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From a collector's point of view, what is the most valuable wargame published by Avalon Hill?
I'm not interested so much in prices as in knowing if there's a "Holy Grail" in Avalon Hill's wargames catalog before the Hasbro purchase.
I looked in eBay listings and BoardGameGeek, but not being all wargames available for sale, it's hard to get the whole picture.
Prices vary somewhat naturally, especially if you find a motivated seller, or desparate buyer! In general, prices are pretty stable and slowly creep up over time. A reprint can drop prices quickly, but most of the below have difficult rights situations and are unlikely to see full reprints (AoR had a foreign release a while ago).
Games are valuable if they are still played, or weren't printed in enough quantity, preferably both....
Currently, my top 5:
Of course, it all depends upon definitions... This article claims that to go "all in" on Advanced Squad Leader, you need to drop $3200. But, presumably you meant "a single box"?
If you use EBay as a way to track prices, as of today, there's a $1K price on Advanced Civilization, and the second highest at $600 is ... Queen's Gambit. Those are asking prices, not sale prices.
BoardGame Geek's list of most expensive games available for purchase today, none of them are AH, but based on the lack of hits on EBay, one can assume it's not a particularly liquid market.
Finally, my original answer to this question, quoted this article to give answer of: "Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit"
Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit: Play as either the trade federation or the Naboo as you reenact the four-fold climax of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
Why it’s rare: It’s great, highly complex, and happens to come with 155 individual pieces, a 3D Theed palace, 16 dice, and 180 cards. Sure it was released in the comparatively recent year 2000, but prying one of these suckers from the hands of another Star Wars fan will still cost you.
Price: $300-$1000
Starting in I guess the mid-1980's, I played a ton of board war games and had a decent collection. I can remember Avalon Hill catalogs from that time, and often the catalogs were printed some years before I eventually purchased the game.
I was always curious what the most expensive thing was in the catalog. The highest price that I recall for a new-in-box game was $85 for The Longest Day, in a catalog dated, I believe, 1985.
I purchased a copy in the early 1990's, and I eventually sold it in 2015 for around $200 (open, excellent condition, unpunched).
Although I cannot tell you the most expensive AH game, I have a large collection of vintage AH games, and the price of them in general continues to rise. Patton's Best is selling for 100-160 dollars, and just a few years ago, a copy would sell for 20-25 dollars. The best way to get a handle on the most expensive AH wargames is to type into Ebay Avalon Hill Wargames, and look at the prices of what is listed. It changes periodically. For some other companies, some games sell for 500 dollars if you can even find a copy listed.
