What do you do with old rule books?

[Gizmo]

I found a battlefleet gothic rules book and magazines in my garage the other day and was wondering if there is a market for old games workshop magazines and old rule books??  I  dont want to get taken advantage of from people on Ebay so if anyone has any idea I would greatly appreciate it!

[Lathe Biosas]

There's a shop on Etsy, where he chops out the art, frames them and sells them.

 

If no one buys them, you could always do that yourself and have cool art in your home. (I've been thinking of chopping up some old rulebooks this weekend to make art out of them.)

[Tawnis]

Some secondhand bookstores will take them. Old Warhammer stuff gets quite a bit of trade in value at the ones in my city. We have a pretty large warhammer community so they are always flying off the shelves. 

[Frogian]

1 hour ago, Gizmo said:

I dont want to get taken advantage of from people on Ebay

ebay is fine (at least in the UK) - i've sold loads on there including rule books and never had an issue. 

[Griefbringer]

I do certainly collect the older rulebooks and magazines when I can find them at reasonable price and in reasonable conditions. Admittedly, my bookshelf has limited space left, so I am currently trying to be a bit picky as to what to buy.

 

Battlefleet Gothic rulebook is not particularly common (at least I have so far not managed to pick a second-hand copy locally), so I would think there would be some people interested in buying it. Just don't expect to make massive amounts of money.

 

As for Ebay prices, keep in mind that different sellers tend to put quite varying prices for their stuff. The reasonably priced items can get picked quite quickly, while those with high prices may end up hanging for months in the end. Auction prices for similar items may vary from week to another, depending on who happens to be bidding.

[roryokane]

I keep them because they're a lore treasure trove, and they have huge nostalgia value for me.

[Doghouse]

If you are intent of getting rid of them Ebay is your good bet. to be honest unless you are willing to look through private forums and discord servers or go to a bookstore that deals in that kind of thing.

 

You can get £60-£70 on there for the Gothic Rulebook with gothic magazine going for about £20.

 

Older GW stuff carries a lot of nostalgia and there is a large market for it.

[Valkyrion]

You're best of keeping it. When the next iteration of BFG drops and folk lose their minds at it being different from 25 years ago, you'll have the real thing in hand. 

[MoriyaSchism]

On 10/9/2026 at 3:47 PM, Lathe Biosas said:

There's a shop on Etsy, where he chops out the art, frames them and sells them.

 

If no one buys them, you could always do that yourself and have cool art in your home. (I've been thinking of chopping up some old rulebooks this weekend to make art out of them.)

That sounds horrible. 

[sitnam]

2 hours ago, MoriyaSchism said:

That sounds horrible. 

I thought it sounded awesome tbh. For older and rare stuff not really but for recent editions I think it's neat

[Pacific81]

BFG still has a fairly active community and along with oldhammer collectors going for it is probably worth a fair bit. I would say that sort of thing is at a price high at the moment.

 

I generally keep a few of the special codex and army books (Chaos 3.5, a few WHFB 6th edition books), the rest go to Charity shops for grandmas to buy for grandkids and inadvertently give them a window into a lifelong hobby.

[Antarius]

I might actually consider the idea of cutting out the art and framing it, if there are some books with nice art that I don't see myself or anyone else getting any use out of. I have an extra paperback version of WFB 6th ed. that's pretty battered, for example. There's lots of nice black and white art in that.
I've previously considered cutting out the page-edge artwork on some of the chaos/undead battletomes and using them for bookmarks (or something else but I couldn't quite think of what), as they're quite cool and macabre little griblies, plus they're new enough that I don't feel any nostalgia about them (and there's still plenty of them around, so I don't feel like I'm robbing the world of some literary treasure).

 

I discarded a bunch of GW books once, when I was moving and had to clear up some space and I've regretted that ever since, pretty much. So now, I just keep most of them. I've given some away to people who wanted them, if it was stuff I didn't really feel any attachment to myself and that feels a lot better than just throwing them out. I used to do a lot of buying/selling/trading used minis and I've gotten a bunch of books that way too - any doubles or things I don't want myself make nice little gifts for my friends who've been in the hobby long enough to feel nostalgic about older stuff.

I actually have quite a bit of a "nostalgia library" these days, but it's rather eclectic, because I'm not insane enough (not yet, at least) to try and collect entire editions worth of codexes etc., but I do have every 40K rulebook except 9th, every WFB rulebook from 3rd onwards and a nearly complete collection of Chaos and Space Marine codexes and army books (I stopped collecting them once they started putting out a Space Marine codex every other week), as well as a smattering of other stuff that I think is cool, feel some attachment to or just haven't gotten around to getting rid of. I cba to sell them, as even the more valuable ones would probably fetch less than I'd feel they were worth to me and I don't feel up to dealing with ebay or SoMe sales pages.
I guess a lot of them are probably worth something but it does give me a warm fuzzy feeling to have stuff like Liber Chaotica, GorkaMorka and the old Cityfight supplement in hardcopy, so I just keep them for that reason, at least until either space or money becomes a real problem.

[Griefbringer]

I am not too fond of the idea of cutting out books for artwork, unless they are in real poor condition.

 

That said, there is the odd book with poor hot glue binding where the pages start coming apart, and something needs to be done. Personally, I do own two copies of the Codex: Tau Empire (2006 release), bought second hand. One of these is in fine condition, while with the second one pages are about to fall like autumn leaves. Maybe I should just separate them all in a controlled fashion and then place them into separate plastic sheaves that can be placed into a folder and removed for reference if needed (it is one of those codex books where you need to refer a lot back and forth).

[Evil Eye]

What I do with old rulebooks is buy them! Nearly got a complete set for 4th edition, and barring the tail-enders that were arguably downgrades of their predecessors I want the lot! The remaining Codices shouldn't be too hard but the Taros Campaign goes for a pretty penny...