From Attic to Auction: The Board Games That Could Make You Rich

A new study from Mahjong365 has revealed which board games could make you rich if you happen to find an old copy sitting in the attic.

We have accumulated 11 of the rarest and most valuable board games with the biggest increase in value compared to their original RRP on release.

These findings have found that you could be sitting on some serious money if you are lucky enough to have invested in one of these games over the years.

Key Data:

• Monopoly White Box Edition 1935 had the biggest ROI increase after selling for over £1,100 on Ebay in 2022, up 49,000% from its RRP of £2.
• James Bond 007 Underwater Battle 1965 had the next highest ROI, up 28,150% from £2 to £565
• Jati Vintage Electronic 1981 completed the top three, up 12,400% after selling for £300 from an RRP of £2.50.

Top 3 Highest ROI Board Games You Could Be Sat On

Below are the top three Highest ROI Board Games: 

The data shows just how much demand has grown for these rare, vintage games since their initial release. With limited copies of these games ever produced, their value is likely to increase as fewer copies remain in good condition with each passing year. 

The initial RRP for each of these top three games was low, but their enduring popularity and scarcity has seen the ROI skyrocket, showing demand remains to this day. With more than 270 million copies sold worldwide, Monopoly is one of the most popular boardgames ever created.

From Dusty to Desirable: 8 More Vintage Games Worth Spotting

Now onto the remaining eight games that are still extremely rare and valuable, though offering a lower ROI than the top three:

The data for these games shows that it’s not just the top three games worth keeping an eye out for. If you’ve got any of these hiding in your house somewhere, you could still be sitting on some big money.

In particular, numbers six and seven on the list both sold as recently as April 2025. 

With Dark Tower Vintage Electronic 1981 and Warhammer Quest 1995 both reaching big sales on Ebay in recent weeks, it’s clear that the market for these rare and valuable games still remains, decades after their initial release.

Released in 1995, Warhammer Quest is a table-top dungeon crawl game set in the immensely popular Warhammer universe. Players work cooperatively to defeat monsters and explore dungeons, with the game created as a rival to the Dungeons and Dragons franchise.

Commentary

Liam Solomon, a spokesperson for Mahjong365, said: “The substantial ROI increase of these games, particularly the top three, shows there is significant financial gain possible for anyone who has these lying around at home.

“It’s certainly worth checking in the attic or at the bottom of old game draws to see if you might have a hidden treasure buried somewhere in the house in the form of these rare and valuable vintage games.”

Methodology:

To determine what makes a Board Game ‘Rare’ we needed to gain an insight on the Board Game world through forums such as reddit, collectors blogs, and vintage auction sites such as Heritage Auctions. 

This allowed us to focus on limited edition versions of popular franchises, board games with unique attributes, historical significance and issues with production lines.

With the use of Board Game Geek we were able to source these popular games and cross reference them with their market demand and collector interest determining which Board Games we would use in our results.

We then needed to identify the original retail price to be able to calculate the Return On Investment. This was done by scouring historical records, manufacturer information and catalogs where possible. 

However, for some older games we had to estimate the RRP by using cross referenced sources such as collector forums, board game archives and historic information.

Finally, to determine the current value of these games we tracked recent resale data from major auction sites such as eBay and Heritage Auctions. We specifically looked at ‘sold listings’ not ‘asking prices’ ensuring we were reflecting what buyers were willing to pay for these rare board game sets.