So, I was looking through my gaming books this weekend and I started to realize just what I had. Not counting magazines, I have over 300 titles. Most of them are in good shape, a few are signed, and most of them are out of print. Then I got to thinking about what a bummer it would be to lose them to a fire, flood, or burglary. I can't imagine that my insurance company would give me replacement value, never mind that a few items are pretty much irreplaceable. And to top it off, the collection is growing continually, and the number of out-of-print titles is slowly increasing. I do have a complete (I think) inventory that I keep updated and off-site, but it's mostly just a list of titles (no condition info, or price paid).
Has anybody else considered insuring their game book collection? How do insurance companies deal with moving target collections like this (I assume the closest analogy would be comic books)? How would one establish a value for such a collection (it's not like our hobby has an Overstreet guide... does it)?
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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If you want to insure something as a collectible -- a white box 5th edition D&D, for example -- probably best to state it up front. In most cases, I doubt it would require the insurer to have an appraisal done as it will still be below the line for what they will insure without an appraisal. (I'm just going by what my insurer told me when I asked them the same question a few weeks ago.)
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Two good tricks....
1) ISBN + Amazon = Current value.
2) Photograph the bookshelves, and then the covers of things that are special, and then the autographs inside them. Make sure the shelf photgraph is good enough you can read spines.
Now, you can work out how much it's all worth, sensibly, and then any really special items, you can state as specifically insured items.
If you ever need to claim, you have evidence you are not pulling a fast one.
No, I haven't gotten around to actually doing it yet ;)