Suppose I buy a bunch of ships now from various Waves. Suppose then I lose interest in the game later or I am unable to find time or places to play.

If I were to sell the ships I bought, would I be able to recoup most of my money? Is the secondary market (the bay of E, Craigslist, etc.) sufficiently active that I would be able to sell my collection?

Don't know, because I know of no one who has lost interest in this game.

As I said in my original post, this could also be important if I am interested in the game but simply can't find time or places where I could play.

I payed 46 cents on the dollar to a guy getting out of the game. I wouldn't have given him more than 50 cents on the dollar. The stuff is used. I'm going to pay less for used stuff, and when I can buy new online for ~30% off, I don't have an incentive to pay more than 50% off.

^ That's 50% off MSRP, right?

The return rate on a highly available, continually printed and non-rarity based game is extremely small, ranging from 50-75% off the price you probably paid for it. Same can be said for GW and Warmachine models and most likely any other board game out there.

This isn't like MtG where you can hang onto a card for a few months/years and watch the price of it fluctuate as it falls in and out of popularity. There are no rarities to affect a model's abundance and product is readily available as long as FFG is producing and shipping them.

To answer your question: You most likely won't get your money back out of it and if you try to get any money back from it, it will probably be much much less than what you paid for.

My recommendation: Buy it and play with it and even if you lose interest you'll still have it if you ever decide to come around to play it again. And the models are cool just to have.

Is stuff from Wave 1 still continually printed?

yes. Wave 1 includes the X-wing and the TIE Fighter (and also the Y-wing and the TIE Advanced). If they stopped printing those, there'd be riots in the streets.

Take a look at Ebay. I'm constantly amazed what the "lots" go for. I consider $10/ship the online price ($20 for a large) and it typically exceeds that price. Given there's usually extras such as storage or a play mat, but still... I find it ridiculous what the secondary market sells for.

On Ebay I've seen opened ships of all types go for similar prices to the unopened price or higher, it depends on what's out of stock and has not had a rerelease for a while.

I saw Ys listed on EBAY for 200!! don't know if they sold for that price..lol that was also when FFG was a little slower with the reprints...

You might have gotten a higher price when stores keeping ships in stock was a problem. I'm not sure how much of a problem it is lately, but if MiniMarket is any indication, TIE Interceptors are the hot property if people don't want Imperial Aces.

You might have gotten a higher price when stores keeping ships in stock was a problem. I'm not sure how much of a problem it is lately, but if MiniMarket is any indication, TIE Interceptors are the hot property if people don't want Imperial Aces.

I have extra interceptors if anyone's looking...

Generally with models you get 50% back at best.

yes. Wave 1 includes the X-wing and the TIE Fighter (and also the Y-wing and the TIE Advanced). If they stopped printing those, there'd be riots in the streets.

There was a time...y-wings were sold for $80+. It was a sad day for those of us who started playing during wave 3. But, I don't think that will happen again. FFG underestimated how popular the game would be and are pushing out reprints much faster nowadays.

I bought most of mine for 50% off MSRP through auctions (not on Ebay).

As has been noted, the secondary market isn't great now, and I don't foresee it becoming any better in the future because the game is now being reprinted at a fast rate by FFG. I'm pretty sure it'll stay that way for about as long as the game is around, and then we'll see.

Ask yourself -

Why would you pay more than the full price for used X-wing stuff - risk missing, damaged, etc. items? When you can get it brand new at 30% off the retailed price from on-line stores?

Someone has to be really stupid to do it. Unfortunally, there "seemed" to be a few of them (not sure if they are real though)... Such are the ones that supposedly paid $200+ for 6 transparent X-wing dice.

Until the game goes under I would not expect to ever sell a single, complete piece for more than you paid for it. If/when it is no longer available there may be a time when things will command a higher price that MSRP but we hope that time is a ways off and it will probably be a small window.

Now one place there MAY be a secondary market is for some of the upgrade cards and perhaps other "bits" of the game. Although some allow proxies official FFG tournaments require official cards and if you have an abundance of some popular upgrade you may be able to sell that. Doing that may reduce what you could sell the "whole ship" for but it may also be one of the few things to get some of your cost back. Examples of this are selling off the Stealth Devices you get with the Firespray or perhaps the X-Wing pilots you find in the Rebel Transport; things people want but that they don't want to buy an expensive expansion just to get.

I have definitely seen collections go for close to or even over the normal *online* retail price on ebay. That's not just people putting them up for those prices, these are actual bids on auction items.

It may just be less informed consumers that don't know you can get 30% off retail price on new items on various web sites, or someone who just wants a fully assembled (hah), sorted, and organized x-wing collection with a case, but they do sell. There are also not that many big X-wing lots up on ebay at any given time so bidding competition may be higher. Should the game go out of print in a year or two due to loss of license or whatever, I would expect the market would be flooded for a while and the price may go down, but with the quality of the game and miniatures I have a feeling X-wing could have very good long-term value.

@gundamv: I buy almost all my models used (ebay etc). There's a nice market. In addition I've bought ships and cards separately, which gives a discount: Sometimes all I want is the X-Wing model and not another set of proton torpedo cards ...

@Effenhoog: There's many reasons why people "overpay" on Ebay. A common one is to do with payment methods. Ebay accepts Paypal, cheaper guy doesn't. If you already have money in Paypal you avoid a lot of charges by keeping the money in the Paypal system.