 which I later put into storage at my mom & dad's house, along with a rules cyclopedia that my sister arbitrarily decided to sell at a yard sale in 1995 because it's taking my space in the basement beneath the garage.. Cue 1999. I buy my fourth whitebox set off of craig's list for $100, which I sold in 2008 at Gencon for a couple hundred dollars. Bought my fifth Whitebox set without the box in 2011 for fifty dollars, and the four supplements for an average of $20 apiece...

There were only a thousand D&D games published in the first printing, Well over half of these were simply thrown away or donated to Goodwill. No one had a clue these would be worth anything. Same deal for the other 5,000 or so brownbox games. Probably half were gone by 1980. The flimsy thin boxes do not hold up well, and are susceptible to crushing damage if they are put in backpacks, are laying out on a table, or otherwise being used regularly for a game. Fourth printing was 25,000 or so, and there were three more printings after that of whitebox D&D including one printing, I believe of one hundred thousand copies. All told, probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-250,000 were printed. Half gone.

Over the years I have purchased five white D&D sets, so... there would be about 20,000 or so GM's that might have done that, but probably not. Still there would be less than 50,000 total GMs who currently have either a whitebook boxed set or a brownbox book set, if each GM managed to lose or have destroyed at least one boxed set (my second whitebox box had come apart and was also thrown away) .

Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth edition all sold well over a million copies of the core books. I heard sales figures of somewhere in the range of three million core booksets for 3e had been sold by 2004 or so, so there's a minimum of six million active D&D players out there (even more if you count the International D&D players now) , and only 50,000 or so whitebook boxed sets that are remaining, more or less intact. I would be very surprised if there were more than three hundred first printings remaining.

There is a brownbox up on Ebay now for just a hair over $4,000. Looking at the sales prices of all the brownbox booksets over the last twenty-four months reveals that the median sales price, for those that were sold at auction was more than double that, so even with the highlighted pages, that set is still looking like a real bargain!

Brownbox for sale now on Ebay for $4,080
https://www.ebay.com/itm/D-D-Woodgrain-Box-Original-Set-Gary-Gygax-TSR-Rare-Dungeons-Dragons-Gygax/162536090742?hash=item25d7e7ec76:g:m9oAAOSwyZ5UpYIS

Current Brownbox listing for $10,580 (very close to the medium sales price of Brownbox sets for the last year or so)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/TSR-ORIGINAL-DUNGEONS-DRAGONS-OD-D-BOXED-SETS-BOOK-WOODGRAIN-GYGAX-ARNESON-VGC/381485046602?hash=item58d247db4a:m:mKHBNizowBowHjw61G_1ugg

Whitebook Sets are currently being listed for $300-320 (Most, but not all of these not including Greyahwk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry & Gods, DemiGods & Heroes). Last week a very good condition Whitebox set alone sold for $250.

37 was the number of 0D&D Whitebox sets sold the this year on Ebay, and the holy number was thirty seven. The high sales price was $552 for a white bookset that had four supplements with it as well as the older books that included references to Tolkien., Six of these auctions were in the $300 range (most of these included one or more of the four supplements).The lowest available price for a white bookset that sold at auction in the last year was $96. The medium sales price for a whitebookset sold during the last twelve months was $211.

Three Brownbox sets were sold during the last year on Ebay, with the high being $22,100 for an auction right at Christmas of last year. The low end being the Hawaii set that just sold for $4,750, and with this last sale yesterday of a 1st printing for $11,975 makes the actual Median price of brownbox booksets being $12,941

If my estimates are correct one-tenth of one percent (40 out of remaining 40,000 white & brownbox D&D sets) or so...of all the remaining Original D&D booksets changed hands last year on Ebay, with a total retail value of $47,039.20, which interestingly was worth about 5x the value of the entire first OD&D print run, and only $12,960 less than the original retail value of all the original Dungeons & Dragons brown booksets ever published.

Over the course of the last year, I have been tracking the actual auctions and sales of a rather large number of original RPGs and supplements, pretty much anything published prior to 1980. If you own anything that was published prior to 1980 ...it has for the last couple of years appreciated at a rate better than the value of gold, with brownbox D&D in particular being worth approximately 5x it's actual weight in pure gold. So... a real life platinum grade investment. This is not speculation, this is an actual fact, based on actual publicly available sales data.  

Pretty sure I'm hearing Gary laughing in the background in sheer disbelief.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1006741Holy fuck. Seriously, these are insane prices. It's like some kind of a bubble. There's no way these sets are so rare as to figure those prices. I mean, considering how many are being sold right now.

It's hard to know when this reached or will reach bubble point. They are rare-ish, but then if Gronan is right, then the market is pretty small too.

If prices are being driven by a very small number of (probably elderly) collectors, then yeah I would expect that the market should collapse at some point as that market ages out of existence. And paper collectibles are prone to boom and bust anyway. I wouldn't be surprised to see a big correction, like a 90% drop, in the next 5-10 years. Maybe even sooner.

EDIT: one of the things that drives bubbles in collectibles is when people see the appreciation and start buying them as an investment rather than a collectible. I'm not certain that has happened much, so maybe not a bubble at all. But still, a market with an uncertain future.

Quote from: Zirunel;1006783It's hard to know when this reached or will reach bubble point. They are rare-ish, but then if Gronan is right, then the market is pretty small too.

If prices are being driven by a very small number of (probably elderly) collectors, then yeah I would expect that the market should collapse at some point as that market ages out of existence. And paper collectibles are prone to boom and bust anyway. I wouldn't be surprised to see a big correction, like a 90% drop, in the next 5-10 years. Maybe even sooner.

EDIT: one of the things that drives bubbles in collectibles is when people see the appreciation and start buying them as an investment rather than a collectible. I'm not certain that has happened much, so maybe not a bubble at all. But still, a market with an uncertain future.

This is why I'm really interested in seeing publicly available sales data on the Ebay auctions. The whole "private listing" aspect of an Ebay auction runs contrary to what Ebay is all about, which is an open sale on the open market. Right now the prices are, as far as I can tell, being driven by supply and demand.

When looking at the sellers, I'm seeing a small number of elderly collectors with repeated sales, which would be the dealers, who buy up the games at gaming convention and trade show auctions, as well as directly, being responsible for about half of the auction sales, and as a result, set the overall mean sales price for vintage gaming. The other half are individuals who are the direct owners of the rare games that just want to cash them out, and earn a tidy profit, and who sometimes (as in the case of the $96 whitebox sale last summer) probably don't. When I sold my Whitebox at GenCon in 2008, it was not because I had stopped playing OD&D, but because I had one extra boxed set, and the price was taking off. Just selling a few extra odds and ends out of my collection netted me $850 back in 2008. I took home more than my weekly paycheck, just attending that show. In 2006 at GenCon, I had three guys show up for a OD&D game, and no one showed up for the second game at all. At GenCon 2008 my table was full for every old school session I ran, and from 2011 on, my table has always been full of people interested in playing the Original D&D.

The buyers, are not elderly collectors, they are younger guys, like Matt Finch, and them other kids all in Hollywood that are playing D&D. They learn the current game (like 5e for example, that is their gateway to the RPG hobby), but then want to see how the game was played when it all began. With publicly available auction data, I can look at the bidders and buyers and tell that they are not regular dealers because their Ebay account only has a few transactions. I can also see if they are repeatedly bidding to buy RPGs, or if a particular sale ends up being just a one-time purchase.

The majority of the purchases are unique meaning that a dealer is not openly buying up market share in a bid to manipulate or drive up prices. This is why it's important that auction sales remain open too so unethical buying patterns can be detected, especially now, when old-school RPG games and supplements are actually valuable.

What my Original D&D Gaming Table looks like these days:


Two out of Seven are greybeards in this first photo...

Last year at UCon


Look at the players at the tables behind me... This is the Old School RPGs room, with only a handful of Greybeards.


1e ADNnD Game last year at UCon



In my 5e D&D home group I'm the oldest. There' another guy a couple years younger than me, four players in their 20's and two teens playing.

In my 0D&D home group, Three twenty something players, one thirty something player... and currently one teenager. I'm the old guy in my group.

In my online Star Wars game I'm the oldest player, have several thirty somethings playing , a couple guys twenty-something, and two teenagers.

At GaryCon this year... well yeah... lots of older players, a few that even make me look young, heh... But that's GaryCon.

The Market is not aging out of existence,... There is a completely new younger market, and it's much larger than the original market was.

Like for example Pax Unplugged, ehh? Where they now are doing a boardgame, card, and RPG games convention.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1006788This is why I'm really interested in seeing publicly available sales data on the Ebay auctions. The whole "private listing" aspect of an Ebay auction runs contrary to what Ebay is all about, which is an open sale on the open market. Right now the prices are, as far as I can tell, being driven by supply and demand.

When looking at the sellers, I'm seeing a small number of elderly collectors with repeated sales, which would be the dealers, who buy up the games at gaming convention and trade show auctions, as well as directly, being responsible for about half of the auction sales, and as a result, set the overall mean sales price for vintage gaming. The other half are individuals who are the direct owners of the rare games that just want to cash them out, and earn a tidy profit, and who sometimes (as in the case of the $96 whitebox sale last summer) probably don't. When I sold my Whitebox at GenCon in 2008, it was not because I had stopped playing OD&D, but because I had one extra boxed set, and the price was taking off. in 2006 at GenCon, I had three guys show up for a OD&D game, and no one showed up for the second game at all. At GenCon 2008 my table was full for every old school session I ran, and from 2011 on, my table has always been full of people interested in playing the Original D&D.

The buyers, are not elderly collectors, they are younger guys, like Matt Finch, and them other kids all in Hollywood that are playing D&D. They learn the current game (like 5e for example, that is their gateway to the RPG hobby), but then want to see how the game was played when it all began. With publicly available auction data, I can look at the bidders and buyers and tell that they are not regular dealers because their Ebay account only has a few transactions. I can also see if they are repeatedly bidding to buy RPGs, or if a particular sale ends up being just a one-time purchase.

The majority of the purchases are unique meaning that a dealer is not openly buying up market share in a bid to manipulate or drive up prices. This is why it's important that auction sales remain open too so unethical buying patterns can be detected, especially now, when old-school RPG games and supplements are actually valuable.

What my Original D&D Gaming Table looks like these days:


Two out of Seven are greybeards in this first photo...

Last year at UCon


Look at the players at the tables behind me... This is the Old School RPGs room, with only a handful of Greybeards.


1e ADNnD Game last year at UCon



In my 5e D&D home group I'm the oldest. There' another guy a couple years younger than me, four players in their 20's and two teens playing.

In my 0D&D home group, Three twenty something players, one thirty something player... and currently one teenager. I'm the old guy in my group.

In my online Star Wars game I'm the oldest player, have several thirty somethings playing , a couple guys twenty-something, and two teenagers.

At GaryCon this year... well yeah... lots of older players, a few that even make me look young, heh... But that's GaryCon.

The Market is not aging out of existence,... There is a completely new younger market, and it's much larger than the original market was.

Like for example Pax Unplugged, ehh? Where they now are doing a boardgame, card, and RPG games convention.

This is all pretty interesting, a younger cohort of OD&D players is gladdening for sure. To whatever extent they decide to collect original copies, they may end up supporting the white box market more than the Brown box market, but still....

The "Hollywood kids" angle hadn't occurred to me at all.

I don't think these prices are that crazy. Figure how many players in the 1970s and 1980s are now billionaires (or at least mega-wealthy) in the video game or financial industries.

People spend vastly huger sums on antique cars, firearms, baseball cards, paintings, not to mention...er...antiques themselves.


But the love (childhood callback) of these RPG things transcends a lot of simply "ooh, shiny" that might be the case in other collectables.

You know one thing this makes me wounder is if any of these buyers are picking it up to own for A year or 2 make them selves A dubiously legal copy via A photo copy machine or what have you and passing there copy on.

Quote from: kosmos1214;1006849You know one thing this makes me wounder is if any of these buyers are picking it up to own for A year or 2 make them selves A dubiously legal copy via A photo copy machine or what have you and passing there copy on.

I dunno, maybe you could forge the pages convincingly; the covers would be harder unless you got a supply of the right cardstock. But I think gamedaddy was right to highlight the boxes. Boxes in good collectible condition are probably a lot rarer than books in good collectible condition. I expect it's the good  box that really distinguishes a high-end set. I suppose you could forge those too, but it must be more difficult.

Quote from: Zirunel;1006876I dunno, maybe you could forge the pages convincingly; the covers would be harder unless you got a supply of the right cardstock. But I think gamedaddy was right to highlight the boxes. Boxes in good collectible condition are probably a lot rarer than books in good collectible condition. I expect it's the good  box that really distinguishes a high-end set. I suppose you could forge those too, but it must be more difficult.

I'm not referring to forgery I am talking about being that guy who says 4K for an rpg is to much so they buy A copy to own long enough to make A copy for there own use and then selling to to get there money back out.
Kinda like how people used to back in the vhs days take A tape they had rented and copy it over to A blank tape the 1st time they watched it for there own use.

Quote from: kosmos1214;1006888I'm not referring to forgery I am talking about being that guy who says 4K for an rpg is to much so they buy A copy to own long enough to make A copy for there own use and then selling to to get there money back out.
Kinda like how people used to back in the vhs days take A tape they had rented and copy it over to A blank tape the 1st time they watched it for there own use.

Oh okay gotcha. Well, if you just want the content for your own use, I think there are cheaper ways. Pdf is only a few bucks, and physical white box is pretty reasonable, for a couple hundred you can just buy one and keep it. Still not much more expensive than buying the core books plus supplements for a modern rpg. Probably cheaper really.