Game collection fetches $150,000

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Game collector Ken Fonarow of Eagle Point is selling his collection to a Kentucky-based game retailer for $150,000.Jim Craven

May 06, 2008

By Greg Stiles

Mail Tribune

EAGLE POINT — You might say Ken Fonarow is doing a little spring cleaning.

After buying and selling board and role-playing games for 25 years and hawking his wares at shows around the country, the retired policeman is selling his personal collection — for $150,000.

Fonarow's 20,000 games — from one-of-a-kind collector's items to out-of-print rarities — is being snatched up by board and role-playing game Internet retailer TrollandToad.com, based in Barbourville, Ky.

TrollandToad.com spokesman Ryan Severin says the acquisition is the largest in the company's 17 years of doing business. It has 75 employees and had sales of $5 million last year.

Fonarow's collection includes items once owned by Charles Roberts, one of board game company Avalon Hill's founders.

"We acquire a lot of collections with 50 to 200 items through eBay or when people go to the gaming conventions," Severin says.

TrollandToad.com has more than 500,000 items — 70 percent board games and the rest role-playing games and magazines.

"This should double our board game collection," Severin says.

Fonarow says he has been talking with TrollandToad.com owner Jon Huston for the past two years.

"His business is driven by acquisitions of hard-to-get and out-of-print board games," Fonarow says. "He wanted to know if I knew about a very large collection that might be for sale. I told him there was only one I know about. I didn't mention whose, but he probably figured out I was talking about my own."

Fonarow, who finished a 27-year law enforcement career in March, bought a home outside Eagle Point in 2002 and began hauling his personal collection up from Southern California to the Rogue Valley in July 2003. He converted a structure next to his barn into a three-car garage to store it.

Last month, representatives of TrollandToad.com pored over Fonarow's stash for three and a half days and agreed to pay $150,000 for his games.

"They underestimated how long it would take to go through my stuff," Fonarow says. "They were up until 1:30 one night and 2:30 another. When I went to bed, they kept working."

Fonarow figures the collection will fit into one large semitrailer — if it is packed right.

Fonarow began playing American Heritage basic-level war games in the 1960s and graduated to Avalon Hill military simulations in the 1970s.

"I bought some major collections out of New York City early on when I decided this was a good sideline for me," he says.

He is the auctioneer at the annual Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio, which features war games. For a while, he handled similar duties at the Gen Con role-playing game confab in Indianapolis. TrollandToad.com now runs that auction.

While he plans to still hit conventions and shows, Fonarow says he has no plans to open a storefront.

"So many retail stores fail," he says. "I wouldn't mind having a store if the overhead was reasonable, but I don't want to tie myself down."

Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or e-mail business@mailtribune.com.

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