After buying and selling board and role-playing games for 25 years and hawking his wares at shows around the country, the retired policeman is selling his personal collection — for $150,000.

Fonarow’s 20,000 games — from one-of-a-kind collector’s items to out-of-print rarities — is being snatched up by board and role-playing game Internet retailer TrollandToad.com, based in Barbourville, Ky.

TrollandToad.com spokesman Ryan Severin says the acquisition is the largest in the company’s 17 years of doing business. It has 75 employees and had sales of $5 million last year.

Interesting.  He is getting an average of $7.50 a game - not exactly a fortune.  If that photo is representative, he’s got some real value there: Conquest of the Empire, several copies of the original MB Shogun, several copies of many games in the MB American Heritage series (Dogfight, Skirmish), early editions of Risk with wood cubes, Borg’s Battle Cry.  I sure hope he understood what he was selling.

It’s also ironic that he sold to Troll & Toad in Kentucky when Funagain was in his home state.

It says Troll & Toad has 75! employees with $5 million in sales.  I had no idea that their operation was so big.

Jonathan, Fonarow could undoubtedly have gotten much more for his games if he sold them off piecemeal, but that adds a lot of hassle and handling to the process, which might not make it worthwhile.

Back in my comic store managing days, we bought the most abused collection of Golden Age comics I’ve ever seen for a few hundred dollars. We sold off a few pieces to local collectors, then turned the whole thing around to a flea market dealer for $1,000, who then sold it for $2,000 to a dealer somewhere else. Sure, we could have made more on the collection, but we lacked the connections that these people did.

(By the way, I still own the first Carl Barks Donald Duck, which was included in this collection. The cover and interior edges are covered with black tape, and the former owner wrote notes with black marker on multiple pages, including one that says, “First Carl Barks!” As awful as its condition is, it still doesn’t match the comic in which each page had been covered with tape and the binding had been reworked to include a dowel. I wish I had kept that comic for the sheer oddity of it!)

Eric

Troll and Toad sent out a press release that included the following details:

“This collection includes many unique items such as handmade play test kits (the initial design of a game before it is actually made), the first or second actual copy of some games, signed games, games from the personal collection of Charles Roberts (founder of Avalon Hill), games with only 2-5 known copies in the world, and shrink-wrapped perfect copies of some of the most valuable board games in the world.

“Some notable game series include: SPI games, GDW, Avalon Hill, TSR, Chaosium and many other classic lines.  The collection also includes rare magazines dating back over the past 30 years including Dragon Magazine, International Wargamer, General Magazine, Panzerfaust and Strategy and Tactics Magazine to highlight a few. 

“The collection itself is approximately 3500 cubic feet, and is filling two, 28 foot tractor trailers.  The Fonarow Collection will be shipped from Oregon to Kentucky in mid May and will take an estimated 3-4 months to verify, grade, inventory and list for sale all of the items.”

Concerning the $7.50 average price per game… Although Fonarow may have some valuable games, the reality of the situation is that the majority of the games in his collection are probably not worth anything.  Unless they are all war games, In 20,000 games it’s hard to envision more than a few hundred having any real worth.  I got rid of a couple hundred war games from the 1970s to present and sold them for an average of $20 each.  However, I am now getting rid of the kids games and most get no attention at all (even some of the rarities from the 1960s)--at least the local thrift stores are getting some stock from me.  Extrapolating to my whole collection of 5000 games, even with the clear winners, I doubt if I could do better than $4 per game.  I think Mr. Fonarow made out very well indeed (until the IRS gets ahold of him).

"until the IRS gets ahold of him”

I’m sure this was intended as a flip comment and I really don’t know the rules involved, but I wonder if he’ll owe anything?  Surely, he spent more for these games than he wound up getting for them.

The IRS will want their cut.  Excepting this year, I have sold about $1000 worth of games per year and declare it under Hobby Income, though I do deduct the original cost of the games.  Certainly I would never have to declare it because there’s no way to follow that small amount of money.  However, $150,000 will be hard to hide.

Well, Greg, I’m just assuming that Fonarow spent more than $7.50 a game assembling his collection.  If he sold the games for a net loss, he wouldn’t owe any taxes, would he?  This assumes that he kept records on how much he spent for his games, of course.

It depends on whether he went the garage sale route or bought them retail.  Mine were all garage sale/rummage sale finds that cost me $1 or $2 each.  However, games from the past 10 years I bought at retail.  I’d better start thinking about some record keeping should I decide to divest my stuff in bulk.

If I’m reading some Board Game Geek comments correctly, Ken Fonorow was a part time dealer, who quit the business a few years ago.  So I think much of this is remainder inventory.  If so, he absolutely has an understanding of the value of the inventory.  I’m inclined to agree with Greg that there are many valuable games but an avalanche of garbage, and so the “average” value is not all that meaningful.