Can anyone share their insight on creating the actual board for boardgame?

If you want to produce and sell it yourself I think your best bet is to get quotes from several places and pick the one that’s best for you. Each will have different minimum run levels, services etc so it’s very hard to even guess what an average price is since there are so many variables. Needless to say you can’t expect it to be cheap.
Here are a few places that print games
http://www.mjscreations.com/pages/game.htm
http://www.delanoservice.com/
http://www.yaquinto.com/
http://www.frvgroup.com/
http://www.ludofact.de/englisch/ueber_uns_1.php
If you just want a prototype for testing or to license to a publisher do what I do and use clip art. If you wonder if that puts them off keep in mind I have two meetings set up for this week with different publishers. What they want is a well designed game not a pretty looking prototype. In fact one publisher I know personally once told me that whenever he sees a pretty looking prototype from a new designer he expects it to be lousy since all the effort went into the art and not the engine.
Some of the above places might do professional prototypes but I wouldn’t suggest spending the money on one unless you are trying to get investors since as a designer you are unlikely to make much on a game you license.

The average costs on boards, dice, cards, and pieces are going to vary WILDLY based on how many and what kind. Ballpark? For 1000 games, plan on spending $8,000 to $15,000 for production. Getting it done in China instead of the US/Germany might bring that down a few thousand, but not as much as you'd think (but more than I'd like!).

Prototypes are cheap though - ours run about $500 for 3. Some places specialize in them and charge more, but they usually do art development, too. I think our price is pretty standard though - others can feel free to disabuse me of that notion.

In either case, most places will do estimates for free, so just get on the web and get your specs out to people. It'll get you an exact number to work with. It's useful info even if you plan on shopping the design to someone else.

I agree with game printer that patents are painful and not worth the effort for a game ... my reason for posting is that I can't find any information on "game printer" to formally ask about getting prototypes & runs made and mail is .....