Uncovering Protos Online

[fcgamer | 4,753]

So you're cruising around eBay late at night, you see some game cartridges from a seller with hand written labels, or maybe no labels at all. Prototypes or heavily damaged retail, hard to say, right?

When in situations as the one mentioned above, how do you generally decide whether to roll the dice and make the purchase or pass it up as a nothing? 

[Tulpa | 3,534]

How much are they? If it's cheap, why not? You can always unload them.

If they are priced like prototypes, then contact the seller. They should have no issues with providing board pics. If not, stay away.

 

Edit: the only situation that would be a wildcard is if it's priced well above what a labeled retail cart would be, but well below what a prototype would be. I'd still try to get board pics in that situation.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Tulpa

[Code Monkey | 2,012]

Just buy them, who cares? You can easily get your money back from PayPal.

I've bought fake NES boxes, fake Flintstones cartridges, I just get a refund.

[Tulpa | 3,534]

11 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

Just buy them, who cares? You can easily get your money back from PayPal.

Except he's saying they're not labeled as protos, just that they LOOK like they might be protos. You know, like someone potentially stumbled upon one and didn't know what they were. He's saying games that aren't passed off as fakes.

I would agree, if they're cheap, buy them. But if they're not protos (and weren't sold as protos), don't get a refund, just flip them.

Edited April 18, 2023 by Tulpa

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

No way. The chances of a random account having an actual prototype without someone knowing what it is and trying to get top dollar is minimal. Plus if I had it I would send it to the video game history foundation anyways to preserve it https://gamehistory.org I would still keep it but they could dump it.

 

I think Frank is a member here even. 

[Tanooki | 4,950]

On 4/18/2023 at 12:33 PM, fcgamer said:

So you're cruising around eBay late at night, you see some game cartridges from a seller with hand written labels, or maybe no labels at all. Prototypes or heavily damaged retail, hard to say, right?

When in situations as the one mentioned above, how do you generally decide whether to roll the dice and make the purchase or pass it up as a nothing? 

Based on price I'll just buy them and hope for the best, but they better be cheap, less than what the game retails for if it's with no label or one mostly shredded off.  Now if it's more of a low priced ender/BIN on what seems to be a proto I keep my mouth shut and click PAY immediately.  No reason to let someone else do it first or tip them off.  If you make a conscious choice to put something like that on ebay without research and ask $20 for it, I'll give you $20.

Ebay has returns anyway and throw sellers under the bus for everything.

[RH | 4,965]

Yeah, I’ve never even ran into a circumstance like that.  Instead, I look for generally rare and and obscure stuff that people just have but have no clue it might be desirable.

For instance, someone posted a Game Boy game dust cover, but it was factory sealed as an official Nintendo Service replacement.  Now, I wouldn’t pay $200-300 for something like that (and some people have!) but I gladly paid $20 + shipping!

I don’t find a lot of stuff like that, but I’ll bite when it’s cheap.

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

My situation is similar to @RH's.

If I was starting to map out my collecting goals in 2011, I might have looked into this at some point in 2012. 

But since I don't have any real luck, don't really have others in my life that know more about this, and blah blah blah... I am currently focusing on select variants of any PS3 game that still interests me.

Granted that it's not Nintendo. But in my last pick-up's case, I don't really think I would have any additional chances to find a 2012 "Walmart" variant copy of any games for the price I paid. Something I think will go up once those variant hunters develop an interest in terms of what the PS3 has to offer!

Either way, I'd pass. Because knowing my luck, I'd probably miss out on a chance to get a sealed copy of either Afrika or NBA Elite 11 for cheap if I ever changed my mind! (And FYI, NBA Elite 11 is the PS3's answer to Stadium Events.)

[fcgamer | 4,753]

Well I rolled the dice, I'll see what turns up this weekend.