gregory wrote in AD&D Play By Mail Game?:I was lucky to get a couple D&D PBMs. One is complete, I think. Those are the rarest "mass-produced" items in my now 3,000+ RPG item collection I believe. I would suggest Acaeum adds it to the rare list. How often does it get updated?

It's on the list to be added (since about 2003).

Speaking of the devil...  :D

There is one up by a blocked seller on ebay.


-SKA

It’s overpriced.  The seller must be relying on this new trend of people spending their money like Steve Buscemi did before the meteor crisis was averted.

stratochamp wrote in AD&D Play By Mail Game?:Well it's only about $1500 too high.

Are you saying she should give you $250 for taking it, Bill?

This is rarer than a woodgrain, no? So I would actually tend to think it has generally been underpriced.

gregory wrote in AD&D Play By Mail Game?:

Are you saying she should give you $250 for taking it, Bill?

When I typed that she was selling this for $1699.95. I was implying it is a $200 item.

She has since dropped the price to $1199.95. But that reckoning it is now only $1000 too high. But I was being a little tongue in cheek. Certainly other D&D adjacent items that are not actually role-playing like this have gone up in price (like a bolotomus or shrinkwrapped boxes of D&D minis or TSR catalogs or earlier GenCon programs) such that this is probably now a $300 item. My real point of course was to say that the seller was throwing a nobleknight-like dart at the wall to determine the price hoping someone would pay it. She has already dropped it $500. And if I had to guess she probably paid $20 for it. All of the above of course represents only MY personal opinion. YMMV

P.S. I don't keep any of my books in the bathroom. Well maybe there's a reading copy of Fantasy Wargaming.

stratochamp wrote in AD&D Play By Mail Game?:
Are you saying she should give you $250 for taking it, Bill?

When I typed that she was selling this for $1699.95. I was implying it is a $200 item.

She has since dropped the price to $1199.95. But that reckoning it is now only $1000 too high. But I was being a little tongue in cheek. Certainly other D&D adjacent items that are not actually role-playing like this have gone up in price (like a bolotomus or shrinkwrapped boxes of D&D minis or TSR catalogs or earlier GenCon programs) such that this is probably now a $300 item. My real point of course was to say that the seller was throwing a nobleknight-like dart at the wall to determine the price hoping someone would pay it. She has already dropped it $500. And if I had to guess she probably paid $20 for it. All of the above of course represents only MY personal opinion. YMMV

P.S. I don't keep any of my books in the bathroom. Well maybe there's a reading copy of Fantasy Wargaming.

Thanks for the clarifications, Bill. With all the respect and even admiration that you know I have for you, I think you seriously need to adjust your pricing framework on this one. Based on recent pricing history I am aware of, even though we are talking just a few transactions, this is already worth a multiple of the price you suggest.

This is similar to the Acaeum price list, which - while still incredibly useful - is vastly off now unless one uses it for bulk collection purchases 'on the low'. I just sold a woodgrain in Fair condition for $7K that is listed as worth only $2,581 on the Acaeum list. My transaction price was completely in line with recent trends on that item... A VF 2nd print woodgrain sold for 18.5K or so at gameholecon while being priced at $7,758 by Acaeum. I have similar facts and ebay history on a majority of the items in the Acaeum list.

The Acaeum list now shows almost all prices as declining, which looks more like wishful-thinking than reality for the time being. This is a similar pattern - of underestimating prices based on long past history - to the one we saw in the Wilmark Dynasty thread comments by some respectable collectors, although I agree that we need to see more data on that one now that it is owned by one collector promoting those items more actively.

Now before I unleash a storm, I am not saying the price trend over the past couple of years is right or wrong (unlike many of the unbiased pricing experts on this forum ;) ), but I'm saying those collectors with extensive experience are largely "smoothing out" recent price patterns by averaging prices since the creation of acaeum (in the case of the price list), apparently without even an adjustment for past inflation. Certainly prices could come crashing down but for now this is not the direction we anticipate, given how many green bills have been printed the last couple years, and how many Green Bills (pun intended. I mean new collectors such as me - and I will take "Young Grasshopper" any day as I haven't been called young in a while... ) have risen from the dead! I also think prices are greatly affected by marketing activities, such as writing about an item on the Acaeum forum ;)

If I may add, as I don't think it was overly private... I also recall a chat with you on that very same PBM item at the last Garycon where you dismissed it as of little interest to you as you "mostly collect modules" (and I know you collect much more than modules, but those are the humble words I recall). Hopefully I paraphrase correctly, if not please correct me. I am curious why the sentiment? It sounds like this item would do wonder to take your bathroom collection to the next level, if I hear you right? ;)

One of these just sold. If I had not bid, it would have sold for $264. So I feel a little vindicated about that. However, I did bid (and won it) meaning the ACTUAL final price was $510. From that perspective my $300 valuation was a bit low. On the other hand, the discussion was from two years ago and prices have done nothing but go up. Still I was probably being a little cantankerous with my initial post (being directed towards the seller and their usual inflated prices).

It looks like if neither of us had bid it would have sold for $204. On the other hand, if it hadn't ended at 2:14 AM it may well have sold for more. I remember not buying one of these at Gencon at the time of release because it is not technically a fantasy role-playing product (Quantified interactive storytelling, definition from Darwin Bromley), but I've picked up so much ephemera in the last 20 years I might as well have this in my museum too. So thank you for bringing it back to my attention Gregory. :-)

Was the item that She-Wolf had up for sale "complete" as you are describing it? Because that was the price point we were discussing?