Why are vintage board games worth money?

I have quite a few vintage board games that I'm selling on a thrift sale. I searched on ebay and noticed they were getting expensive - why is this?Why are vintage board games worth money?
There are two main factors that drive pricing in the collectibles market. The primary one is availability. Games, particular older games, were considered "child's play" and so when your kid grew up, the games were thrown out, yard saled, etc. Supply diminishes. Games take a lot of abuse from young kids, and so games with any kind of potentially breakable components, most likely had broken components. A broken toy tends to end up in the bin, and supply decreases even more. So, now you've got a market where certain items are in very limited supply.



The second driving factor in all collectibles, and particularly the board game market, is memory. A game that you played as a child, summers at the beach house, etc. So, for the majority of nostalgia collectors, games which were readily available growing up are the target for collection.



Mainstream board games finally started to grow beyond the standards (Monopoly, Life, Risk, etc) in the mid-70's. All those kids who grew up in an era where there was a much wider variety of board games available are now hitting their late 30's, early 40's. They have money to spend, and often kids of their own that they want to share those positive gaming memories with. Decreased supply + increased demand = increased value.
They same reason anything is worth money: because people are willing to buy them.Why are vintage board games worth money?
Probably because there aren't many of them around anymore. Pieces get lost so people toss the game. Kids abuse them,etc. If you have an old game with all the pieces it is probably pretty rare.
If the games you are trying to sell are no longer in print and people are interested in playing them, they are more valuable than not. Some games have limited print runs which makes them rare and some editions of some games (for example one of the various versions of monopoly) were more popular than others.



Gamers are a funny breed. They have definite opinions about what they like and what they don't like and they are willing to pay for it.



Barbara Trumpinski-Roberts

Circulation Supervisor, Funk Aces Library

University of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignWhy are vintage board games worth money?
Law of supply and demand.