TOPIC: Price of Gold at GenCon (question)

I was looking through Ebay and could not find any trades selling gold in the last month.<br /><br />So what do you think the cash price for gold at GenCon?<br /><br />(I am most interested in the prices quoted by people who will be selling gold in the dealers hall, both your buy and sell prices).<br /><br />The crash in the cash prices of UR and Rare items on Ebay is leaving me confuse on how much gold I should be charging for items at GenCon. 

While I'm not in any position to speculate on the price of gold at the con, I did want to comment on the EBay thing.<br /><br />I'm not convinced there is any "crash" in the price of UR items on ebay that can't be explained through some basic data-mining.<br /><br />The only real surprise I found in a check of every UR ebayed in the last 2 weeks was a Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, selling for $107.51 as part of a larger collection. This item, however, was not mentioned in the name of the listing, nor was "ultra-rare" included anywhere in the entire listing. The token name was hidden in an internal description and not trumpeted as it should have been, so was likely overlooked by the majority of searchers. By my assessment, this was an absolute steal. The girdle by itself should have commanded more than this entire collection did, but it was very poorly listed.<br /><br />A +2 Longsword not selling, posted at $99, isn't overly suprising. While I love my +2 Longsword, the weapon is very unimpressive by purple standards. It has no special powers, and no flair to it at all. It is for all practical purposes, a normal longsword that's +2 to hit/damage. People willing to dump money in to a purple weapon on ebay will seek a fancier weapon than this, if they don't just PYP one in their token-buy. Also, by the auction being started at $99, it discouraged bid wars. EBay bidders will pay the same or more for an item that started low than one that started high (illogical but true). Suffice to say, an attempt to sell a second one straight-up at $139.99 also failed.<br /><br />This fact is demonstrated by the two Horns of Plenty listed in non-store auction in the last 2 weeks. One that was bid up to $218.03 with 11 bids, and one that went unsold at $222 asking price. Would the person who bid $218.03 have been willing to pay $222 in normal bidding? Yes, I'm sure of it, but starting that high discourages bidders (and it doesn't help that the seller was a bit of a tool, and started by trying to sell 4 for like $1200). The same merchant who attempted the $139.99 +2 Longsword also tried $149.99 for a +1 Mithral Longsword and a +1 Might Long Bow. These are prices that could possibly be achieved, IF a real bidding auction was attempted instead of a high start price. Nobody wants to plunk down that money if they don't need to. Same for +1 Broadsword of Lifestealing ($129.99) and +1 Tower Shield ($144.99), unsold at achievable prices.<br /><br />Troll Hide Armor sold for $73.35, not a bad price, and one I might be willing to pay if I was feeling rich. Problem is, only one class needs Troll Hide Armor. Everybody but the Barbarian has better armor available to them (in several cases green or red armor, even), and if in the market for purp, will probably pursue better solutions. This price for an item only one class needs isn't bad. What is bad is the previously mentioned unsuccessful seller trying to BIN another of these for $125, double the price on the open market.<br /><br />The Ring of Focus at $61.01 was our lowball Purp of the last couple weeks.  Let's be honest though, it isn't that great! While it's nice to get 1 extra point on healing or damage, there are half a dozen rings that will probably be more valuable to you and your party on a dungeon run. If this one point makes the difference for you in the dungeon, you're probably not in the market for ebay purple.<br /><br />The Ring of Wizardry, at a healthy $96 even, demonstrates the market for a useful ring. This ring turns misses in to hits, and instead of adding just 1 point, can actually double damage on some of the most powerful spells in game. Why does it not command a higher price? It's a single class item, not just in terms of need, but even in terms of capability of using it. ONLY a wizard can use this, and that's a limited market. The same person with all the unsold high-price weapons mentioned earlier got a bit greedy and tried to BIN one of these rings at $125, and failed. Also running afoul of the "single class usability" curse was a Widseth's Mystical Lute, unsold at $139.99. Even for something as cool as this ring or the lute, these prices are too high when you can PYP one at $250, and get 300 other tokens to boot.<br /><br />An Amulet of Wonder joined its earlier unsold companions by being posted with a $149.99 BIN asking price. This amulet, while very cool, has limited appeal. Why? Because after this year, it will be a hard sell to use this against a Medallion of Greyhawk for players used to purp-monstering, or a Horn of Plenty for those on easy runs. Amulets are now overflowing with awesomeness, and without knowing its future effects, this is a risky investment at a high starting price. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Facts:<br /><br />- Every unsold item, except the Horn of Plenty, is something that was available in this year's run as a PYP.<br /><br />- The items sold for the lowest prices were of limited utility or usability.<br /><br />- Every item that was unsold, even in what might otherwise be an acceptable price range, was posted with a high starting price. It has been demonstrated repeatedly, and EBay will be all to happy to provide the research, that high starting prices discourage any bids whatsoever.<br /><br /><br />Speculation:<br /><br />- This close to the convention, with the economy doing what it is, peoples' gaming dollars are being spent on getting to the convention and buying tickets, or paying for hotels, food, and game materials once there. Splurging on something like a purple is therefore limited.<br /><br />- The increase in items with specific class restrictions chokes the market on more widely usable, less powerful items, by creating specialists who just PYP what they need.<br /><br /><br />Suggestion:<br /><br />- High prices will be achieved by selling something with A) wide usability, high utility, and C) a low starting price to encourage bids. The Horn of Plenty is a perfect example. It is usable by all classes, has undeniable utility for any player in any group, and started at 99 cents, selling in the end for well over $200. 

Evan,<br />    Your post here has to be one of the best written that I've seen in a while.  I like how you made your points.<br /><br />Kim

It might be nicely organized, but it's still a loser as far as the argument itself goes. There's no question at all that current year URs are going for less (far less) than last year's current printing. Even without the HoP skew, it's a clear difference. Dragonscale armor, +1 plate, purp ioun stone, and nightshades all easily made it up to 180-200. Has anyone seen a single purp of this year's print break the 150 level? If one has, I'll wager anything it was early, early in the season before prices were really established. Resale year to year has also dropped for URs. Take the dragonscale armor. It sold for upwards of $200 _last_ year at auction. You would think it could only be more valuable this year as it's OoP and yet the only sale I recall pegged it at 130. Plate +1 also hit $200 last year after it was announced it wasn't returning this year yet the auctions for it have hit $150 and that's it. It's just not possible to argue there hasn't been a dip.

I agree that it is clear that PURP prices have really dropped.  Henwy is right that last year PURPs were typically going for $150-$200 each, and now the price of PURPs is much more in the $60-$70 range, with some less than that.  I know that multiple Girdles of Hill Giant Strength sold this year in the $60-$70 range (and I bought a couple at that price) and last year Girdles were easily $200 or more - and in 2006 they would have probably been $300 or more if anyone had ever been willing to offer one for sale.  It is inevitable that prices are dropping.  <br /><br />In 2004 PURPs were only handed out to volunteers (Rings of Regeneration), in 2005 they were only available in dungeons as treasure, in 2006 they were available in dungeons as treasure and as 00 bags with tokens, and starting in 2007 they were available in dungeons, available as 00 bags, and also available as PYP tokens with one PURP for every $250 sent.  That pretty much quadrupled the number of PURPs available, and that massively increased supply had to result in lower prices, especially when you figure in the fact that many people are getting multiples of the top PURPs as their PYPs to resell or trade.  <br /><br />The other factor to consider is that the supply of PURPs is cumulative over the years.  Each year the total number of PURPs in the system is growing significantly since the PURPs released that year are added to all the PURPs released in all previous years, and that ever-growing supply of PURPs will continue to lower the price of PURPs.  <br /><br />That massive increase in PURP availability is also one main reason the prices of Rares has plummeted as well.  In 2005 and 2006, it was nearly impossible to get PURPs, so there was quite a demand for top Rares to outfit characters (+1 Weapons, Magic Armor, etc).  Now, many people are outfitting themselves with PURPs instead of Rares, so the demand for Rares has really dropped.  And of course the supply of non-consumable Rares (except a few high-demand out of print ones) is so high after 6 years of token distribution the market is totally glutted.  A couple of years ago tokens like Plate Armor, Gauntlets of Ogre Might, and even +1 Weapons would easily sell for $15-$20 and get an equivalent amount in trade, now you can find them for sale for a dollar or two, and lots of people have LOTS of extras for trade.  I would imagine the situation will just get worse as the years go on, unless TD can figure out a way to get a lot of the supply out of the market. 

Maybe TD will do a trade item for Rares in the future? Like 25 plate armor for liquid steel and 25 chain lighting scrolls for "electric resistant grease", then in turn the following year need both of those along with oil of enchantment to create a +1 plate armor resistant to electricity. <br /><br />Simply said, there are so many items out there and one can only use a few so they don't need all of them. An example are rings, you can only use two but there are about 18 to choose from.  An temporary fix would be to create more slots, like earrings, glasses, etc.<br /><br />What I would really like to see is more trade items. I am guessing that eventually there will be enough TD tokens to equip my DnD games at home (of which I am partially doing now). 

I think there are several ways to help stop the erosion of prices and values of tokens.  One would be to make sure each year has mostly new Ultra-Rares & Rares, except for the "evergreen" consumables like healing and resurrection tokens.  <br /><br />Another would be to create more Trade tokens, like one that takes 25 Rare Armors, one that takes 25 Rare Weapons, maybe one that takes Rare Scrolls and another that takes Rare Potions.  If those were used in top Combo Tokens like great 3 and 4 Combo items, it could really drive up value and get a lot of them out of the marketplace.<br /><br />My favorite "out of the box" idea would be for TD to assign a GP value to all the tokens that have surplus (like for instance 150 GP for Rare Weapons) and allow those to be traded in for GP Reserve Tokens.  It would be easy to justify flavor-wise, TD could just say that there is a fictional trader paying GP for all those items.  If that had been done this year, and then the 2004 Complete set had been advertised (along with the other great items in the auction), I'll bet that there would be massive trade-ins of all of these surplus items for GP Reserve Tokens so that people could get as much treasure as possible for the auctions, and that would get a bunch of the surplus out of distribution, and the Reserve Tokens would be largely traded in at auctions.  <br /><br />If the GP Reserve Tokens that were obtained from non-GP/Gems were printed on PLAT tokens instead of GP tokens, that would be a whole extra set of Reserve Tokens for collectors to get - getting even more of the surplus items off the street. 

I totally agree with Mike.  Some of the tokens which have been around a while really need to be rotated out of the next year's token set.  <br />Let the secondary trade market support getting those into the hands of the newer players who need them and put stuff in next year's set that will appeal to the big token buyers.  If something like this isn't done, I think that there may be a revenue drop as collectors curtail their purchases when the secondary market for tokens dries up.  It's always possible to rotate a really popular token back into the collection in a couple of years, but for now stuff like Full Plate and Half Plate need to be sidelined.<br /><br />I would LOVE to see next year be a completely different set of tokens from what we've seen before.  That's one thing I really liked about the Orcish items this year.  Many of them had similar (or identical) effects to existing items, but they have a different flavor and are a unique token from the ones from previous years.  <br /><br />I also think it would be a good idea to skew toward more consumables (one shot or multi shot items).  While they don't have the value or desirability of a perpetual item, they don't hang around in the marketplace as much from year to year because the dungeon eats them.  <br /><br />I'd also love to see more trade items as well as see something done with this years' (which will encourage people to participate in the trade-in).  In addition to the ones Mike mentioned, I'd REALLY like to see a common gear trade item.  I'd also love to see a trade item for common scolls. <br /><br />Finally, keep on bringing the combo items.  Perhaps consider even expanding this program .  It is a GREAT way to pull tokens out of circulation while giving the players some really interesting items to work with.  I realize that currently this is partially limited by Dave's schedule at the con... perhaps he needs an assistant.  This is one of those areas where I'd definitely consider volunteering because it doesn't give away any dungeon secrets. <br /><br />

I agree completely that trade tokens for common gear and common scrolls would be great!

I think having a Rares trade-in would not work too well because how many of you out there actually have 25+ rares that you are willing to cash in for a trade item that MAY be an ingredient for a combo token that you will want down the road?<br /><br />And would those combos be worth printing up when only maybe 10 people can even produce the tokens to trade for them?  They'd have to be some pretty powerful items if you are going to be trading in 50+ rares to create them?  Do we really want anything that broken to exist in TD?

It seems that many are discounting the Reasoning that Evan brought up as to why the "value" of Purps is dropping.  I think the downturn in the economy has played a much larger role that has been stated thus far.  I don't disagree with Mike's staement that, as more of them are made, their rarity, and therefore value drops.  I simply the think the economics of it are a Big part of it.  Personally I'm suprised that more collectors aren't happy about it.  Dropping prices, increasing supply ( of many) should make it easier to collect sets, and the sought after tokens with high playability.  It also discourgaes the e-bay token market, in favor of the the Standard Trade market.

<br /><br />And would those combos be worth printing up when only maybe 10 people can even produce the tokens to trade for them?  They'd have to be some pretty powerful items if you are going to be trading in 50+ rares to create them?   Do we really want anything that broken to exist in TD?<br />

<br /><br />Jammie,<br />    The items would not necessarily need to be powerful.  They would just need to be super-duper rare.