The Mystery of Book Prices

[Grytorm]

Does anyone know why D&D books bought online have such wildly varying prices? On Amazon.com some Eberron books cost around $2, and Complete Divine costs around $100.

[AslanCross]

I'm curious about this as well. Some people say it should be cheap because it's obsolete, while others give such a huge markup because it's out of print.

[teslas]

Our group's main DM has recently purchased all of the 3.0 and 3.5 books. Let me rephrase that. He bought all of them. I am not sure at the total cost, so I'm not going to bastardize it with a flimsy guess, but it actually wasn't that bad. That bad being over 25$ a book.

He found that some books, when bought in collections, could average 15$ (tax, tags, and title) a book. He even found some for mere dollars on auctions that slipped underneath the radar. While others, namely the spell compendium, was always costly. You're lucky to get that one under 45$.

It's a mixture of how desirable they are, how desirable sellers think they are, and how lucky you get with how much time you put into finding them. Amazon should not be your first stop.

Beware of shipping.

Expect to get doubles because you'll likely be buying books in sets. I got a Draconomicon for christmas because he got doubles :D. You can even resell books you get multiple copies of for only a small loss or even small gains. Another person in our group is going to buy a few from him, too.

Definitely check out eBay as your main source. Many, many nerds sell their books when they realize they've no time for D&D anymore... or maybe they just need rent money. Nerds tend to take special care of these books, so worrying about damage is surprisingly, at least for us, nearly a non-issue.

edit- wurds is hard

[sonofzeal]

Does anyone know why D&D books bought online have such wildly varying prices? On Amazon.com some Eberron books cost around $2, and Complete Divine costs around $100.

If you check nerdy stores that sell gaming books and they still have 3.5 kicking around, I find that at least 80% of what they still have is Eberron. Most of it came out towards the end, was of relatively limited popularity due to being setting-specific, and was likely over-produced to boot. So I'm not surprised that Eberron books are considerably cheaper online, since they're so much easier to find lying around gaming stores. Supply and demand, you know?

[AslanCross]

Setting-specific books are also the last to sell here in the Philippines. There's still a whole bunch of copies of the Explorer's Handbook and Five Nations in stores. My FLGS also has some Faerun books (Champions of Valor, Champions of Ruin, and Shining South) and a few Races books.

They're all selling at 60% off. (I got most of my books at 60% off, actually)

[raitalin]

Its a case of supply and demand, mostly demand in this case as the variations in print runs for D&D books isn't huge.

Yeah, Eberron books are the cheapest, since it's setting specific and the books (especially the ones you see for cheap) are mostly fluff.

The other books mostly get their prices based on a combination of 1) Print run: Core is generally cheap since it was printed so much more, but the prices of PHBs have risen as people wear theirs out and the PHB is the book most commonly bought by every member of a group. 2) Range of uses. SpC and MiC are some of the most expensive books and will likely continue to rise in price, since they are valuable to most players and all DMs and it can be beneficial to have more than one in a group. The Completes generally fetch prices from 20-50, more if the content can be applied to a broad range of classes (Scoundrel, Divine).

In the case of Complete Divine specifically
-Its an older 3.5 book, one of the first after the update.
-It has some notable "stars" (DMM, RSoP, Channeling Feats)
-It has something for every class (though not much for skill monkeys)

[SimperingToad]

Supply and demand only goes so far. Some things are genuinely rare, while other books and bits which maybe had 50-100 thousand copies or more made are listing as BINs 2, 3, 4 or more times higher than S&D would place them. Why?

In some cases, there are the resellers. While everyone would like to get a cheap book, the reseller has to make a profit to stay in business. Most of the time, the prices they set are high, but more often than not still fairly reasonable, maybe double or so, give or take depending on condition.

Then there are the clueless. Everyone would like to get near cover price for a book they only used once or twice. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. Just ask anyone who tried reselling their car after six months how quickly depreciation sets in.

Then there are the alternate clueless that think just because something is out of print means instant collectible. That generally applies to items that had small print runs, or at least a smaller run than the demand.

Then there are those that follow the P.T. Barnum method to success: There's a sucker born every minute. You may often see them state "Rare", "Highly Collectible", or throw some other phrase your way followed by multiple exclamation points, flashing lights and dazzling colors in overlarge fonts. In some cases, they may be correct about the item in question, but it's still hype. Four, five, ten times or more the hype even for a collectible.

Best to do some research on pricing before buying.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I'm also sure someone else will cover me.

[Eldan]

I, on the other hand, acquired Planescape books at five dollars a piece on Ebay.

Yes, it's strange. Some times the boxed sets go away for over 200 dollars, then they go down to ten. 3.5 books should at least be around in larger numbers, but I still can't really explain it.

[turkishproverb]

3.5 Fluctuates in price a bit too.

[Yora]

I, on the other hand, acquired Planescape books at five dollars a piece on Ebay.

WHAT?!

Isn't the planescape stuff that one that went for 120€ on average a few years ago?!

I was at my families over christmas, and the local store still has all SW Saga books. Except for KotOR, I bought that one last year. (Too bad I switched to generic class-less systems, it would have been an opportunity.)

[Eldan]

WHAT?!

Isn't the planescape stuff that one that went for 120€ on average a few years ago?!

I was at my families over christmas, and the local store still has all SW Saga books. Except for KotOR, I bought that one last year. (Too bad I switched to generic class-less systems, it would have been an opportunity.)

Yup My personal christmas gift to myself.

I got the Monstrous Compendium II, Into the Abyss, Uncaged: Faces of Sigil for about 100$, with express shipping from the US.

Ray Vallese, one of the original authors, was selling his personal collection. Sadly, I didn't get his personal, signed copy of Uncaged (he wrote it, alone), but open from a different seller a few days later.


I think I should post a few pictures to further flaunt my victory, but then I would feel mean. I always wanted real Planescape books.