Dead Men Play No Games
I mentioned in my previous blog Hawk and I visited our friend, D, today. D is recovering from the loss of his husband a few weeks ago. He's at the point now where he's having to deal with a number of logistical tasks stemming from the loss. We visited not just to support him emotionally as friends but also because he asked us to help on two of those tasks, deciding what to do with Del's collections of comics and board games.
At the outset of the work I asked D about his priorities. Did he want to maximize value by selling things, or did he want to get them out of the house asap? D said he didn't have much patience for advertising and selling, that he'd rather just get rid of it, but that he'd like to know a few things are valuable and could be sold in bulk to a dealer. We agreed that was a good approach.
What surprised us even partway through a few hours of work was how much value was sitting in Del's hoard left behind.
It turns out Del had 32 short boxes of comics. As we were pulling them out of the closet for triage it was more than D realized had been lodged in there for several years. A short box holds about 100 comics, bagged and boarded (2x without), so his collection was about 2,500 issues since the boxes weren't all full.
The comics turned out to be mostly worthless. Hawk triaged through several boxes and found only a few issues that have any resale value. D then recalled that Del admitted he sold off all his high-value comics ~10 years ago when he needed the money. So the thousands of issues left are worth maybe $300 to a wholesaler.
I wouldn't call Del a hoarder but he had a related weakness, buying too much stuff. His comics were things he accumulated years ago. Games are what he'd been going on a buying spree in the past few years on. He has about 100 boxed games, many of them still shrinkwrapped.
I recommended to D that we create an inventory spreadsheet for the games. It was a simple thing, at least for people who know Excel (like all three of us do). Three columns: name, condition, estimated value. Condition we judged with standard grades like "New in Box" and "Like New". Value we figured by finding comparable sales on BoardGameGeek, eBay, and Amazon. We knew this would help in negotiating with dealers for a bulk sale.
As we got even partway through inventorying the games we realized Del's game hoard was a treasure hoard. The games are almost all boxed sets, more than half of them in totally new condition (original shrinkwrap intact). Many of the remainder are in like-new condition, with the box open but the cards and pieces inside still in their wrappers. Only a few games, out of ~100, are in what I affectionately call... "well loved"... condition. And most of these are pricey, high-quality games. Several are rare or special editions. A few games are worth hundreds of dollars each in new condition. Many of the rest are worth around $50 each. We didn't finish inventorying everything today but it's obvious that by the time we do, Del's game hoard will be worth well over $5,000.
D was impressed with the collection's value. Even selling them to a dealer at half price would net him over $2,500 cash, waaay more than he was expecting it to be worth. He thought he'd be donating it all to charity and taking a tax writeoff of a few hundred dollars.
I found the size of Del's collection a sad thing. It's sad because it was left behind, so much of it unused. I related that through a story about my grandma, "Bea".
Grandma Bea loved writing letters long-hand. She'd write to her brother, her kids, her nephews, and her grandkids regularly. She wrote to pen-pals around the US and overseas for 60 years.
Because family and friends knew how much she liked to write they bought her fine stationary and pens as gifts. Bea tucked those away in a cabinet down in the basement, wanting to save them for a suitably special use. She saved them for years.
When Bea's kids had to sell her house (she was in a bad accident at age 88 and needed to move in with someone to take care of her daily) they found her stash of beautiful stationary and pens. It looked like it had been untouched for decades. No special-enough special occasion had come around to use them. All those thoughtful gifts, those things Bea could have enjoyed using for years, went into the trash, unused.
The unopened boxes in Del's collection make me sad in the same way as Grandma Bea's unused stationary. He bought them but never experienced their joy. Dead men play no games.
At the outset of the work I asked D about his priorities. Did he want to maximize value by selling things, or did he want to get them out of the house asap? D said he didn't have much patience for advertising and selling, that he'd rather just get rid of it, but that he'd like to know a few things are valuable and could be sold in bulk to a dealer. We agreed that was a good approach.
What surprised us even partway through a few hours of work was how much value was sitting in Del's hoard left behind.
It turns out Del had 32 short boxes of comics. As we were pulling them out of the closet for triage it was more than D realized had been lodged in there for several years. A short box holds about 100 comics, bagged and boarded (2x without), so his collection was about 2,500 issues since the boxes weren't all full.
The comics turned out to be mostly worthless. Hawk triaged through several boxes and found only a few issues that have any resale value. D then recalled that Del admitted he sold off all his high-value comics ~10 years ago when he needed the money. So the thousands of issues left are worth maybe $300 to a wholesaler.
I wouldn't call Del a hoarder but he had a related weakness, buying too much stuff. His comics were things he accumulated years ago. Games are what he'd been going on a buying spree in the past few years on. He has about 100 boxed games, many of them still shrinkwrapped.
I recommended to D that we create an inventory spreadsheet for the games. It was a simple thing, at least for people who know Excel (like all three of us do). Three columns: name, condition, estimated value. Condition we judged with standard grades like "New in Box" and "Like New". Value we figured by finding comparable sales on BoardGameGeek, eBay, and Amazon. We knew this would help in negotiating with dealers for a bulk sale.
As we got even partway through inventorying the games we realized Del's game hoard was a treasure hoard. The games are almost all boxed sets, more than half of them in totally new condition (original shrinkwrap intact). Many of the remainder are in like-new condition, with the box open but the cards and pieces inside still in their wrappers. Only a few games, out of ~100, are in what I affectionately call... "well loved"... condition. And most of these are pricey, high-quality games. Several are rare or special editions. A few games are worth hundreds of dollars each in new condition. Many of the rest are worth around $50 each. We didn't finish inventorying everything today but it's obvious that by the time we do, Del's game hoard will be worth well over $5,000.
D was impressed with the collection's value. Even selling them to a dealer at half price would net him over $2,500 cash, waaay more than he was expecting it to be worth. He thought he'd be donating it all to charity and taking a tax writeoff of a few hundred dollars.
I found the size of Del's collection a sad thing. It's sad because it was left behind, so much of it unused. I related that through a story about my grandma, "Bea".
Grandma Bea loved writing letters long-hand. She'd write to her brother, her kids, her nephews, and her grandkids regularly. She wrote to pen-pals around the US and overseas for 60 years.
Because family and friends knew how much she liked to write they bought her fine stationary and pens as gifts. Bea tucked those away in a cabinet down in the basement, wanting to save them for a suitably special use. She saved them for years.
When Bea's kids had to sell her house (she was in a bad accident at age 88 and needed to move in with someone to take care of her daily) they found her stash of beautiful stationary and pens. It looked like it had been untouched for decades. No special-enough special occasion had come around to use them. All those thoughtful gifts, those things Bea could have enjoyed using for years, went into the trash, unused.
The unopened boxes in Del's collection make me sad in the same way as Grandma Bea's unused stationary. He bought them but never experienced their joy. Dead men play no games.