Reselling used board games: count everything, grade honestly, do the shipping math
Board games look like the easiest flip in the auction catalogue: no batteries, no sizing, no testing bench. They are actually the most completeness-sensitive category a reseller handles, because a board game is not a thing — it is an inventory. One missing token can make a game unplayable, which makes completeness, not age or rarity, the first thing a buyer prices. The resale guides agree on the shape of the problem: The Board Game Collection's selling guide grades used games from New down through Like New, Very Good, Good, and Acceptable to Unacceptable, and stresses that for most games it is crucial that all pieces are included, because missing components significantly affect value. This guide turns that grading into a working procedure for auction finds: how to verify a game against its true component list, how to grade what you find, how to price from sold evidence, and when an incomplete game is still worth money.
A note on money: this is general information about reselling, drawn from published reseller guides — not financial advice, and no game is guaranteed to sell at any price.
Verify completeness against the real component list, not the box art
The completeness check starts before anything else, and it starts with a list you did not write. Organizertone's collectible-games guide names the standard method: BoardGameGeek's database usually includes a detailed component list for the specific version of a game, right down to the exact number of cards, tokens, and dice — use it as the checklist. Ellen Blogs' flipping guide gives the same procedure from the seller's side: before listing, open the box, find the contents list in the instructions, count pieces carefully, check cards, tokens, dice, and boards, and note any missing items. On the buying runs behind this site, the same discipline applies at pickup that applies to any auction item: check the item before the buyer — here, before the listing — ever gets there, because a completeness surprise found by a buyer costs a return, while the same surprise found by you costs only a lower, honest price.
- Identify the exact edition first: title, publisher, and year, all printed on the box. Component lists differ between editions, and verifying a 2015 printing against a 2020 list manufactures missing pieces that never existed.
- Pull the component list from the rulebook's contents page or the BoardGameGeek entry for that edition.
- Count in categories, in this order: cards (count the deck; do not eyeball it), tokens and chits, dice, player pieces and miniatures, boards and tiles, rulebook and reference sheets, and the insert itself.
- Photograph the full component spread as you finish the count. MoneyPantry's board-game selling guide makes the practical case: a clear photo showing all the pieces laid out proves everything is there, builds buyer trust, and head off most completeness questions before they are asked.
- Write the verdict on the box in pencil: complete, complete with wear, or incomplete with the missing items named. The verdict travels with the game until it sells.
Grade the box and the contents separately
The Board Game Collection's scale is the working standard because it grades the whole object the way buyers do: New is sealed and undamaged; Like New is opened with no wear and all pieces intact; Very Good is minimal wear with all pieces intact; Good allows minor damage to box or contents with all pieces present; Acceptable allows minor-to-moderate box damage with all or nearly all pieces intact and no crucial piece missing; Unacceptable is major damage, broken contents, or a crucial piece missing — do not sell, except for genuinely rare games buyers want for parts, clearly marked. Note where the scale puts its weight: completeness holds the grade up through four of the six tiers. Box wear alone slides a game a tier or so; a missing crucial piece drops it off the scale entirely. When your own assessment is uncertain, that guide's advice is to assume the lowest plausible grade — it is better to under-promise and over-deliver than to argue a return.
Price from sold evidence, with the shipping math done honestly
Asking prices are wishes. Ellen Blogs' guide states the research rule plainly: look up completed listings rather than active ones, because completed sales show what buyers actually paid, and pay attention to condition, completeness, edition, publication year, and whether the game was sealed — a game listed at $100 means nothing if similar copies consistently sell for $20. Organizertone's valuing guide gives the same instruction with the same tool: eBay's sold-listings filter for realistic value, with BoardGameGeek's marketplace as the specialist cross-check.
Then run the net, because board games are heavy and boxes are bulky. MoneyPantry works a representative example in its guide: a game with a $25 sold price nets only $5.20 after $3.80 of platform fees (13.6% plus $0.40), $14.00 of shipping, and $2.00 of packaging — and its verdict is that a net under $10 means the game should not be sold online at all: sell it locally for cash, or bundle it. Those percentages and prices are one guide's worked example, not a fee schedule — your platform's current fees and your actual shipping cost are the numbers to use — but the shape of the math is universal, and it is why so many complete, honest games still belong in a local lot rather than a parcel.
| Game state | Channel | Pricing basis |
|---|---|---|
| Complete, Like New or Very Good, in demand | Online, individual listing | Sold listings for the same edition and grade |
| Complete, Good or Acceptable | Online or local | Sold listings, discounted for the named wear |
| Incomplete, missing pieces named | Local, or online marked "Incomplete / For Parts" | Complete-copy sold price, heavily discounted |
| Low sold price, heavy box | Local bundle or lot | Lot price for the bundle, not per-game math |
Incomplete games: the honest options
An incomplete game is not automatically a loss. Organizertone's missing-pieces guide lays out the three routes: source the replacement part (individual pieces trade on eBay and BoardGameGeek, and one bought hotel or die can restore a game's full value); sell the game for parts, which for a rare title can earn more than the incomplete set sells for whole; or sell it incomplete with complete transparency — every missing component listed in the description, priced off the complete-copy evidence with a heavy discount. MoneyPantry draws the platform line: incomplete games can be sold on eBay listed honestly as "Incomplete / For Parts," and should not be listed on hobby marketplaces unless the missing piece is purely cosmetic. What no route permits is the quiet option — listing an uncounted game as complete and letting the buyer do your counting for you. On these buying runs, the standing rule is that the item must match what the listing says: if it is scuffed, missing, or short a token, that fact goes in the listing or in the photos, before the sale, not in an apology after it.
FAQ
Is an old game automatically valuable? No. Organizertone's valuing guide is blunt: mass-market games produced in huge quantities typically have little monetary value even when old — value follows rarity and demand, not age.
Does a damaged box count as incomplete? Not technically, but the same guide notes that to a collector a severely damaged box can be worth as much of a discount as a missing piece, because the box is a major part of the object. Grade it, photograph it, price it — never hide it.
Sell individually or as a lot? Individually for the one or two titles with real sold evidence; as a lot for everything else. The valuing guides agree a lot sells faster and for less per game — which is a fair trade for games whose individual net, after the shipping math above, was never really there.