Gulag Joe | 584 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 I'm not sure if there's already an existing term for them- l call them true CIBs (all original contents of the game are there, like inserts, baggie, etc). Anyway, just watched a raw NES Turtles 2 mint CIB sell for $750. A similar ebay auction of the same title sold for over $800 a few weeks back. This obviously isn't the case for every NES game, but the "true cib" market for mint titles is certainly trending upward. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austin532 | 467 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 Been like this for awhile. People who can't afford sealed games want the next best thing which is a 100% CIB mint game. The TMNT games are going up most likely due to the Cowabunga Collection. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gulag Joe | 584 Posted March 27, 2022 Author Share Posted March 27, 2022 36 minutes ago, austin532 said: Been like this for awhile. People who can't afford sealed games want the next best thing which is a 100% CIB mint game. The TMNT games are going up most likely due to the Cowabunga Collection. The wut? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austin532 | 467 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gulag Joe | 584 Posted March 27, 2022 Author Share Posted March 27, 2022 58 minutes ago, austin532 said: Ok I feel way better now that I know it's that. The first thing I thought was there's some ridiculous Wata collection circulating auction houses that's called the Cowabunga collection and it's making every ninja turtles game way more expensive than usual. 1 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Code Monkey | 2,014 Posted March 27, 2022 Share Posted March 27, 2022 23 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said: Ok I feel way better now that I know it's that. The first thing I thought was there's some ridiculous Wata collection circulating auction houses that's called the Cowabunga collection and it's making every ninja turtles game way more expensive than usual. Don't give them ideas. 2 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fcgamer | 4,754 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 I prefer true rares to true CIBs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Morbis | 2,092 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 3 hours ago, austin532 said: People who can't afford sealed games want the next best thing... Naw, some people just like to have everything that came with a game without it being sealed in cellophane or acrylic or anything else. It has nothing to do with affordability... 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fcgamer | 4,754 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 Just like full sets - stadium events - unlicensed also had nothing to do with affordability 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doner24 | 1,197 Moderator · Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 3 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said: Naw, some people just like to have everything that came with a game without it being sealed in cellophane or acrylic or anything else. It has nothing to do with affordability... It’s both, there is definitely a group of people that are going to mint CIB because the sealed is too expensive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,953 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 Sealed is just playing with fire now, and those who want to play with matches which is even more dangerous. CIB is nice, but boxes have been a huge hindrance that has grown for some years now, me... game is fine, but if I can get the manual and it's not a problem I'm all over that. Sometimes, and you know it, they're fun reads, especially the 8/16bit era cheese in those books. Fun flashbacks and stupid stuff to be found with a laugh. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Morbis | 2,092 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 36 minutes ago, doner24 said: It’s both, there is definitely a group of people that are going to mint CIB because the sealed is too expensive. Who? I've been collecting for well over twenty years and I have never once met a guy who said he was only collecting mint CIB's because he really wanted sealed games but couldn't afford them. From my experience, for the sealed guys, anything that's open is "tainted" and not even on their radar. I'm seriously curious now for a single collector to come forward and admit he's a wannabe sealed guy but he's buying up expensive mint CIB's because he doesn't have enough money for what he truly wants. Sounds really bizarre from my perspective, but what do I know..... 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doner24 | 1,197 Moderator · Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said: Who? I've been collecting for well over twenty years and I have never once met a guy who said he was only collecting mint CIB's because he really wanted sealed games but couldn't afford them. From my experience, for the sealed guys, anything that's open is "tainted" and not even on their radar. I'm seriously curious now for a single collector to come forward and admit he's a wannabe sealed guy but he's buying up expensive mint CIB's because he doesn't have enough money for what he truly wants. Sounds really bizarre from my perspective, but what do I know..... The hobby continues to evolve for some, especially as new people start in from other hobbies. They are out there, I see them openly admit this on High End/WATA Facebook groups frequently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Morbis | 2,092 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 Just now, doner24 said: The hobby continues to evolve for some, especially as new people start in from other hobbies. They are out there, I see them openly admit this on High End/WATA Facebook groups frequently. Fair enough; I don't do facebook so there's a whole corner of the hobby that goes completely unseen by me... I've still never met one of these guys personally, though. Granted, covid has kind of killed the local scene for the last couple of years... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonebone | 1,307 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 I've been heavily active in the CIB market across many consoles ever since I started in 2008. I wouldn't say the market is any more or less hot than it was over the last year or two (post-Wata). When grading CIBs became possible, really Mint stuff (like Chrono Trigger) started pulled leaps and bounds above its past levels. It's leveled off a lot though. The high sales are usually one offs or when one seller lists a lot of similarly conditioned Mint / Near Mint CIBs all at open auction. When that happens, many sales go above and beyond expectations. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Code Monkey | 2,014 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 10 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said: Who? I've been collecting for well over twenty years and I have never once met a guy who said he was only collecting mint CIB's because he really wanted sealed games but couldn't afford them. From my experience, for the sealed guys, anything that's open is "tainted" and not even on their radar. I'm seriously curious now for a single collector to come forward and admit he's a wannabe sealed guy but he's buying up expensive mint CIB's because he doesn't have enough money for what he truly wants. Sounds really bizarre from my perspective, but what do I know..... I've seen it a few times but only with guys that treat it purely as an investment. They'd like to invest in a sealed copy and make more money but the entry point is too high so they go with a high grade opened copy instead. I've also seen it occasionally with people that only want the 4 or 5 specific classics they had as a kid. I don't have any problem with this, it doesn't affect how I collect in any way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabonga | 2,348 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 11 hours ago, Tanooki said: Sealed is just playing with fire now, and those who want to play with matches which is even more dangerous. CIB is nice, but boxes have been a huge hindrance that has grown for some years now, me... game is fine, but if I can get the manual and it's not a problem I'm all over that. Sometimes, and you know it, they're fun reads, especially the 8/16bit era cheese in those books. Fun flashbacks and stupid stuff to be found with a laugh. I have boxes/manuals/maps etc for virtually all of my collections - but that is strictly because most of the games in those I collected when these games were readily available in the used game stores (those which I didn't buy new). I got into gameboys pretty late so much of my collection of those is game and manual only - I only have two gameboys I don't have manuals for - Amazing Tater and Trip World. But no way would I pay the prices that this stuff now commands. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DefaultGen | 5,436 Posted March 28, 2022 Share Posted March 28, 2022 Nice CIB is on fire, sure, but they've also been historically crazy undervalued so the market needs to figure out how much of a premium to put on condition. Due to sites like Pricecharting just giving "the price", I've rarely had to pay more than maybe 200% the going rate for a super nice CIB until recently, and rarely that much. Comics and coins have had price guides that give a range based on condition for decades, but video games still have price trackers that say "If it's CIB, it's worth $xx" that depress prices. Of the few events I've been to in the past few years, it is baffling how many vendors still use pricecharting to price their games regardless of how nice or truly complete they are. Maybe $800 for a Turtles 2 is overenthusiastic buyer with unlimited comics money and swung too hard in the other direction, but paying $30 for an average cart-instructions-box copy vs. $45 for a near mint complete copy a few years back didn't make a lot of sense either. Condition has always carried way too small a premium in video games I think in large part due to our oversimplified price tracking methods and I say that as someone who goes for like 7.5/10 decent stuff most of the time. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Morbis | 2,092 Posted March 29, 2022 Share Posted March 29, 2022 8 hours ago, DefaultGen said: Nice CIB is on fire, sure, but they've also been historically crazy undervalued so the market needs to figure out how much of a premium to put on condition. Due to sites like Pricecharting just giving "the price", I've rarely had to pay more than maybe 200% the going rate for a super nice CIB until recently, and rarely that much. Comics and coins have had price guides that give a range based on condition for decades, but video games still have price trackers that say "If it's CIB, it's worth $xx" that depress prices. Of the few events I've been to in the past few years, it is baffling how many vendors still use pricecharting to price their games regardless of how nice or truly complete they are. Maybe $800 for a Turtles 2 is overenthusiastic buyer with unlimited comics money and swung too hard in the other direction, but paying $30 for an average cart-instructions-box copy vs. $45 for a near mint complete copy a few years back didn't make a lot of sense either. Condition has always carried way too small a premium in video games I think in large part due to our oversimplified price tracking methods and I say that as someone who goes for like 7.5/10 decent stuff most of the time. Yeah, pricecharting.com says my CIB NES collection with worth over 100k USD, but every random check I did to test the accuracy of their prices came back with CIB's in worse or equal condition than mine going for way more than what they had listed, like every single time. I've pretty much avoided any NES boxes less than maybe 8.5/10 in my entire collecting career, with some deal breakers like fading, creasing, markers, writing, etc being a hard pass, and now I'm really glad I did. I think I can count on one hand the number of sub-8.5/10 boxes I have in my collection, though Bubble Bobble Part 2 is one of them... So yeah, not all CIB's are created equal, and a terrible box on an NES CIB adds literally no more value (to me) than having just the cart and manual. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, a mint box holds almost all of the value of a mint CIB NES game, so the bottom line is that the cardboard is almost the only thing that really matters... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenjikuronin | 1,755 Posted March 30, 2022 Share Posted March 30, 2022 Fun story -- I have a sealed copy of TMNT II: The Arcade Game for the NES that I bought years ago off of Ebay directly from Mirage Studios for $18 shipped. Those were the days.... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inasuma | 1,206 Posted March 30, 2022 Share Posted March 30, 2022 On 3/27/2022 at 11:50 PM, Dr. Morbis said: Fair enough; I don't do facebook so there's a whole corner of the hobby that goes completely unseen by me... I've still never met one of these guys personally, though. Granted, covid has kind of killed the local scene for the last couple of years... I’m one of these plebs. It’s why I bought a near mint CIB Super Metroid. I’ll never realistically buy a sealed 9.0 A+ or 75 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,953 Posted March 30, 2022 Share Posted March 30, 2022 13 hours ago, Tenjikuronin said: Fun story -- I have a sealed copy of TMNT II: The Arcade Game for the NES that I bought years ago off of Ebay directly from Mirage Studios for $18 shipped. Those were the days.... That's nice, did you keep any identifying packaging from Mirage? That would be for me more of a keeper than the game itself as it creates a tie back to the Turtles, not just Konami. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenjikuronin | 1,755 Posted March 30, 2022 Share Posted March 30, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Tanooki said: That's nice, did you keep any identifying packaging from Mirage? That would be for me more of a keeper than the game itself as it creates a tie back to the Turtles, not just Konami. Sadly no -- back then I didn't have the cognizance to save original packaging (I definitely do this now). The padded envelope that they sent the game in was fairly thick and had shredded paper inside the lining. When I opened the package up, some of that pulp spilled out making a mess, so I tossed the whole envelope. The only identifying markings on the package for Mirage were the logo on the mailing label (looked like this): What's weird is that years later, after Peter Laird sold TMNT to Viacom, Mirage was liquidating their merchandising department and I saw two more sealed copies of TMNT II were listed and sold on Ebay (at much, much higher prices haha) -- I wonder how many copies licensing must have had back in the day lol. Edited March 30, 2022 by Tenjikuronin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki | 4,953 Posted March 30, 2022 Share Posted March 30, 2022 Good question, and a shame. That logo is cool, step away for a moment from it being obviously a turtle head, look what it also looks like, sort of like a masked ninja with their arms crossed which is cool too. I did keep stuff from that era, long ago I typed it up but I really should just scan the thing, but when Genesis was combatting Nintendo finally on the 16bit front and egregiously lying their ass off in their ads Nintendo went and got a third party reputable company to do a break down of both systems, compare, contrast, to debunk the bs. They're still in business today Booz Allen and Associates I think it is. I got it in the mail from NOA in the early 90s. I still have it, envelope and all. It has a decent amount of paragraphs and a basic breakdown of the hardware cpu, memory levels, colors, sprites, etc like some faq you'd find on gamefaqs 20 years ago would do. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenjikuronin | 1,755 Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 3 hours ago, Tanooki said: I did keep stuff from that era, long ago I typed it up but I really should just scan the thing, but when Genesis was combatting Nintendo finally on the 16bit front and egregiously lying their ass off in their ads Nintendo went and got a third party reputable company to do a break down of both systems, compare, contrast, to debunk the bs. They're still in business today Booz Allen and Associates I think it is. I got it in the mail from NOA in the early 90s. I still have it, envelope and all. It has a decent amount of paragraphs and a basic breakdown of the hardware cpu, memory levels, colors, sprites, etc like some faq you'd find on gamefaqs 20 years ago would do. Wow that's quite a piece of history -- I just read a bit about it here: https://segaretro.org/Blast_processing and the involvement of Booz Allen is such an interesting twist. I agree with you -- stuff like this is more exciting than the games themselves haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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