The current market of unlicensed ntsc games? Tengen, Color Dreams, Wisdom Tree, AVE, HES..

[Joshua Rogers | 77]

Hi all,

I'm slowly looking to sell my collection and have not really been keeping up to date with how the market looks for the past 4 years or so, _especially_ regarding unlicensed games.

I have a near-full HES set (not variants..) as well as various games from Tengen, Color Dreams, Wisdom Tree, and AVE.

What is the market looking like these days for these sorts of games, especially compared to four years ago?
Can I also ask for valuations on this subforum too, or does that belong in a different subforum?

[a3quit4s | 4,103]

Use PriceCharting or Game value now to get estimates for games. Make sure to double check there is actually recent sold data coming up on either. Use eBay sold listings filter for the most accurate market value. I think the market is down a little over all, not sure how it affects unlicensed though. Good luck with sales!

Edit: feel free to take advantage of the for sale section! I’ve had loads of success buying and selling. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by a3quit4s

[Joshua Rogers | 77]

Thank you for the response but none of what you wrote answers any of the questions I had

[a3quit4s | 4,103]

12 minutes ago, Joshua Rogers said:

Thank you for the response but none of what you wrote answers any of the questions I had

I gave you resources for valuations and an opinion on the market, both of which you asked for?

Price check subforum is here: https://www.videogamesage.com/forums/forum/78-price-check/

it may get ignored though as most will just give you the same resources I did. 

Edited December 12, 2022 by a3quit4s

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

The market right now is down across the board outside of super super rare items. Bad time to sell, great time to buy.

 

I personally have been getting offers excepted on higher end items at half or less then price charting value.

Edited December 12, 2022 by MrWunderful

[Joshua Rogers | 77]

12 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

The market right now is down across the board outside of super super rare items. Bad time to sell, great time to buy.

When you say down across the board, are you talking about down from the boom that the past couple of years has been, or 4+ years ago? To give a sort of idea of the prices I was paying years ago (not 100% of when these were bought, it could even be 6 years ago) for these things, I got some of my Tengen games (CIB, good/vgc I guess) for..: Tetris $50USD, Tengen RBI Baseball $30, Klax $20, Indiana Jones $35, Krazy KReatures $30, Vindicators $15. I have more I guess but can't quickly find the price I paid for them..

The HES games are more interesting I think since they are really rare, but I don't think many people know about that market on VGS except for some of the older collectors..

Edited December 12, 2022 by Joshua Rogers

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

38 minutes ago, Joshua Rogers said:

When you say down across the board, are you talking about down from the boom that the past couple of years has been, or 4+ years ago? To give a sort of idea of the prices I was paying years ago (not 100% of when these were bought, it could even be 6 years ago) for these things, I got some of my Tengen games (CIB, good/vgc I guess) for..: Tetris $50USD, Tengen RBI Baseball $30, Klax $20, Indiana Jones $35, Krazy KReatures $30, Vindicators $15. I have more I guess but can't quickly find the price I paid for them..

The HES games are more interesting I think since they are really rare, but I don't think many people know about that market on VGS except for some of the older collectors..

I can't comment on the prices as I've had them so long that even those prices sound insane to me, but unlicensed generally does poorly ever since the influx of "screw unlicensed" sentiment that started around 2009 or so and has stuck around ever since.

I agree that HES is pretty interesting, but it may be a hard sell in North America seeing as they were PAL only releases (IIRC they were Australia-specific, though I could be mistaken on that).  Definitely some cool titles in the catalogue though. 

[DK | 260]

Complete Tengen Tetris is now 200+

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

2 hours ago, Joshua Rogers said:

When you say down across the board, are you talking about down from the boom that the past couple of years has been, or 4+ years ago? To give a sort of idea of the prices I was paying years ago (not 100% of when these were bought, it could even be 6 years ago) for these things, I got some of my Tengen games (CIB, good/vgc I guess) for..: Tetris $50USD, Tengen RBI Baseball $30, Klax $20, Indiana Jones $35, Krazy KReatures $30, Vindicators $15. I have more I guess but can't quickly find the price I paid for them..

The HES games are more interesting I think since they are really rare, but I don't think many people know about that market on VGS except for some of the older collectors..

Down from Covid high for sure, but nice, sharp, clean CIB tends to drive a premium always, no matter the market. 
 

And as far as HES being “rare”, rare doesnt always equal valuable. 
 

I only speak for myself, but I as someone who does collect unlicensed NES i stay away from HES and Aladdin stuff (sachen too).

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

Send me a list with prices and I'll let you know.

[Joshua Rogers | 77]

> And as far as HES being “rare”, rare doesnt always equal valuable.
>I only speak for myself, but I as someone who does collect unlicensed NES i stay away from HES and Aladdin stuff (sachen too).

Yes, I agree that rare does not equal expensive (in fact, it's usually quite the opposite..) Surpringly, I remember Americans buying HES games at an extreme premium versus how much they cost in Australia. Probably just because they're difficult to get to the US.

>Send me a list with prices and I'll let you know.
What?

I know how to find prices for them, but I have like 500 other games to get prices for, so the unlicensed ones I have are not so much a pririoty, and I just wanted to know what the market looks like now for them, versus 4-6 years ago.

By the way, anyone remember this? I'm guessing nobody cares about these anymore..

[Ferris Bueller | 495]

10 hours ago, Joshua Rogers said:

By the way, anyone remember this? I'm guessing nobody cares about these anymore..

I care and will buy.

[fcgamer | 4,729]

19 hours ago, Ferris Bueller said:

I care and will buy.

I think that looks interesting too but Ferris is definitely the guy that deserves this one 

[Koopa64 | 51]

I disagree, everything unlicensed that isn't Tengen all seem to be surprisingly expensive these days, they are absolutely not the rock bottom of the NES, that's still held by common licensed games.

Why is Bignose Freaks Out gold cart a $200 to $300 game???

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

12 minutes ago, Koopa64 said:

I disagree, everything unlicensed that isn't Tengen all seem to be surprisingly expensive these days, they are absolutely not the rock bottom of the NES, that's still held by common licensed games.

Why is Bignose Freaks Out gold cart a $200 to $300 game???

Probably because it was legitimately harder to find even when not many people cared about it, and now that NES collecting is en vogue, the prices have gone up and stayed up due to there just not being a glut of people to sell copies at fire sale prices in order to get the averages back down.  Prices on common stuff like Bee52 and the first Bignose game should be more comparable to general, overall NES prices versus the rare stuff.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

14 hours ago, Koopa64 said:

I disagree, everything unlicensed that isn't Tengen all seem to be surprisingly expensive these days, they are absolutely not the rock bottom of the NES, that's still held by common licensed games.

Why is Bignose Freaks Out gold cart a $200 to $300 game???

Big Nose Freaks Out is far and away the rarest Camerica title.  I'd put it about equal to Duck Tales 2 as far as rarity goes, maybe even a touch higher.  One thing to note though is that CIB it's going for about the same as it does loose, which is where a real discrepancy should lie.  The real comparison should be something like an AVE Deathbots cart , which goes for around $30, despite the fact that I've seen the same number of copies in the last 25 years as I have seen copies of Chip and Dale 2.  Riddle me that young grasshopper.

[fcgamer | 4,729]

4 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Big Nose Freaks Out is far and away the rarest Camerica title.  I'd put it about equal to Duck Tales 2 as far as rarity goes, maybe even a touch higher.  One thing to note though is that CIB it's going for about the same as it does loose, which is where a real discrepancy should lie.  The real comparison should be something like an AVE Deathbots cart , which goes for around $30, despite the fact that I've seen the same number of copies in the last 25 years as I have seen copies of Chip and Dale 2.  Riddle me that young grasshopper.

Here's a secret about CIB: it was also released on Famicom, primarily in Poland (but likely some other places sporadically, even I've found a few cardboard box Camerica Famicom titles in Taiwan albeit not Bignose Freaks). 

I don't know how much this game sells for on Famicom, but the boxes posters etc are identical, so they might have just split the stock between two regions making it not as rare in actuality as it first seems, for paperwork anyways. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

9 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Here's a secret about CIB: it was also released on Famicom, primarily in Poland (but likely some other places sporadically, even I've found a few cardboard box Camerica Famicom titles in Taiwan albeit not Bignose Freaks). 

I don't know how much this game sells for on Famicom, but the boxes posters etc are identical, so they might have just split the stock between two regions making it not as rare in actuality as it first seems, for paperwork anyways. 

I didn't know that.  But then the question becomes - does it have the stickers?  Cuz the sticker sheet is conspicuously absent from that pic...

[fcgamer | 4,729]

10 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I didn't know that.  But then the question becomes - does it have the stickers?  Cuz the sticker sheet is conspicuously absent from that pic...

What are the stickers? This is news to me, I had no idea Camerica games had stickers as well as a poster.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

What are the stickers? This is news to me, I had no idea Camerica games had stickers as well as a poster.

Big Nose Freaks Out came with a set of four stickers.  Just different Big Nose drawings.  Nothing special, but pretty tough to find.  Only Camerica release that got stickers.