Electronic wizardry, 1980s style. Milton Bradley’s The Dark Tower is a close to a Holy Grail as there is for vintage game collectors.

These days, there are relative few Holy Grail-class collectibles or out-of-print collection showpieces for the board game collector. Over the past several years, reprints and reissues of sought-after titles have increased the availability of desirable games while also driving the aftermarket prices for original editions down. But one game that will likely always remain a valuable collectible is Milton Bradley’s The Dark Tower.

Dark Tower, an electronic board game with an amazing plastic tower housing a primitive computer that tracked all game information, made crude but charming sounds, and had some light-up features including stained glass-style illustrations and old fashioned LED counters. It was released to mainstream toy and department stores in 1981, and it will almost certainly never be in print or available again.

The game is classic 1980s fantasy fare, obviously influenced by the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s a simple adventure game, wherein the players each represent a hero setting forth from a home citadel to find three keys—all of which must be found by exploring crypts in the other three regions of the board. Along the way, the players try to amass warriors to fight in the inevitable siege of the tower, accumulate food to feed that hungry rabble, acquire gold, ward off wandering brigands and visit locations such as a bazaar and sanctuaries, where you can recuperate when the tower decides that it’s time to kill off all of your warriors.

Once a player has the three keys, he returns triumphantly to his home citadel and can then march up to the tower. But before the final battle, the right sequence of keys has to be figured out. Once the door is unlocked, it’s a back and forth struggle between the attacking army and the defending brigands to the death. The winner gets to see a little “victory” image and hear some triumphant, tinny music.

It’s a gloriously old-fashioned relic of a time when electronic gaming was rarely available outside of arcades, first-generation video game consoles and early home computers. The thrill of playing a computerized board game might very well be lost on younger generations, but when I was a kid, this was some pretty exciting stuff. It’s definitely quaint, but it is actually a pretty good game by modern standards. It’s also an unusually good-looking product, with some very distinctive and unique illustrations by the great Bob Pepper, mostly known for his work designing science fiction and fantasy book covers.

Dark Tower wasn’t in print for long; Milton Bradley was sued shortly after it was on the market by some inventors who claimed that they had presented the company with the basic idea for the technology and the game sometime in the 1970s. They argued that MB had designed and produced the game without their involvement and, as a result, the game was pulled off the shelves forever. It has never been reprinted and will almost certainly never be reprinted for a number of reasons, rights issues and technological progress being chief among them. There is a Flash game available on the Web, but it pales in comparison to playing with the actual physical game. It’s a great option for those who want to see what the game is like, but a graphic of the tower just isn’t the same as the real object.

The Dark Tower itself, in all of its plastic glory.

A complete set, including the board and all the pieces.

But for today’s gamers, getting their hands on a copy of Dark Tower means putting up anywhere from $150 to $250 on average, with some really nice copies approaching $300 or more. Sealed or mint copies are almost unheard of—most of the kids who got these games for Christmas in 1981 abused the heck out of the boxes and, often, the contents—and that’s before they were stuffed into attics or crawlspace storage. I’ve never seen a copy that I’d rate above “good,” and I’ve seen many copies missing pieces or with a non-working tower.

That said, this is a game that most game collectors will buy, regardless of condition, often combining sets for completion or salvaging parts to upgrade or fix non-working towers. Some websites and retailers actually sell spare parts, including manuals, boxes and other pieces. For my part, I’ll buy just about any copy in any condition if the price is right, but I have yet to ever actually see a copy in any thrift store, antique shop or yard sale. Stories are out there, however, of folks who have bought these games for fifty cents at a swap meet to flip at auction for a couple of hundred dollars.

Dark Tower is very much an endangered board game. As time goes on, fewer and fewer copies are in circulation. Towers become irreparably broken or worn out and lights stop working. This is a game that will continue to get scarcer and scarcer in years to come. It’s definitely a “they don’t make ’em like this anymore” item, and both nostalgia and its reputation among game collectors and players remains high.

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Magic: The Gathering cards. Some of the early cards, issued in the early 1990s and were discontinued, could be worth some major money. If you come across some of these cards in the flea market or estate sale searches, it may be worth the two dollars to buy them up. There may be a $500 card in there.

When I was in college back in the halcyon days of the early 1990s, I remember sitting in a literature class waiting for the professor to arrive. A couple of students were talking about a new card game that they had been playing, describing mechanics and how it was packaged kind of like baseball cards.

You had to buy a “starter” deck and then smaller “booster” packs to build up your collection, and from that collection you made a custom deck with which to play the game. It was called Magic: The Gathering, designed by Richard Garfield and published by a then obscure company called Wizards of the Coast, now a subsidiary of Hasbro.

Being a game player, I had to check it out for myself. I went to every comic and game shop in town and it was sold out everywhere—not necessarily due to blockbuster sales, but also because the initial print runs (now referred to as the “Alpha” and “Beta” sets) were small. My birthday arrived after a couple of months of fruitless searching, and my girlfriend at the time gave me a pile of Japanese comic books. I told her about the game, and she said “oh yeah, they had that on the counter at the shop when I bought these books. I raced to the store and sure enough, they had both the mythical starters and boosters. I bought everything they had.

Over the next couple of years, my group of friends became completely enamored with the game, as did many game players and even some folks from outside of the hobby. Magic became a hot commodity, not just for those who actually used the cards, but for those who saw them as a valuable collectible. Certain cards out of the initial sets that were discontinued—namely the fabled “Black Lotus” and “Mox” stones, along with a few other rarities would become known as the Power Nine—and were fetching prices into the thousands of dollars for full sets. Speculation was rife, and shops that typically traded in traditional collectibles, such as sports memorabilia and coins, were selling cards with a gold-rush mentality, often marking up packs well over retail. New expansion sets were released and quickly sold out, driving the price of individual, sought-after cards through the roof.

The Black Lotus card.

The Mox Sapphire card.

A tournament scene developed, along with an online community that sprung up right around the time that the Internet broke big into the mainstream. Demand for specific cards and combinations of cards exploded as competition flourished. Shops could often make more profit by breaking open the packs and selling the cards individually. A $3-pack of 15 cards might have had a single card worth $25, $30 or even $50 in it. I used to play on Friday nights at a local Denny’s restaurant and the manager of a local game shop would come in with binders filled with singles for sale. He’d leave with more cash in hand than his business likely made that day.

It was an exciting time because the game was red hot and anyone playing games was at least playing casually. I recall going to games and comic conventions in the mid-1990s and there would literally be people sitting in the floor, lining the hallways of the venues, playing the game or engaging in the commerce that it engendered. The money that was changing hands over it was thrilling, and trading cards with other players was as much of a game as the game itself. It was a new frontier for gaming, a completely new concept: the collectible card game (CCG).

Other collectible card games rushed to market. TSR promoted Spellfire, its attempt to move Dungeons and Dragons into the CCG market, but it was badly designed. Fly-by-night publishers shilled any number of CCGs with garish fantasy art and crude game-play, all attempting to convince retailers, the collectors market and game players that these were the next Magic. None were, and not even Richard Garfield’s follow-up games—a CCG based on the popular Battletech property and the brilliant William Gibson-esque Netrunner—failed to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle that was Magic.

Magic 2011 Core Set boxed sets. Will any of these cards be worth more than any others? Probably not, but players and collectors will be buying them anyway.

Very few collectible card games have managed to come anywhere near the sensation or long-term viability that Magic created. Kid’s games, like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, have had success, but their popularity in recent years has waned along with the rising popularity and accessibility of video games and other digital surrogates. When I was running my game shop from 2004-08, there were still publishers trying desperately to convince me and other retailers that their game was the next Magic. I’ve seen so many CCGs—some very good, most very bad—come and go, but none will ever have the lasting impact or long-standing value that the original article had. Magic is still widely played every day in game shops, in dorms and on dining room tables.

For the collector, yard-sale picker or attic excavator today, Magic cards can still command surprising value and shouldn’t be overlooked. Early sets, such as the aforementioned Alpha and Beta print runs—along with the subsequent Unlimited printing—are very sought after, expensive and rare. Likewise, cards from early expansion sets that haven’t been reprinted in the game’s nearly 20-year history of publication can be quite expensive. The card that some kid used as a bookmark in that book you found at a thrift store could be worth $500. But more common cards—and there are millions of them likely in circulation—could be literally worthless.

Watch this space over the coming weeks for some tips on how to collect, assess and evaluate Magic singles and collections. There could be gold in them thar cards!

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Über board game collector Dan Baden and about $2,000 worth of the board game Jati.

Dan Baden is a published board game designer who has a multiplayer simulation of United Nations negotiation coming out in 2012 from Stronghold Games. He also owns a lot of board games, and chances are, he owns more board games than you even realize ever existed. I’ve often wondered if there are any games out there that haven’t—at some point—passed through his collection.

His collection is broad, including a huge number of hobby games from every decade beginning in the 1960s to the modern day and also mass-market movie tie-in games, kid’s games and everything in between. I first met Mr. Baden back in 2004, when he was a customer at my game shop, Atlanta Game Factory. It wasn’t until a few years later that I got to see in person his legendary collection, which inspires awe and wonder in all who see it. He definitely qualifies as an “über-collector,” even though he is currently in the process of downsizing his collection—and reclaiming entire rooms of his North Atlanta home. I asked Dan a few questions about collecting board games at this rare level.

Michael Barnes: First of all, let’s get a snapshot of your collection. How many games do you currently own (estimate) and how are you storing them?

Dan Baden: I’m down to about 4,000 now. I just sold off somewhere around 3,000 and I’ve cycled a few thousand in and out over the years.

Barnes: What would you estimate your collection to be worth?

Baden: All told, I would say that what I have in the collection now is worth around $50,000.

Barnes: What’s the most valuable piece you currently own?

Baden: A lot of collectors have managed to get their hands on Sid Sackson prototypes after he died, but most of them tend to be of unpublished or more obscure games. I’m lucky enough to have the prototype for Executive Decision, a political game that he did for 3M in the 1960s that is recognized as one of his bigger hits. I really don’t know what it might be worth, but it’s the kind of thing that is priceless for a collector or a Sackson fan.

I also own four copies of Jati, which is one of the rarest board games out there.

Baden is lucky enough to have the prototype for Executive Decision, a political game that Sid Sackson did for 3M in the 1960s that is recognized as one of his bigger hits.

Barnes: At what point did you realize that you had “more than a few” games and were becoming a supercollector?

Baden: I purchased a couple of tractor-trailers filled with board games from another collector several years ago. He had gotten divorced over the games, and his new fiancé had given him an ultimatum. When I opened the back of one of the trucks and the entire thing was packed floor to ceiling with games, I realized that I had crossed some kind of threshold. Then I realized that the truck didn’t have a ramp, which made bringing them all into the house a bit of back-breaking labor. But I’d say that’s when I became a “supercollector.”

Barnes: What are some of the best ways to build a board game collection? How’d you do it?

Baden: Well, I started out by trying to find games that I loved as a child. EBay had just launched when I started collecting, so I was in heaven tracking down all of these old favorites. Then I got into collecting the 3M games, which morphed into collecting any bookcase games. I, like a lot of collectors, became obsessed with completing sets, so I would say that was really when I became a collector rather than just an enthusiast or gamer.

I started digging through thrift stores, yard sales and antique shops. I continued buying games for a couple of years, but then I started trying to pare down the collection by getting rid of things I didn’t want or had multiple copies of. I made a lot of donations to schools and to thrift stores. Funny enough, some of the things I gave away to thrift stores wound up in the hands of some of my friends who would tell me about their great finds, only to find out that it was formerly in my collection. I got into trading games rather than buying, and now I’m much more selective about games I buy. No more tractor trailers.

Barnes: Collecting games is an odd thing to me because you can’t possibly play them all, and games are (usually) meant to be played. Where is the line between collecting and hoarding?

Baden: I’d say you’re definitely a hoarder when you hold on to multiple copies of games you never intend to play or to use for parts or prototyping materials.

Barnes: Let’s talk selling and trading. What are some of the best ways you’ve found to liquidate or pare down your collection?

Baden: Selling at conventions and other events where gamers get together to play games is a good bet because you’re selling right to a target market. There are a couple of online retailers that I’ve sold 3,000 or so games to as well. I’ve probably given away some 2,000 games to thrift stores or schools. There’re a lot of things that just don’t really have much value in terms of resale.

Barnes: What kind of games would you consider to be a good investment rather than ones to hold on to for sentimental, play value or other reasons?

Baden: The first game I bought as an investment was a copy of Avalon Hill’s Alpha Omega, a science fiction game. I thought it would be worth something one day. I paid $10 for it, and after 20 years it’s worth about five bucks. I don’t buy games as investments anymore; there are very few games that appreciate enough for you to really make any money on.

Baden paid $10 for a copy of Avalon Hill’s Alpha Omega, a science fiction game as an investment. It is now worth about $5.

Barnes: What advice can you give to collectors in terms of retaining and maintaining large collections of games?

Baden: Marry a librarian or come up with some kind of organizational system for yourself. A database on the computer helps. Come up with a shelving system to keep everything in order, whether it’s by alphabet, numbering, publisher, designer or whatever. You’ve got to always put the games back where they belong or the whole thing will collapse.

Barnes: Finally, what five games out of your collection would you save from a fire?

Baden: The first one I would save would be Arnold Palmer’s Inside Golf. It’s a favorite from when I was a kid, my dad actually drew up nine additional holes on the nine that were in the game so we had a full 18-hole course.

Next would be Green Ghost. My brother bought me this in 1997, since we had it when we were kids. This was probably the game that got me started on collecting childhood favorites.

Third, Big Boss. This is a more recent game from the German designer Wolfgang Kramer. It’s similar to Sackson’s Acquire but with big, chunky building pieces. It’s a great, great investing game that’s long out of print and very valuable—it used to sell for anywhere from $250-$400, I’m not sure if it still does.

Fourth would be Flophouse Fire. I can’t let the irony of losing my collection in a fire win. This is a prototype I’ve developed that I’d like to get published some day.

Please Hammer, don’t hurt the game! But would you save this from a fire?

Finally, MC Hammer’s Rap a Round Game. This is a great example of a really bad licensed game, but it’s also such a one-of-a-kind piece. It includes a cassette tape of MC Hammer songs and players attempt to finish songs with their own lyrics. It’s the only game I know of that encourages terrible rapping as a game mechanic.
Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

The one and only Sid Sackson and a tiny percentage of his gaming collection.

Sid Sackson is regarded by many to be one of the most important and influential game designers of all time. His seminal works—most notably simple economic, auction and trading games like Acquire and Bazaar—helped establish the basis for much of what hobby gaming is today.

He also wrote books such as the classic “Gamut of Games” and “Card Games Around the World” in the 1970s. Sackson was generally acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost authorities on games and game design. He was also a voracious collector, and it has been estimated that his collection at one point may have been the largest in the world with some 18,000 pieces, including many prototypes and one-of-a-kind items that he kept in his New Jersey home until his death in 2002 at the age of 82.

The greatest auction in board gaming history in action.

That’s a lot of games; definitely enough to qualify the late Mr. Sackson as an über-collector, if not the premiere super-collector of all time. Many game collectors have collections with pieces numbering into the thousands these days, but the in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s—when he was accumulating shelves and shelves of games representing everything from simple kid’s games and TV show tie-ins to complex war games and obscure abstracts—the concept of game collecting on that scale wasn’t common. The Sackson collection, if it were intact today, would be an inestimable documentation of the history of modern board gaming.

Sackson dreamed of one day curating a games museum, likely with his massive collection as a foundation, but it never came to fruition as universities and other organizations never saw the value of what many would assume to be thrift-store or yard-sale junk. If we could go back and look through his shelves, however, it would undoubtedly be a treasure trove of the lost and forgotten alongside family favorites and now-classic games, an amazing repository of an often neglected popular culture medium.

As his health began to fail, though, he made the decision to sell his vast collection off to alleviate the financial burden incurred by mounting medical bills. As plans were laid with the assistance of his family to liquidate, Sackson died unexpectedly before the first game was sold.

The collection would be scattered, sold off in a series of auctions held in November of 2002 and May 2003. Many Sackson fans and gamers lamented the dissolution of the collection, but at least many of these games wound up in the hands of appreciative gamers and Sackson fans. Come to find out, it’s not that easy to sell 18,000 board games in a piecemeal fashion.

A New Jersey auction house was given the collection, but it promptly made a mess of things by all accounts. With little experience in or knowledge about board games, it grouped items in incongruous, nonsensical lots, often pairing extremely valuable hobby market games with thrift store detritus. Box lots, shelf lots and individual items were sold with little rhyme or reason as to organization. It’s a shame that the auctioneers couldn’t have contracted some knowledgeable collectors to offer some advisement. Some of Sackson’s prototypes—one-of-a-kind, often handmade copies of games—made their way into some lots. There were games sent to Sackson by aspiring gamer designers, including many that were self-published in small quantities and some not published at all. Some games contained letters, checks and other personal documents. Initially, the family wanted to get these things back from the purchasers but then decided to let everything go.

An example of an unpublished Sid Sackson prototype game purchased at the auction.

Lots sold for prices ranging from a couple of dollars to $500-$600, with around 100-120 bidders in attendance from all over the United States and a couple of foreign countries. In addition to the games, catalogs, magazines and other ephemera were sold. The auction house offered to stamp games to validate that the games came from the Sackson collection, but many declined. I suppose if you got a hand-written design document from him tossed into a random box, that’s as good as a rubber stamp.

Sackson collection games turn up on auction sites and in game sales fairly frequently—18,000 pieces is a lot to be in circulation, so they’re not really uncommon. The Sackson stamp or other validation doesn’t tend to increase value much, however, and it seems that a lot of the games he had were simply too obscure or unknown to warrant much demand. Notable games from his collection still carry market value and might get a slight bump due to provenance, and any personal effects might make for a more desirable collectible, but games bought at the auction have never really been in higher demand or more sought after than examples originating from less storied collections. That said, owning a game from such a monumental figure—and such a monumental collection—carries a very different kind of value for collectors and game players.

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Rubber bands are the enemy of board game and card game paper cards.

It’s happened to anyone who has ever bought a vintage board or card game from an antiques dealer, a thrift store or a yard sale: You open the box, the contents are complete and organized as promised . . . but there’s something wrong with the cards.

Most commonly, you’ll find the cards wrapped tightly with a rubber band to keep them from sloshing around in the box. But that rubber band—which might even be older than the game itself—has dry-rotted to a hardened crust and stuck to the delicate paper of the cards, tearing them or leaving a nasty residue. Or the edges of the cards might be notched or damaged by the pressure of the rubber band. This is particularly an issue with older games that had uncoated or untreated paper or thin cardstock cards.

In short, don’t use rubber bands to organize a board game, particularly if it’s a collector’s piece that won’t be regularly played and the rubber bands replaced regularly.

Clear card sleeves; colors and tacky fantasy artwork varieties also available.

Cards are one of the most fragile components in a board game, let alone a game where cards may be the only material. It’s easy to forget that board and card games are paper products and that many of the same issues of preservation that collectors of ephemera and paper goods deal with also apply. Humidity is an enemy, as are termites, other moisture sources and general wear and tear. But game cards are a very specific sort of item that is not as easily archived or stored as greeting cards, postcards or business cards. The usual archival solutions, such as sports-card binder pages, are impractical for this purpose and archival envelopes don’t make the grade either. Fortunately, there are a number of solutions available to keep you from going the office supply route to keep your cards together and to protect them from getting damaged either in storage or more importantly, through handling and play.

Card sleeves, commonly used to protect sports cards, entered into the hobby gaming world after the popularity of collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s. These small plastic sleeves fit snugly over a card and still allow for it to be used and handled without damaging the card. For Magic players who might be playing with a deck of cards worth a thousand dollars or more in total, this kind of protection was essential to preserve condition and value.

A typical deck box.

For many years, there were really only two sizes of card sleeves available- one sized to fit a standard baseball card and another slightly smaller one made to fit Japanese card games like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon. For most applications, these two sizes can be used to protect any kind of standard-sized card. Over the past couple of years, many European and American game manufacturers have used a much smaller sized card and until just recently there wasn’t a sleeve for them. Now, card sleeves are available in a range of sizes to fit most game cards and since they’re less than five dollars for a pack of 50, they’re a good investment to keep cards clean, neat, and protected from either the elements or greasy hands. The downside to card sleeves is that the sleeves in aggregate actually make decks of cards larger, which may be an issue in boxes where space is limited or where vacuu-form plastic inserts are not sized to accommodate them.

Card boxes, another solution borrowed from the sports card scene, are another option if you’re looking to store and not necessarily play with cards. There are a wide range of card boxesavailable including cardboard “long box” style ones that offer a cheap but sometimes bulky option and small “deck box” style ones developed originally for collectible card game players to store and protect a single deck of cards. Some deck boxes are sized to fit sleeved cards. The problem with deck boxes is that they tend to be too large to fit inside a board game box, but they can be a very convenient way to store loose cards or even complete card games.

We currently believe Hugo’s Amazing Tape can be used to wrap cards without danger, but we’ll know for sure in 30 years. You can also use this to wrap around game boxes to keep them closed.

But if you’re still looking for a way to hold cards together that isn’t a rubber band, there is a product called Hugo’s Amazing Tape that is indispensible. Made by a sewing supply company, Amazing Tape is an adhesive-less plastic tape that sticks only to itself and it can be reused indefinitely. So you cut off a strip of it, wrap it around a deck of cards, and you’re done. You can even write on the tape with a marker if you need to. It’s a brilliant, multi-purpose product that just happens to have a great application for hobby and collectible games. The problem is that no one has used this product and left a deck of cards in a game box for thirty years yet to see if there may be any kind of deterioration or other ill effects, but it’s definitely one of the best solutions available today.

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

Because of the nature of horror and monster collecting, many of these games carry substantially higher value than other games from this period, and the usual advice I give asserting that playability, among current hobbyists, is a better barometer of worth than vintage, isn’t necessarily applicable. In addition, many spooky games of the past were elaborately produced in ways that aren’t easily reproduced, with many relying on one-of-a-kind gimmicks. The novelty of some of these Halloween-appropriate classics also means that the kids that had these unique games tend to remember them fondly and seek them out later in life.

So, in the spirit of the Halloween season, here’s a witch’s brew of some of the more interesting and more valuable spooky games that might be lurking in the shadows of thrift stores, yard sales and antique shops:

Haunted House (Ideal, 1962)

Haunted House (Ideal, 1962): Kind of like a very expensive advent calendar, but with ghosts.

This is one of the prime examples of a very valuable, desirable game of this type. The Haunted House game board is a molded plastic haunted house that is held in place vertically with supports. It’s almost like an advent calendar in some regards, with doors concealing the house’s resident ghosts and other spooky surprises. Play is a basic roll-and-move mechanic, with players trying to find a jewel and make it out of the house. It’s not much, but the game is an amazing artifact of its time and its gimmick—other than the cool toy house—is that instead of dice or a traditional spinner, the game uses this slot machine-like box to tally movement. When the lever on it is pulled, the box emits an eerie hooting-owl sound—without batteries—it’s all mechanical. Later editions of the game dropped the owl spinner and replaced it with a standard cardboard needle-and-dial style spinner, which is a rather unfortunate substitute. Complete, good condition copies of this game can range between $200 and $500, and there is a market for replacement parts, so incomplete sets still carry some substantial value if pieced out.

The Haunted Mansion Game (Lakeside, 1971)

The Haunted Mansion Game (Lakeside, 1971): Still likely cheaper than a day pass to the Magic Kingdom.

My favorite attraction at Disney World has always been the Haunted Mansion, and of course there is a vintage board game based on it. The Haunted Mansion Game is another simple roll-and-move game that features a neat board with rotating discs that change the path—as well as creating, at least in miniature, a sense of the great ballroom scene from the ride. The game simply looks amazing with some wonderful ’70s-era illustrations and the classic “kids digging this game” photograph on the box. This one is a hit for both the monster/horror enthusiast as well as the Disneyana collector. A copy recently closed at auction with a $157 winning bid with a missing piece and some significant wear, so expect more complete or better quality copies to approach $200 or more.

Voice of the Mummy (Milton Bradley, 1971)

Voice of the Mummy (Milton Bradley, 1971): A machine as much as a game.

Board games that talk or make sounds were a big deal before video games, and naturally there were several talking-, squawking- and shrieking-monster and horror examples. Voice of the Mummy is one of the more valuable and sought-after games in this class, regularly fetching between $100 and $150 for working, complete copies. The funny thing about this game is that the sounds aren’t electronically generated at all—it uses an actual battery-powered record player concealed in the game board to communicate with players and to tell them what to do with “The Voice” . . . spooky! This game’s value is greatly affected by its mechanical condition, with motors and belts being a factor, as well as the condition of the record. As with many battery-powered toys and games of the past, corroded or damaged battery compartments are also a common issue.

Seance (Milton Bradley, 1972)

Seance (Milton Bradley, 1972): A very rare, very valuable set of cardboard furniture.

Voice of the Mummy was followed by another game using a similar record player-driven mechanic. Seance is an exceptionally rare title in which the players are bidding on their deceased Uncle Everett’s former belongings. The record is used to “contact” the spirit of the dead relative, who kindly imparts an appraisal of each item along with whatever taxes must be paid. The player with the most money wins. Complete, good condition and working Séance games are valued by Uncle Everett to be worth around $250.

Green Ghost (Transogram, 1965)

Green Ghost (Transogram, 1965): The flash from this photo charged the glow-in-the-dark ghost until the next Christmas.

Finally, we have Green Ghost, a still rare but far more reasonably priced trick-or-treat game that weighs in around $50-$150, with complete and good condition copies at the upper end. Billed as “the exciting game of mystery that glows in the dark,” it’s another 3D game in which players spin and move, uncovering the creepy contents of trap doors and try to capture ghost kids and return them to Mama Green Ghost. A neat twist is that one of the kids is the Green Ghost’s baby, and whoever finds him is the winner. Obviously, this is not a strategy game. But it’s adorable. The game was reprinted in 1997 by Marx Toys, but the quality of the production was widely regarded as poor. Nonetheless, it still fetches $40-$50—that’s an appreciation of $10-$20 over its retail price.

There we are, then: spooky games with some pretty scary prices. Happy Halloween!

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

3M produced a line of innovative “Bookshelf” board games produced in the 1960s and 1970s, including Alex Randolph’s Twixt, as seen in action.

When most folks think of the 3M corporate brand, their thoughts most likely turn toward the unmistakable smell of Scotch tape or the canary yellow of Post-It notes. But for veteran game players and collectors, the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company is associated with a line of innovative “Bookshelf” board games produced in the 1960s and 1970s.

Each game was presented in a faux-leather book-like slipcover, as if intended to be placed in the owner’s library between the works of Proust and Dickens. As part of the Bookshelf line, 3M published several classic games like backgammon and chess, but more significantly, the series also included seminal, profoundly important strategy games by hugely influential freelance designers like Sid Sackson and Alex Randolph—games that would go on to more or less create the concept of hobby board gaming as something to be distinguished from more mainstream, mass-market fare.

With important titles like Sackson’s business game, Acquire,and Randolph’s classic abstract connection game, Twixt, representing the best and most timeless of the 3M Bookshelf line, the remainder were chiefly political, economic and abstract (with a couple of now very-dated sports titles) among the nearly 30 titles that were released in the format. Some of these games have faded into obscurity, but others, such as the trivia game Facts in Five and the simple medieval war game, Feudal, are often fondly remembered by those who played them in decades past.

The 3M Bookshelf games today look quaint, with sometimes hilariously dated artwork and photographs suggesting that a game of Breakthru or Oh-Wah-ree should be enjoyed in a Mid-century Modern living room and accompanied by wine, cheese and firelight. Clearly, the aim was to sell these games to an adult audience that might be inclined to view games as kiddy fare, but the Bookshelf games often had serious tones and themes—witness titles such as Point of Law, Executive Decision or Mr. President. In retrospect, many of these games don’t look like much fun. When I was a kid, I’d see these games and wonder if they were games at all.

3M Bookshelf games tend to turn up rather frequently at yard sales, thrift stores, and antique dealers, which is where I’ve acquired all of the ones I’ve ever owned myself. But back in their heyday, they were widely available and sold at major booksellers and other retailers. And some were quite popular, relatively speaking. It’s not uncommon to find extremely well-preserved examples of many of these games, but for every pristine copy of Contigo or Image that I’ve found, I’ve also seen a moldy, termite-eaten copy of Ploy or Bazaar. I suspect that owners who actually did keep these games on their bookshelves might be responsible for the nicer copies that are out there.

Sid Sackson’s boring-looking Acquire. But trust me, this game is fun.

Jati, worth up to $1,000. It even looks like a game for rich people.

In terms of market value, most of the 3M games are relatively affordable and some are quite inexpensive. These games have values that vary wildly, with many sellers charging more than they’re likely worth due to their vintage more than their quality or level of demand. Even the more common titles like Executive Decision and Facts in Five might carry a $50 price tag in some shops. But in some cases, a lucky buyer might find one of these games sold for a couple of bucks by an unaware seller. I’ve purchased 3M Bookshelf games—including a copy of the sought-after Twixt—for as little as 50 cents. And I promptly resold it for $65 in an online auction. For most of the 3M line, $15-$25 is a fair range for games in decent, complete condition and anything beyond that might be purely speculative pricing. Outliers would be Acquire and Twixt, as I’ve seen the original 3M editions of these games approach $100 and beyond. These are cases where the games are still highly in demand and played by gamers today, many of whom might want first-edition copies of these classic games in their collections.

Before the Internet, there were catalogs. This is an example of a 1965 3M Games Brochure.

By far the most valuable of the Bookshelf games, however, is Jati, an extremely rare 1965 abstract strategy title that never entered full production. According to the apocryphal story surrounding it, the game was considered to be too easy to play with pen and paper, which could have hurt sales once folks realized that they didn’t really need to buy it despite its nice plastic board and pieces. It has been reported that only 100 copies were made as production samples and for review, and it is unclear how many of those still remain or if there may have been more produced than believed. Copies of the game have sold anywhere from $500 to more than $1,000 at a 2006 eBay auction.

Today, Jati is a “holy grail” for collectors of these games. And apparently, it’s not really very good. But its scarcity overrides the usual depreciation that drives down the cost of poorly reviewed or regarded titles.

3M produced other games—including a great line of sports titles, as well as some kid-oriented and educational games—during their time in the board games market. By 1975, the company had sold all of its intellectual property rights and the entirety of its game publishing business to Avalon Hill, another storied producer of hobby games that would keep many of the best games in the Bookshelf series in print for years to come. The legacy of the 3M Bookshelf games remains felt today, with hobby game publishers still using the bookcase-sized boxes and promoting game designs by freelance, named designers. And most importantly, these titles almost single-handedly created the market for more serious, thoughtful strategy games beyond the usual classics.

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

A Luke Skywalker miniature from a Star Wars game.

George Lucas’ Star Wars saga—both the three great films and three really bad ones—hit Blu-Ray this past week, shattering sales records. There are few media brands as perennial and lasting as Star Wars and its licensing continues to rake in astronomical profits for Lucasfilm year in, year out. Among the slew of Star Wars memorabilia and merchandise that has been available since “Episode IV: A New Hope” released in 1977 are, of course, the many board games and card games, ranging from mass-market, cash-in items that amount to little more than simple card games with pictures of Han and Chewie slapped on them to exquisitely designed hobby market games with complex rules and challenging gameplay.

The most common Star Wars games, to be frank, really aren’t very good in terms of actual play value. When I was a kid, I loved the simple, mass-market games like the great Escape from the Death Star game I got for Christmas sometime around 1980. But as an adult gamer, the appeal of these games—beyond nostalgic memorabilia—has faded. Although some of the older Star Wars board games made in the late 1970s and 1980s have some value due to their relative scarcity and the fact that there is always a Star Wars collector around the corner somewhere, most have neither held their practical or monetary value.

However, due to the nature of licensing and the relatively limited window of availability of some of the Star Wars board games, there are a few titles that have become highly sought after and quite valuable. It’s important to note that these games also will likely never be reprinted, again due to the strictures of licensing. With that said, here is a brief tour of some of the more recent Star Wars games—mostly published with the hobby market in mind—that have not only offered enthusiasts great gameplay but that have also proven to be great investments for the value-minded collector.

Star Wars Episode I: The Queen’s Gambit

Star Wars Episode I: The Queen’s Gambit. “Better than the film- and less Jar Jar Binks.”

Published in 2000 by Avalon Hill/Hasbro, this big-box game immediately dazzles with its wealth of detailed plastic figures and a huge cardboard and plastic structure that recreates the Theed Palace from “The Phantom Menace.” Gameplay takes place across several different boards, each representing a different conflict occurring simultaneously. So you’ve got the Gungans versus the Battledroids at one level; Queen Amidala’s escape from invading forces on another; Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn squaring off against Darth Maul in a different area; and the space battle between Trade Federation ships and Anakin’s Naboo fighter. It sounds complex, but gameplay is card- and dice-driven with fairly simple rules.

This game released at a price point of $60, which was expensive for its time, but values these days for sealed or near mint copies regularly approach $300. Even copies with lower conditional appraisals might sell for $100 or more, as many game players are more concerned with completeness and playability than the condition of the box or components. This is a high-demand title that seems to grow in stature—and value—every year.

Star Wars: Epic Duels

Star Wars: Epic Duels. “Relieve the thrilling duel between Princess Leia and Boba Fett.”

This 2002, game was widely available at mass-market retailers for around $30 when “Episode II: Attack of the Clones” was in theaters. Published by Hasbro (as most recent Star Wars games are), the game featured 31 painted miniatures representing characters both from the Prequel trilogy as well as the Original Trilogy. The game is a simple miniatures game pitting players’ teams of characters against each other in various shoot-’em-up scenarios. It’s not very canonical—Yoda versus Luke doesn’t make a whole lot of sense—but many fans loved the infinite match-ups and a rather large Internet fan community has made unofficial expansions, add-ons and extra materials for the game.

I bought a small pile of these games on clearance for five dollars a piece on clearance and I felt like I had made out like a Tusken Raider when I resold them for $50 apiece at my game shop in 2005. These days, sealed copies can fetch anywhere from $100 to $150, with $60-$75 opened and played copies not uncommon.

Star Wars Risk: Original Trilogy Edition

Star Wars Risk: Original Trilogy Edition. “Australia to Tatooine for the win.”

I reviewed Star Wars Risk: Original Trilogy Edition back in 2006 and I declared the best version of Risk I had ever played. Indeed, the game brings forward the classic game of world conquest but adds some terrific Star Wars content, including special action cards and unique victory conditions for each of the factions (Rebel Alliance, Empire and the Hutts). It’s also a rare “dudes on a map” game that plays best with three players and within a very reasonable 60-75 minute timeframe. It’s rare that one of these very mainstream, mass-market games with a license attached to it excels, but the involvement of Hasbro’s ace designer Rob Daviau (also credited with both The Queen’s Gambit and Epic Duels) ensured a well-designed, highly thematic version of the classic game.

Aftermarket sales for new copies have gone as high as $140—not a bad five year appreciation for a game that was about $30 off the shelf. Used copies seem to have a $50 floor and only go up from there. There is also an earlier Clone Wars edition of Risk, and it too fetches prices in the $100 range.

While it may take some hunting, these came can be found much more easily than finding a working Dejarik game and board [those in the know will know – Editor].

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

The 1967 board game edition of Battleship, produced by Milton Bradley. Note that wife and sister are relegated to the galley on dish duty.

“You sank my battleship!” is—without a doubt—one of those iconic catchphrases that kids picked up from commercials shown during Saturday morning cartoons, back when there were Saturday morning cartoons. Of course, this particular juvenile utterance became the tagline for Milton Bradley’s classic guessing game of naval warfare, Battleship. You’d never guess that a board game where calling out coordinates like “B-3” is the central dramatic beat could support a feature film, but coming to theaters in 2012 is exactly that. If that classic line doesn’t make it into the film, I’d be sorely disappointed.

Essentially, Battleship is a simple deduction game wherein players attempt to ascertain the location of hidden enemy ships. By calling out coordinates, the player is trying to land a hit (confirmed by the opponent) to determine what adjacent squares the ship occupies. Each ship is a different size, ranging from a two-square patrol craft up to the five-square aircraft carrier. Ships are stationary, so once found a vessel likely isn’t going to be seaworthy for long.

An old-school Battleship on grid paper. The value is in the playing of the game, and probably not great source material for a screenplay.

I’m still not seeing a feature movie out of this.

Before everything under the sun got optioned for movie rights, Battleship was originally a pen-and-paper parlor game believed to have been invented by one Clifford Von Wickler sometime around 1900—interestingly, the quintessential game of naval warfare in fact predates World War I. The game was never patented and remained in the public domain. In 1941, Milton Bradley published the game under the title Broadsides, but in this early edition it remained a pen-and paper game as in its original incarnation. It was simply played out on grid paper, with players drawing in the location of their vessels and checking off hit locations. The game can still be played in this way; it does not require any electronic bells and whistles or fancy plastic pegboards.

The 1967 Milton Bradley edition is likely much more recognizable and it is this printing of the game that established it as a board game rather than a pen-and-paper one. As in most versions of the game that would follow, the set included two folding plastic cases that contained plastic grids. The players would stick their ship miniatures into the lower grid, with red and white pegs used on the vertical part of the board to indicate their hits and misses (thus aiding in the deduction element). Red pegs were also stuck into a player’s ships to track damage.

Later versions would, of course, completely upend the simplicity of the original game. Travel versions, video game implementations, card games, dice games and other games with the Battleship brand have come and gone and come again. Likely, the most popular Battleship variant (and one I remember very, very fondly from my childhood) was an electronic edition that added sound effects, voices and lights. Despite the quite literal bells and whistles, the game remained more or less the same.

And I still don’t see a feature film in it.

Battleship also spawned some other similar designs at Milton Bradley and elsewhere. Perhaps the most interesting was a 1975 title called Tank Battle that combined the deduction elements of the classic Battleship design with some mechanics from Stratego. Moving targets added quite a bit of interest, and as a whole the game was much more strategically compelling and less about simple guesswork. It also isn’t exactly difficult to detect the influence of Battleship in the classic Windows timewaster Minesweeper.

Battleship: Galaxies aims to interest hobby gamers in the time-honored tradition of battleship-sinking.

More recently Hasbro (the current owners of the property) have gotten more creative with Battleship, introducing new concepts such as hex-based grids, rescuing POWs held on islands, layering the game with a Star Wars or G.I. Joe theme, and other frankly quite necessary details to increase modern interest in the game.

Even more radical is Battleship: Galaxies, a newly released game intended for the hobby market that barely resembles its brand namesake at all. It’s a tactical spaceship combat game wherein players track damage and shield strength with those classic pegs, rolling coordinate dice to determine if attacks with ship weapons systems hit or miss their targets. Ship differentiation is much more than just the number of peg holes—each craft has unique weapons and abilities as well as multiple levels of experience that determine their combat effectiveness. The only hidden information is in the decks of action and event cards each player has to try to tip the odds in their favor. Battleship: Galaxies comes packed with a graphic novel depicting a surprisingly detailed back story for the events the game depicts (the “Saturn Offensive” launched by the evil Wretchedarians against the International Space Navy).

Ironically, when we’re talking about aftermarket values, Battleship Galaxies is likely to be the big winner even over the earliest editions of the game. Not only is it a retail heavyweight at $65, it’s also a hobby market product likely to be produced in limited quantities and highly sought after by game players in years to come. The game isn’t available at mainstream retailers, but if it sells well through hobby channels then additional expansions may be released that could also increase in value over time.

A late-1970s Electronic Battleship version. Later editions would add voice once computer memory could handle it.

The current version of Electronic Battleship adds two squadrons of aircraft with air to surface missiles and submarines with sonar search capabilities.

But classic Battleship in all of its previous incarnations is very much a mass market, widely available product and there really aren’t any particularly rare or valuable editions. Even first edition sets are widely available and aren’t uncommon at thrift shops, yard sales or antiques stores, and it’s the sort of item that you might pay anywhere from 50 cents to $20, depending on condition. Electronic versions might fetch slightly higher prices, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable spending more than $20-$25 for a particularly nice version—with working batteries. Even the popular Star Wars-themed versions rarely top $20 and are easy to come by.

But the good news is that like many mass-market games, the real value of Battleship is in playing it with friends and family—not in auction prices or scarcity.

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

An example of a 1935 edition of the game. Note that Mr. Monopoly could not yet afford a top hat.

For most folks, the term “board game” is practically synonymous with Monopoly, the venerable game of real estate ownership patented by Charles Darrow in 1934. The game is a ubiquitous cultural institution, its particular iconography and lexicon including the “Mr. Monopoly” mascot and phrases like “do not pass go, do not collect $200” are recognized the world over. Variations and themed versions featuring everything from college campus landmarks to Star Wars characters have been published and spin-off games such as a stock market expansion and a recent edition that does away with paper money in favor of VISA-branded play debit cards have made the brand tremendously successful. But Monopoly as we know it today was originally something quite different.

Although Mr. Darrow’s name is on the patent, Monopoly is a sort of codified edition of a number of games that predate the filing by as many as 30 years. In 1903-1904, Elizabeth Magie of Illinois designed something called The Landlord’s Game. Interestingly, the game had a distinct political and economic perspective, as Ms. Magie intended for the game to educate players about rent, land ownership and the effect of taxation—specifically reflective of the “single tax” concept promoted by economist Henry George. Early patent images clearly show the origin of the familiar roll-and-move path lined with properties of the more familiar Monopoly board. The game was originally hand-made and passed among friends until it was patented in 1906. Ms. Magie would re-patent the game and republish the game in various forms over the next several years. Ironically enough, Parker Brothers declined to publish the game.

This is the original hand-drawn board for the Landlord Game that Lizzie Magie patented.

Charles Darrow tends to get the credit for designing Monopoly. It was a later version of The Landlord’s Game that he solicited to Parker Brothers in 1934 with that title, and the firm again declined until a year later when they not only bought Darrow’s version of the game but also Magie’s patent on The Landlord Game. George Parker would make several revisions to the design, but most significantly the political context was somewhat lost. What was initially a game warning about the danger of land monopolies became one rewarding rapacious capitalism and exploitation, with fun and fortune-taking center stage over serious agendas or messages. The game was initially published in six different editions, covering a wide range of component qualities and of course, price points. As early as 1936, foreign editions began appearing, including a UK printing overseen by Waddingtons, who would later go on to publish many great English family board games.

Monopoly today remains popular as and its brand is among the most successful in tabletop gaming. Multiple spin-off games including card and dice games with similar mechanics, unofficial add-ons, and novelty knock-offs abound year in and year out. There’s even a feature film in the works with director Ridley Scott attached in some capacity. Monopoly is just about as seminal and important as a board game can possibly be and from a modern gaming perspective its combination of theme, player interaction and economic mechanics were innovative and groundbreaking. However, most hobby-oriented game players today either willfully shun the game for a number of reasons or simply no longer play it in favor of more intricately designed economic games.

A Star Wars Monopoly board circa 1997. There have been numerous Star Wars Monopoly games released and these remain the most popular licensed versions of the game.

As with most board games, this makes evaluating early editions somewhat tricky. No doubt, collectors might highly prize earlier editions of the game or special printings such as a 1991 limited edition of 650 copies that commemorated the final Parker Brothers printing of the game. But actual game players might value even the best examples of vintage copies of the game much lower.

Regardless of how much that 1935 Popular Edition you’ve found in grandma’s attic is worth, Monopoly remains an important game and a fascinating cultural artifact. Beyond its obvious social significance—particularly in reflection of the economic ups and downs the game has seen in its 75 years of print in its most recognizable form—the game is undoubtedly the source of many memories of good times spent with friends and family. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have at least one good Monopoly story.

Examples of the original 1935 Monopoly game can be found in the Worthopedia, selling for between $12 and $30, depending on condition.

So, whether it’s the time somebody’s kid brother landed on Boardwalk without two dimes to rub together so he flipped the board or the time somebody was caught dipping into the bank till, the history of Monopoly isn’t about whether Magie or Darrow should be credited or what the market fluctuation on antique copies shows about its value. It’s a popular history of people getting together to have a fun time making lot of play money while pushing around a metal shoe.

The 2005 modernization of Monopoly with play VISA debit cards reflecting our cashless society

Michael Barnes is a lifelong game player, collector and enthusiast. He has parlayed his passion for games into several successful ventures, including a retail hobby store, two popular gaming Websites, and 10 years of widely read commentary and criticism about both tabletop and video games.

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WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

So what makes that copy of the Avalon Hill “Dune” board game that turned up at an estate sale or the local charity thrift more valuable than a pile of “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” board games from the 1970s?

Dune

There are a number of factors involved in what makes a hobby board game valuable. Being able to identify a worthwhile, desirable board game can empower the dealer to price such an item more appropriately while enabling the buyer to determine if a price is fair or not.

Because most aftermarket hobby-board games are bought to be used as practical, playable items, a few key factors serve to determine value—I call them the “Five Cs” of evaluating a hobby board game’s worth.

• Criticism—Hobbyists are very aware of critical opinion and assessment of hobby games, and certain titles that have a longstanding reputation for quality or design significance, such as “Cosmic Encounter,” “We the People” and “Up Front,” command higher prices than poorly regarded or rarely played titles.

Cosmic Encounter

A simple Internet search for reviews of a particular title will likely provide a good idea if a game is in demand among hobbyists. Most laymen outside of the hobby may be unaware that critical evaluation of board games even exists. Nonetheless, it absolutely behooves appraiser and buyer to understand that games, as an authored medium, command critical attention from those within the hobby community. Simply put—good games are worth more money.

• Commonness—If the game is long out of print, then value naturally increases. Because of the age of many hobby games and the fact that many smaller publishers and boutique manufacturers produced relatively small print runs, some games are extremely rare. Further, if the game was never available domestically, it could carry an even higher value. If the game is seldom seen in online auctions, then it will also tend toward a higher price due to a lack of supply. Exceptionally rare games, such as 3M’s “Jati” or Ludoliere’s “Full Metal Planete,” can command prices upward of $300 based on their extreme rarity alone.

Jati

• Completeness—Most hobbyists will purchase a game with intent to play it, so making sure that every piece is present is essential. That being said, some incomplete but component-dense games, such as Milton Bradley’s early 1990s game “Heroquest,” will often be bought below assumed market value as a “parts set” to complete another incomplete game. Most hobby games will include a manifest of components in their rulebooks with which a prospective buyer or seller can audit its contents and identify any missing components. Component lists and photographs are also widely available on the Internet for most hobby games.

• Condition—Box condition is significant, and since games are principally paper and cardboard, many of the barometers of condition for those materials apply. Cards can be damaged, boards split at the creases and plastic figures broken. Moldy, stained or torn games tend to be valued lower but may still be quite desirable. With the advent of PDF scans and downloadable content, some hobbyists will accept less-than-perfect copies if they can find adequate replacements for damaged components online.

• Currency—Popularity of certain games rises and falls in the hobbyist community. There are a number of factors that drive a game’s relative currency. For example, if at a large game convention, there is widespread play of a game such as “Dune,” then prices at online auctions may spike while availability declines as copies are snatched up by interested parties. Likewise, if a game is the topic of current discussion or debate at one of the online community forums, the value can increase or even decline.

Older game reissues affect value of originals

Currently available or scheduled reprints and reissues of older games also directly affect value as modern publishers have discovered that making older games available again can be quite profitable—but not for those selling the original editions on the secondary market. When Valley Games reissued the highly regarded “Hannibal: Rome Versus Carthage” in 2007, average online prices for the original Avalon Hill edition plummeted from $200 or more down to less than the retail price of the latest edition—$60.

There is a lot of hidden value to be found in the hobby-gaming market. Tapping into it does require a little more research and awareness than typical when valuing an old TV-show board game or an early edition of a popular favorite. It falls on sellers and buyers to become more educated and aware of how this particular niche stands apart from mass-market board games in order to tap into it.

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

What is a licensed board game?

Chances are you’ve seen plenty and probably played several in your time. They’re the board games festooned with characters and imagery from television shows, movies or other entertainment media. Whether it’s “Hopalong Cassidy,” “Dick Tracy,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Fantasy Island,” “Pac-Man,” “Desperate Housewives” or “Disney Princesses,” licensed games have a long history as examples of cross-marketing successful properties into different entertainment formats—often for a quick cash-in on what’s momentarily hot.

Pac-Man

Sadly, most of these games are completely terrible, representing little more than a crass and condescending attempt to milk a couple of extra dollars out of popular trends with little regard to building an interesting or worthwhile game around them. Most of these games are among the simplest, most basic designs possible—roll a die, move a pawn, pick up a card or spin a spinner with appropriate photographic stills or illustrations that attempt to contextualize the crude game play. But does it really make sense for four players to all represent Batman in a “Batman” board game?

Of course, some licensed games can carry significant value for collectors focused on items representing particular characters, shows or films regardless of the quality of play the games offer. But even though I am a huge fan of the films, “The Dark Crystal” and “The Nightmare before Christmas,” I know that their respective board games are total dreck in terms of game play. I do not even want them as collectibles since my gaming dollar would be better spent elsewhere.

However, over the past couple of years, hobby-market publishers, such as Fantasy Flight Games, working outside of mainstream channels have released very successful games based on current and perennially popular licenses. These include “Lord of the Rings,” the “World of Warcraft” video games and the new “Battlestar Galactica” series that are actually great games far removed from the crude game play of the licensed games of the past. I even rated “Battlestar Galactica” one of the best games that I’ve ever played. It is a masterpiece of game design that also happens to be about one of my favorite television shows.

Battlestar Galactica

This current crop of licensed hobby games is not only a great opportunity for fans and collectors of particular properties to extend their enjoyment of them but also represent good investment potential. Licenses will eventually expire meaning that publication of some of these games will cease.

Of these more recent licensed games, in particular titles like Avalon Hill’s “Star Wars Episode I: The Queen’s Gambit” (a much better game than you would ever imagine given the movie) and Fantasy Flight’s recently out-of-print “Marvel Heroes” game based on the exploits of Spider-Man, the X-Men and other favorite comics characters will, I believe, see significant increases in value in the coming years. “Star Wars: Epic Duels,” released by Hasbro in 2002, met with good notices in the hobby community yet was inevitably found on the clearance shelf at most retailers for as little as $5 once the marketing blitz for the second prequel film subsided. Now, secondhand copies of the game pull in between $75 and $100, and with practically no chance for a reprint, those prices will likely remain constant or increase over the next few years.

Star Wars: Epic Duels

Licensed games are a good bet for collectability as long as you are looking at the right ones. Skip the faddish ones you see on the shelves of the major retailers, and look toward the hobby publishers for great games based on great licenses.

Remember that a licensed game from a hobby publisher might see a print run of 10,000 copies compared to the millions of copies that might circulate for a “Monopoly” game with licensed characters. And if you’re a fan of some of these properties, you might find that the biggest return on investment you’ll get from one of these games is a great evening of entertainment with friends, family and fellow enthusiasts.

WorthPoint—Discover Your Hidden Wealth

On Jan. 20, Warlick’s forecast—as well as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of racial unity and reconciliation—will come to fruition as the inauguration of America’s first president of African-American descent is held on the Capitol steps before the eyes of the world. Obama’s unprecedented presidency will resonate throughout history, and undoubtedly, the material evidence of his victory, swearing-in and presidency will be treasured for generations to come.

As the owner, producer and curator of the American Presidential Experience’s InauguralFest and with his store, Political Americana, located literally just down the street from the White House, rest assured that Warlick will be at the center of Tuesday’s events (and the inevitable flood of “Obamabilia”) as an estimated crowd of two to five million will be in Washington, D.C., as Obama takes the oath of office.

Crystal paperweight with 2009 inaugural seal

Presidential memorabilia, like many collectibles, can serve as social barometers and indicators of an ongoing narrative describing the times we lived in, are living in and will live in as the future approaches. It is little wonder, then, that “Obamabilia” speaks to messages of hope and change in a dark economic and geopolitical climate.

Jim Warlick’s work in the political-collectibles field as a retailer and an acknowledged authority has helped to preserve this ongoing narrative. From saving campaign literature in childhood to selling buttons at the 1980 Democratic National Convention and on through the opening of his Political Americana store, Warlick’s involvement with political collecting has been lifelong. He has parlayed his keen understanding of the presidency’s significance into a success measured more in the preservation of America’s political heritage and the extension of the presidential experience to everyday Americans than in sales or personal gratification.

Autographed Obama picture

“I’ve always been a student of American political history,” says Warlick. “Being a part of political campaigns and collecting early American political memorabilia, I’ve learned more about American history than I ever did in school. Collecting and documenting political memorabilia is a great way to preserve American history for future generations to share and learn from.”

Those visiting D.C. next week will have an opportunity to share in Warlick’s passion as part of the larger festivities that will be occurring throughout the nation’s capital not only at his Political Americana and five official souvenir store locations selling inauguration memorabilia, but also at the American Presidential Experience’s InauguralFest. As did visitors to the American Presidential Experience in Denver last August during the Democratic National Convention, those attending InauguralFest will get a hands-on look at three centuries worth of presidential memorabilia and collectibles including scale-model replicas of Air Force One and the Oval Office.

A John-John pose in the Oval Office replica

From an exhibit of First Ladies’ gowns to one of the infamous Florida voting machines that introduced the phrase “hanging chads” to the world, the range of exhibits that Warlick has curated tells not only the story of the American presidency but also of the nation itself—a story that will reach one of its defining climaxes as the son of a white Kansas woman and a black Kenyan man accedes to the most powerful office in the world.

First Ladies' gowns

It is a historic moment in American history, and Jim Warlick will be there as it happens to collect, identify and share the significant artifacts that will capture the spirit of this turning point in our national, cultural and social narrative.

The American Presidential Experience’s InauguralFest is located at the old Washington Convention Site at 1001 H. St. NW Washington, DC (Metro Center subway stop). It is open every day from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Jan. 16 through Jan. 23 and from 9 a.m.-5.p.m. Jan. 24. For tickets and further information, visit the InauguralFest Web site.

The Political Americana store is located at 1331 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. 20004. Four other locations selling official inauguration memorabilia are in Washington, Virginia and Maryland. Visit www.officialsouvenirs.com, www.politicalamericana.com , email info [at] officialsouvenirs [dot] com, or call 202-737-7730 for more information.

Other articles about Jim Warlick and political collectibles:

Jim’s WorthPoint Worthologist profile

Jim’s WorthPoint blogs

Warlick profile by Mark Jaffe

Top Obama collectibles

The American Presidential Experience

WorthPoint at the American Presidential Experience (video)

Jim Warlick’s Political Americana (video)

WorthPoint—Get the Most from Your Antiques & Collectibles

Usually, my treasure hunt ends in disappointment as I excavate a ratty, worn-out copy of Trivial Pursuit or an antediluvian edition of Clue with the lead pipe missing. I’m not looking for a board game based on the “Mork & Mindy” TV show, and I’m not in the market for novelty games themed after the fads and trends of decades past—I think I’ll pass on that copy of MC Hammer’s Rap-a-Round, thank you. And no, I don’t particularly care how old that copy of Scrabble is, either.

I am a hobby gamer. I play and write about games, both as a hobby and professionally, and many in the antiques-and-collectibles business might be shocked to hear me say that a lot of the board games I find in their shops are practically worthless to anyone with a serious interest in board games.

3M edition of Acquire

Sure, character-themed games may carry value to certain collectors. Examples of particular rarity or significance might tickle the fancy of someone interested in purchasing a game to stow away in a display case. But the kinds of games other hobby gamers and I are casting the dragnet for are those that we’re actually interested in playing—chiefly nonmainstream strategy games and war games from the 1970s and 1980s. Most of them you’ve probably never heard of, but in the board-gaming community, the arcane might turn out to be the mundane.

Dungeon

There’s no telling how many hobby games have been sold at antiques dealers and secondhand shops for well under their actual value. It was just recently I bought a copy of Dungeon, a 1980 Dungeons and Dragons-style board game, for five bucks at a local antiques shop. The game regularly sells for $50 to $75 in hobby circles and in online auctions.

A friend answered an online classified ad posted by an antiques collector who had gotten his hands on a lot that included several boxes of board games. He was giving them away. My friend picked them up and aside from the almost-condition copy of Dark Tower, an electronic board game from the early 1980s that regularly fetches upward of $200 from hobbyists, the lot included at least $1,000 worth of exceptionally rare war games from classic publishers such as Avalon Hill and SPI. The guy simply thought they were worthless.

Dark Tower

Dark Tower laid out

I have also seen the flip side of the coin where sellers will price older games at outrageous prices seemingly founded solely on the vintage of the item. Last week, I was in a local antiques mall where a dealer had a copy of the 3M-edition of Acquire—a common (but great) game that can be found for around $10 easily. The dealer had it stickered at $60.

Just because a game is old doesn’t mean it is in demand, rare or worth anything to a hobby gamer. Good games do tend to be worth more to players, and that is often reflected in market prices. Of course, finding out what those good games are can be an odyssey into esotericism just as in any other collectibles market.

There is definitely a market for collectible, out-of-print hobby games—I know because I’m part of it. But in order for the uninitiated to assess value properly and to identify trash from treasure, it does require a little research work. A simple survey of online board-games sources and public auction sites might reveal some shockers in terms of value. You may be surprised when that box of games that your nerdy brother used to keep in the closet turns out to be a treasure chest.

WorthPoint—Get the Most from Your Antiques & Collectibles