I'd Buy That For A Dollar!

Applejack wrote:

Gary Sax wrote: You, my friend, are a genius. Have you ever been burned by a kickstarter speculation? How do you know which ones to select for dumbass aftermarket sales?

I honestly didn't buy any of those games with the purpose of reselling them. I knew Zombicide would sell for a lot, because people go nuts for the many KS exclusive figures. The OCD collectors will overpay for another generic character when they could just print out the stat sheet and proxy the figure.

The Boss Monster sale was ridiculous. $200 for a game you can buy online for $17. All for some promo cards, an exclusive box sleeve, and a couple metal arcade-esque tokens.

If you're going to speculate on Kickstarter games, I recommend the big hits with lots of exclusives and freebies. If Cool Mini or Not does a Zombicide Season 4, I'd jump on that. Boss Monster was a big seller because it appealed to multiple demographics, namely board gamers and video gamers, and maybe even fans of pixel art. So yeah, popularity, exclusives, and appeal. Look for those.

I think Zombicide already peaked and future KS releases for it have too many buyers/speculators to make much.

I think Fireteam Zero has potential to be worth a ton. It's popular enough but hasn't blown up to the point people not getting in on it will want it. You will need to pick up the KS exclusive mission packs for maximum profitability.

I think Fief is going to be worth a bit. I sold a copy for $90 (paid $65).

With some of this stuff timing is everything. For instance, Myth was going for close to $350 for a Captain pledge when Tom Vasel gave it a positive review. That was the time to flip it. Additionally, I got rid of Sedition Wars just before it shipped and made like $80. Now it's kind of worthless although that was impossible to tell at the time.

With Kickstarter speculation it's similar to the stock market. Lock in profits if you can, don't hang onto something forever thinking it will always go up.

My guess would be that exploiting the low information environment immediately surrounding release is your best bet. Best day to sell it is the day you get it, because the actual quality of the product has not been proven either way yet. So people are still excited about it no matter what.

Gary Sax wrote: My guess would be that exploiting the low information environment immediately surrounding release is your best bet. Best day to sell it is the day you get it, because the actual quality of the product has not been proven either way yet. So people are still excited about it no matter what.

You don't have to wait for it to release. I've sold a copy of Myth, Sedition Wars, and Fief before any of them arrived. It's a hassle to re-ship stuff when it arrives, especially if they do multiple shipments, but the money makes up for that hassle.

I'm hoping to get rid of this Zombicide pile I have here. Otherwise, I'm like Sax and just send shit to people who want it.

I do have an unplayed copy of Escape from New York (TSR), I might try to sell given it is so rare.

I sold a copy of that at my store, Doug...I think I got $125 for it, but this was ten years ago. It ain't getting any less rare though.

I did sell the fabled Blade Runner board game for big bucks, I forgot about that one. $300. There were only 100 copies made for a test market in California. It's AWFUL. The only thing Blade Runner about it is the picture on the box. I paid $100 for it, sealed.

I sold a complete set of Wizard Kings, first edition and didn't make that much. Same with the almost complete first edition of Duel of Ages. Barnes is making 200 percent or more on a lot of his sales. I don't have the time or energy to watch the market that closely. I've made some pocket change buying Tokyo Pop figurines at the Barnes and Noble sale, combining them into matched sets and selling them on Ebay. For most of my sales I just want cash for something that would set off wife alarms, like camera lenses or tips for exotic dancers. Board game sales are pre-laundered funds.

I sold Princes of the Renaissance, which was a gift, for $150. Then I bought it back two years later for $150. :/

is it any good?

DukeofChutney wrote: is it any good?

I like it, but can never get it to the table. I should probably sell it...again.

Christ. I don't even know where to start this list as I've sold at least 400 games, most for pretty obscene profits...

So, I guess I'll pick a few highlights

Traded a copy of Here I Stand just before it went OOP the first time for long-OOP OCS series game Hube's Pocket. Took one look and said "Too huge, too slow" and flipped on Ebay for $350. Then ended up getting kinda into the OCS series and Hube's Pocket suddenly became a missing tooth in an otherwise perfect smile. So, handed off $300 to MSample to pick up for me at the WBC auction 2 years ago. He ended up bringing me $240 in change along with my copy of Hube's Pocket.

Funny part is, it's actually quite possible that the copy of Hube's Pocket I bought at the WBC auction is, in fact, the one I sold on ebay 5 or 6 years ago....


Found the remnants of a Church charity sale on Craigslist--picked up something like 4 dozen wargames in the $25-$40 range per. Sold the 4 East Front Series games for an average of $250 per or so (Army Group Center went for something like $375 or so; the others were around $200 each). Ended up buying most of them back at WBC for $100 or so--basically it was the "Hube's Pocket refund" money as that was cash I had already mentally spent. And they were MSample's actual copies I do believe.

About 5 years ago, Troll & Toad decided to mostly sit out the WBC auction, so deals-aplenty were to be had. Picked up the entire Advanced Tobruk System collection available at the time for $200 and resold the 7 games I already had for a total of $500 (I really only needed the OOP Berlin module, which was going for $200 on its own).

Sold at least 3 copies of TAHGC's Breakout Normandy for over $125 per; paid no more than $60 for any one copy--all unpunched.

Picked up a working copy of Dark Tower off Craigslist for $40-50...twice. Sold both for over $125 each. Ended up trading a copy of Galaxy Trucker for an *unpunched* Dark Tower a few years ago in a trade offer I had to verify a couple of times before actually sending because it felt like outright *stealing*.

Picked up a massive, 90% unpunched ASL collection for $1700 5 years ago. Sold a half-dozen modules that I had also found in that Church sale and ended up covering about 90% of that cost--Red Barricades, Bridge too Far [because someone would always pay $300 just to get black SS counters], Blood Reef Tarawa, the 2 Kampfgruppe Pieper sets, and a couple of the then-long OOP national sets (Armies of Oblivion and one other IIRC).

There were also a shitload of "Buy for $5 or less, sell for $40 or more" thrift store finds--particularly family games sold right around the holidays like Wise or Otherwise, Guesstures [when it was OOP], and others, as well as the big-money 1960s games like Which Witch, Voice of the Mummy, etc.

There are more that escape me at the moment, but those are some of the more notable....

EDIT: OH--this I have to list for anyone who ever had to deal with Troll & Toad for wargames. One year, they ran a pre-Xmas sale but apparently fucked up their website. Instead of listing their normal 2x- or 3x-going-rate price for OOP wargames, they put up their *buy price* as the sale price. It lasted for about 3 hours, but I managed to find and snag 4 or 5 different SPI detergent box games at basically 1/2 the ebay price, like Terrible Swift Sword, Bloody April, Art of Siege, and a few others. Flipped them all for hundreds in straight profit. And I got to stick my thumb in T&T's eye. IIRC I managed to buy 2 or 3 copies of TSS and Bloody April and had them flipped within a day...