It looks like the Sealed 1st Production NES Castlevania market has just exploded!

[MinusWorlds | 193]

10 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Can anyone give me insight into how this price is reached? Like what factors play into it going to 90k?

2 or 3 to exist, so it's rare. 

Castlevania so cool?

A ton of money on the sideline from other HA auctions and switching into favorites or better long term holds?

Bitcoin went brrr so time to splurge?

Maybe a quick flip? Raw -> grade gets $110k?

Honestly curious. People saying they're not surprised by $90k but that's more than most grails in other sectors of the collectors markets. And those are for graded items. Pivotal game, sure but not historic in my book. 3 is a better game but I guess missing the hangtab factor? $90k is 3x $30k. Like, that's a proper amount of cash.

I feel people are numb to these huge numbers. It's $10k over $80k. That's nothing to stick your nose up at. It makes me think these purchases are with funny money from big profits pulled from other sales. 

I mean, I’m the buyer. Funny money? No. 

Which sectors? Because of the major ones $90k is nothing. Whether it’s MTG, Pokémon, sports cards, coins, comics…$90k doesn’t even get you into the tier 1’s in most of those hobbies. Forget grails. 

Why did we drop $90k on this? It’s without a doubt the #1 third-party hangtab, some argue, and rightfully so, that they’d rather have Castlevania than SMB. I’m one of those people and there were 5 other people thinking the same that were bidding over the $80k mark.

NES is the golden age of video game collecting. For sealed collectors Castlevania is a grail in the first print variant. As Jonas said earlier it’s a very desirable third-party hangtab. If any game should get scrutinized for selling for a massive amount this isn’t it. Most sealed collectors that I spoke to knew it was going over $75k. Others had it over $100k.

Also, from a high-level. There are 6 known copies. It’s the first time a first print has ever been auctioned. It’s in near mint condition. It’s a massive franchise. It’s cool AF.

On a personal level I’ve been looking for over 20 years for a first print. It was the first game my mom ever bought me. Nostalgia is powerful.

Lastly, raw or graded doesn’t mean much to me. I’ve been doing this for decades. With proper pics I can tell within a grade or so what it would get and if it’s authentic. Any more questions fire away.

 

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,016]

13 minutes ago, MinusWorlds said:

Whether it’s MTG, Pokémon, sports cards, coins, comics…$90k doesn’t even get you into the tier 1’s in most of those hobbies. Forget grails. 

I appreciate the insight. Not just w this one particularly but these raw high dollar games in general.

With those, raw gets you a ton of top tier items for $90k. 90k gets a sealed booster box of 1st edition shadowless 

Maybe it's that NES is in a stage I haven't comprehended yet. Big card prices are for 10s, at least the ones I follow. NES carrying a premium and not be 10s doesn't connect in my mind yet. 

E: I guess what I'm getting at is, if this was a 10, I'd understand the consensus on the price being north of 75k given the rarity and significance. W.o the grade, it just seems like such a gamble from my end. 

Edited April 2 by RegularGuyGamer

[avatar! | 1,823]

7 hours ago, RH said:

You kind of get sticker-shock when you see that much money floating around a hobby that hasn't been that way for the prior 20 years.  I imagine that's the shock because even I feel that way from doing this for about 8 years now.

Yeah, the genie is out of the bottle. Now that games can be graded, there's no going back. Very much along the lines of all other highly collectibles -- Star Wars, GI Joe, Magic the Gathering, comic books, etc. -- once something can safely be authenticated and then sealed so that it basically appreciates in value, prices go up and up. Again, 20 years ago a Black Lotus was around $1k -- one recently sold on ebay for over $28k

[MinusWorlds | 193]

1 minute ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

I appreciate the insight. Not just w this one particularly but these raw high dollar games in general.

With those, raw gets you a ton of top tier items for $90k. 90k gets a sealed booster box of 1st edition shadowless 

Maybe it's that NES is in a stage I haven't comprehended yet. Big card prices are for 10s, at least the ones I follow. NES carrying a premium and not be 10s doesn't connect in my mind yet. 

Oh gotcha. I misunderstood.  So I guess I long-winded the answer, but for me I love raw auctions. Like I said I just need some pics and I feel comfortable knowing where it will grade. On this particular game I’ll tell you precisely what I saw:

Sharp corners, no corner pokes, no tears in the cellophane, excellent shape to the box with no corner dings. Light scuffing to the seal, factory flaws, and one pic that most people believed to be a crease. I knew it wasn’t. 

All this added up meant I felt real comfortable pushing to, and over, the $100k mark. I thought worst case it would fall in-line with the 2nd and 3rd highest graded copies. At best I thought it would be the second highest graded. Once I saw it and had it in-hand I knew it was special. I left the sale thinking firmly it was a 9.4/A+. I was right. 

In general you are absolutely right, raw does mean less, and in this case I know that’s what kept it under $100k. So I still feel as though it did sell for less than if graded. We’ll see what the graded 9.2/A+ gets in May but I had it at $150k in that grade. So for me, I saw a lot of potential meat on the bone around $100k. With that said, the meat doesn’t really matter for me, it’s just a nice to know sort of thing. 

The only 10 NES game I know of is the Karate Kid. There might be one more but it’s not of a crazy desirable game. That’s across thousands and thousands of NES graded games. That’s nuts.

For a first print Castlevania the 90 is the highest and my goodness is it gorgeous. This raw (now graded) copy would be considered likely the second highest tho there is another VGA one I haven’t seen pics of. So, forget 10, 9.6 is likely the ceiling and based on there only being 6 you work down from there. So while not dead mint, it is still getting a massive premium for being one of the nicest copies. 

Hopefully that helps and this time I answered it more directly. 
 

 

[avatar! | 1,823]

58 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Can anyone give me insight into how this price is reached? Like what factors play into it going to 90k?

2 or 3 to exist, so it's rare. 

Castlevania so cool?

A ton of money on the sideline from other HA auctions and switching into favorites or better long term holds?

Bitcoin went brrr so time to splurge?

Maybe a quick flip? Raw -> grade gets $110k?

Honestly curious. People saying they're not surprised by $90k but that's more than most grails in other sectors of the collectors markets. And those are for graded items. Pivotal game, sure but not historic in my book. 3 is a better game but I guess missing the hangtab factor? $90k is 3x $30k. Like, that's a proper amount of cash.

I feel people are numb to these huge numbers. It's $10k over $80k. That's nothing to stick your nose up at. It makes me think these purchases are with funny money from big profits pulled from other sales. 

I think any combination of what you said might be the case. If I had to guess, I would say someone with a good amount of disposable income (a millionaire) who remembers playing the NES and Castlevania, and decided this was a great investment opportunity.

As to whether 3 is a better game (it sure is), that does not factor into the price because this is the ORIGINAL Castlevania, one of the most influential games of all time. I would absolutely say Castlevania is "historic" and "pivotal" -- I could walk down the street telling people how important Our Town is to the American zeitgeist and why Thornton Wilder is a genius... and people will stare blankly. But, for better or worse, everyone will know what Castlevania is...  Anyway, while I think Castlevania III is fabulous, it's like saying "I think Mickey's Christmas Special is much better than Steamboat Willie" -- that may be the case, but Steamboat Willie is the first appearance of Mikey Mouse and will always be the more valuable and scarce collectible. 

[avatar! | 1,823]

38 minutes ago, MinusWorlds said:

I mean, I’m the buyer. Funny money? No. 

Which sectors? Because of the major ones $90k is nothing. Whether it’s MTG, Pokémon, sports cards, coins, comics…$90k doesn’t even get you into the tier 1’s in most of those hobbies. Forget grails. 

Why did we drop $90k on this? It’s without a doubt the #1 third-party hangtab, some argue, and rightfully so, that they’d rather have Castlevania than SMB. I’m one of those people and there were 5 other people thinking the same that were bidding over the $80k mark.

NES is the golden age of video game collecting. For sealed collectors Castlevania is a grail in the first print variant. As Jonas said earlier it’s a very desirable third-party hangtab. If any game should get scrutinized for selling for a massive amount this isn’t it. Most sealed collectors that I spoke to knew it was going over $75k. Others had it over $100k.

Also, from a high-level. There are 6 known copies. It’s the first time a first print has ever been auctioned. It’s in near mint condition. It’s a massive franchise. It’s cool AF.

On a personal level I’ve been looking for over 20 years for a first print. It was the first game my mom ever bought me. Nostalgia is powerful.

Lastly, raw or graded doesn’t mean much to me. I’ve been doing this for decades. With proper pics I can tell within a grade or so what it would get and if it’s authentic. Any more questions fire away.

 

Ah, wow! Congratulations

I was being facetious when I said in the original post Alright, who here at VGS purchased this??

[MinusWorlds | 193]

12 minutes ago, avatar! said:

I think any combination of what you said might be the case. If I had to guess, I would say someone with a good amount of disposable income (a millionaire) who remembers playing the NES and Castlevania, and decided this was a great investment opportunity.

As to whether 3 is a better game (it sure is), that does not factor into the price because this is the ORIGINAL Castlevania, one of the most influential games of all time. I would absolutely say Castlevania is "historic" and "pivotal" -- I could walk down the street telling people how important Our Town is to the American zeitgeist and why Thornton Wilder is a genius... and people will stare blankly. But, for better or worse, everyone will know what Castlevania is...  Anyway, while I think Castlevania III is fabulous, it's like saying "I think Mickey's Christmas Special is much better than Steamboat Willie" -- that may be the case, but Steamboat Willie is the first appearance of Mikey Mouse and will always be the more valuable and scarce collectible. 

100% agree with this!

[MinusWorlds | 193]

22 minutes ago, avatar! said:

Ah, wow! Congratulations

I was being facetious when I said in the original post Alright, who here at VGS purchased this??

Thank you, avatar! 

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,016]

That makes sense. Coming from looking at mostly graded cards, 10s are always on the table. But w the grade scale of Vidya, I get why it's not the highest grade no matter the circumstances given a particular circulation of the game.

 

38 minutes ago, MinusWorlds said:

Light scuffing to the seal, factory flaws, and one pic that most people believed to be a crease. 

Put me in that camp! That's was the first thing I said. With grading on my mind, I saw that and dismissed a good grade right away. I know w cards that depending on the size of the crease, you can't get an otherw ise mint card over a 7. Tbf, idk how those translate to the video game grade scales. A 9.4 is a hell of a grade for what my eyes look away from those last two pics. I thought there were decent creases on the top too with those low quality pics.

Good eye. The gamble definitely paid off.

[MinusWorlds | 193]

9 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

That makes sense. Coming from looking at mostly graded cards, 10s are always on the table. But w the grade scale of Vidya, I get why it's not the highest grade no matter the circumstances given a particular circulation of the game.

 

Put me in that camp! That's was the first thing I said. With grading on my mind, I saw that and dismissed a good grade right away. I know w cards that depending on the size of the crease, you can't get an otherw ise mint card over a 7. Tbf, idk how those translate to the video game grade scales. A 9.4 is a hell of a grade for what my eyes look away from those last two pics. I thought there were decent creases on the top too with those low quality pics.

Good eye. The gamble definitely paid off.

Dude that’s funny cuz I, for the life of me, cannot figure out card grading. 
Is Vidya that AI assisted software?
 

Peep this. 
 

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,016]

1 hour ago, MinusWorlds said:

Dude that’s funny cuz I, for the life of me, cannot figure out card grading. 
Is Vidya that AI assisted software?
 

Peep this. 
 

Lol wtf?? I'm shocked bro. Good call on that one. 

It's popular in the card world to send in cards, get a 9, then crack the slab and sell it raw for the next person to case the 10 bc the price difference between 9 and 10 for cards like a Charizard 1st Ed is insane - like x 5 or x 10. When I saw that picture, I initially thought that might've been the case. Perfect pics of the front. Shit pics of the top and bottom. Why wasn't it graded already?

I guess some people are really out here keeping several thousand dollars of games ungraded at any time. What a world. It's just a different reality than I live in. I know we all have different opinions on grading but no card, comic, sealed game, hell even movie at this point, worth any significant amount of money is sitting around me ungraded. My mind is blown someone has that stash of ungraded NES games and all their other sales are ungraded comics and sports cards. 

[NostalgicMachine | 245]

All for a cool $90.1K!

[Tyree_Cooper | 760]

squish that box, a little bit harder yeah!

[inasuma | 1,203]

16 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Can anyone give me insight into how this price is reached? Like what factors play into it going to 90k?

2 or 3 to exist, so it's rare. 

Castlevania so cool?

A ton of money on the sideline from other HA auctions and switching into favorites or better long term holds?

Bitcoin went brrr so time to splurge?

Maybe a quick flip? Raw -> grade gets $110k?

Honestly curious. People saying they're not surprised by $90k but that's more than most grails in other sectors of the collectors markets. And those are for graded items. Pivotal game, sure but not historic in my book. 3 is a better game but I guess missing the hangtab factor? $90k is 3x $30k. Like, that's a proper amount of cash.

I feel people are numb to these huge numbers. It's $10k over $80k. That's nothing to stick your nose up at. It makes me think these purchases are with funny money from big profits pulled from other sales. 

It’s easy. What deep wallets felt like bidding that day, and is there a second person who is equally determined. Commence bidding war.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,016]

4 hours ago, inasuma said:

It’s easy. What deep wallets felt like bidding that day, and is there a second person who is equally determined. Commence bidding war.

Ther e a ton of factors that go into a max bid for a high dollar item. 

[final fight cd | 187]

2 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Ther e a ton of factors that go into a max bid for a high dollar item. 

There is only 1: emotion.

When a potential buyer watches an item for a week, feelings begin to form.  Maybe every couple hours or, at the very least, every day Buyer checks in on Game; makes sure Game is still there and it’s doing okay; makes sure Game isn’t getting too much attention.  With each day, the relationship becomes stronger. unfortunately Game doesn’t give back the same love and affection to Buyer. But Buyer doesn’t care. Buyer likes this abuse. Buyer will do what it takes to own and hold game when all said and done.

 

it would be interesting to see what impacts longer auctions have on  ending prices compared to shorter auctions.  I’m just being silly with what I said above, but I would speculate that longer auctions do help to emotionally invest buyers than shorter auctions.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,016]

31 minutes ago, final fight cd said:

it would be interesting to see what impacts longer auctions have on  ending prices compared to shorter auctions.  I’m just being silly with what I said above, but I would speculate that longer auctions do help to emotionally invest buyers than shorter auctions.

I could probably test it. The issue would be deciding which games to examine bc not every game ends up at 90k lol

[inasuma | 1,203]

2 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Ther e a ton of factors that go into a max bid for a high dollar item. 

The rarity and desirability of the game helped a lot. I guess that’s why five different people were bidding over 80k lol

[T-Pac | 7,577]

Slight tangent ...

Where did the "It looks like the (insert game) market has exploded!" thing come from?

I kept seeing that same phrase posted here over and over, and I was rolling my eyes at it until I realized it's probably some meme that I'm just not savvy to haha.

[T-Pac]

[RH | 4,936]

44 minutes ago, T-Pac said:

Slight tangent ...

Where did the "It looks like the (insert game) market has exploded!" thing come from?

I kept seeing that same phrase posted here over and over, and I was rolling my eyes at it until I realized it's probably some meme that I'm just not savvy to haha.

[T-Pac]

I could be wrong but I think it's a very localized meme on here.  I think @DefaultGen started it a few weeks ago, and it just carried over here.  I could be wrong though.  This is legit the only "social media" site I go to.  Like, at all.

EDIT

Well, ok, some might consider YouTube social media, but since all I watch are gamer, science and hunting/outdoorsy channels, I don't count them.  I'm not one to get into the whole Shorts/Community part of YT.

Edited April 8 by RH

[DefaultGen | 5,423]

I only started it because of @avatar! 

[avatar! | 1,823]

4 hours ago, T-Pac said:

Slight tangent ...

Where did the "It looks like the (insert game) market has exploded!" thing come from?

I kept seeing that same phrase posted here over and over, and I was rolling my eyes at it until I realized it's probably some meme that I'm just not savvy to haha.

[T-Pac]

[fcgamer | 4,738]

This is one of those situations where I personally just don't "get" the market, or the mentality for needing the item to be dead mint. I guess that my mentality sort of stands that while it may be rare for a copy of this game to be in this condition, the game itself (and even with a box and manual) isn't particularly rare. I have one sitting at home in the States, which my brother and I had as kids, for example. So when people talk about the rarity, I just can't help but to think to myself, "Sure, but this was a popular, mass-produced item."

Given my above personal feelings, I would much rather own a copy of Air Raid, despite not even being into Atari, as that is a game that is truly rare. Then again, general investors / pop culture guys are going to be more into the Castlevania for sure, but this just reflects the difference between the old generation game collector and those folks that are getting into this new sealed market.

Even the artwork market I can understand, as that is something that is one-of-a-kind, unique, and spectacular. A mint graded game just doesn't do it for me, at all. 

That said, I have a lot of respect for the buyer of this game, and think he's a great guy. So if he's happy with his purchase, I am happy for him, and similarly if the market dictates this sort of price, I am more than fine with that, though the whole pump n dump WATA / HA scheme I really wasn't too keen on.

So yeah, I don't understand the appeal of sealed mint games no matter what people say to me, but to each their own. 

[RH | 4,936]

3 hours ago, fcgamer said:

This is one of those situations where I personally just don't "get" the market, or the mentality for needing the item to be dead mint. I guess that my mentality sort of stands that while it may be rare for a copy of this game to be in this condition, the game itself (and even with a box and manual) isn't particularly rare. I have one sitting at home in the States, which my brother and I had as kids, for example. So when people talk about the rarity, I just can't help but to think to myself, "Sure, but this was a popular, mass-produced item."

Given my above personal feelings, I would much rather own a copy of Air Raid, despite not even being into Atari, as that is a game that is truly rare. Then again, general investors / pop culture guys are going to be more into the Castlevania for sure, but this just reflects the difference between the old generation game collector and those folks that are getting into this new sealed market.

Even the artwork market I can understand, as that is something that is one-of-a-kind, unique, and spectacular. A mint graded game just doesn't do it for me, at all. 

That said, I have a lot of respect for the buyer of this game, and think he's a great guy. So if he's happy with his purchase, I am happy for him, and similarly if the market dictates this sort of price, I am more than fine with that, though the whole pump n dump WATA / HA scheme I really wasn't too keen on.

So yeah, I don't understand the appeal of sealed mint games no matter what people say to me, but to each their own. 

There's always multiple factors when it comes to increasing the value of collectibles.  Rarity is important and for people like you and me, but in our own niche ways who like the find truly unique and rare items that are part of a larger story, then it's easy to shrug and ask "why?!"

But the fact is, you're prototype bootleg that might be from the first batch of any bootleg every created for the Famicom, or my one-of-a-kind Myst Mechanical Age patch disk I just found that I'm still riding high on, has no meaning to the masses.  I work from home and when people on Zoom learn that I collect games, they ask me if I have anything really "rare and cool"? I want to show off my 5 New Leaf/Game Factory cartridges, my First Edition Myst and my 3 protos for the Game Boy, but what they really want to see is my dead mint, CIB lefty Mario Bros 3, and even then they need a little bit of education as to why it "matters".

Unfortunately, as collector markets mature part of that maturity is mass appeal and what appeals to masses is nostalgia, not rarity and niche, historically important items.  So if they desire common or uncommon items, then they have to semi-manufacture conditions that increase scarcity and value and the best way to do that is to sort the options by condition. 

Is this game sealed? Check.  That's already a 1 in 100 of all similar specimens.  Is it in Excellent vs. Good condition? It is, so that makes it now a 1 in 20 item of the 1 in 100 copies you might run into that are sealed.  Oh, but this one over here is dead mint and the best example we've found for this common game!  Aha! So of all the carts, CIBs and Sealed copies of this Game X, this is the most perfect conditioned one you can find and is therefore "rare", "important" and "valuable".

And all collector markets built around manufactured goods react this way.

And the fact is, I'm not throwing shade at that either.  High-conditioned items display well and get you closer what is also that most important feeling people associate with these toys and it's not playing with them--it's the excitement of unwrapping them on Christmas or Birthdays and seeing something you'll know you'll enjoy because you begged for it for ages.  I think a lot of collectors are more interested in reliving Christmas, rather than those countless hours of playing the games, and on Christmas, you probably had a mint, store fresh copy.  That's what you want on your shelf.

Not everything I own needs to be that way, but I do have a some key games that I've wanted CIB/Sealed and generally I want it for the same reasons.  Mine are a weird mix though, SMB3, Final Fantasy Adventure, Cybernoid for the NES, Anticipation for the NES (yes, you read that right), Golden Eye 007, Super Mario 64, Sonic 2 for the Game Gear, Duck Tales for the Game Boy and Metroid 1 and 2.  That's an odd mix of games that I'd want sealed or in mint CIB shape.  But why?  Because all of those were games that I spent countless hours playing as a kid.  I can relive the game play easy enough, but holding a perfect, mint copy like I did on all of those Christmases and Birthdays ago, well that takes owning the those new or CIB.  I have about half of those games, and I don't regret pay the prices I paid for any of them.  I'd also, at some point, like to prioritize getting the others too.

[T-Pac | 7,577]

18 hours ago, avatar! said:

I ... still don't get it...

Is that "card market" thread referencing a meme that already existed, or did you take that thread and turn it into a meme???

I don't know why I care so much. I just ... gotta know, y'know?

[T-Pac]