Look at these prices...unreal right ?

[Tanooki | 4,932]

I feel it has gone bad to worse as far as being a buyer goes.  I think it will only at least short term get worse/stay worse.  With that partial cut of those stimulus checks out now, and another nearly 2.25x that amount coming shortly I'd guess within a week or few, combined with tax refund time it'll be like a 2020 rerun of boosted sellers dreams.

[RH | 4,903]

6 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I feel it has gone bad to worse as far as being a buyer goes.  I think it will only at least short term get worse/stay worse.  With that partial cut of those stimulus checks out now, and another nearly 2.25x that amount coming shortly I'd guess within a week or few, combined with tax refund time it'll be like a 2020 rerun of boosted sellers dreams.

I follow auctions for items I want or want to sell. I snipe the stuff I want with a lower end of average bid. I haven't won an auction in two week and I usually win this stuff 10-25% lower than average price. When I check the auction results, they often end higher than other BIN sales?!

So people have definitely been buying with their covid bucks.

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

I just ran a search for Sega Genesis games on eBay and the prices for Sega are way above what I would consider normal - anyone who regularly collects sega feel the same way or are the prices usually that high?

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

2 hours ago, RH said:

I follow auctions for items I want or want to sell. I snipe the stuff I want with a lower end of average bid. I haven't won an auction in two week and I usually win this stuff 10-25% lower than average price. When I check the auction results, they often end higher than other BIN sales?!

So people have definitely been buying with their covid bucks.

People buying above BIN is one of the funniest eBay quirks. It only makes sense if you're winning multiple auctions with combined shipping, and even then it's a bit suspect. Whenever I'm tracking an item I really want, I always have the most reasonably priced BIN in my cart ahead of time. If the auction price gets close, I just BIN the other one and move on with my life.

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

I got a preview of what's coming in an April auction and it's going to break all video game records for sales. Just wait until that happens.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

5 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

I just ran a search for Sega Genesis games on eBay and the prices for Sega are way above what I would consider normal - anyone who regularly collects sega feel the same way or are the prices usually that high?

It's quite upsetting. I focused on NES/SNES/N64 for years. I'm on the tail end of it all, and I still need 200+ Genesis titles. But I look on eBay, and I'm just like... it's just too much.

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

11 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

It's quite upsetting. I focused on NES/SNES/N64 for years. I'm on the tail end of it all, and I still need 200+ Genesis titles. But I look on eBay, and I'm just like... it's just too much.

sega stuff been trying to pop off for a while seems.

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

11 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

It's quite upsetting. I focused on NES/SNES/N64 for years. I'm on the tail end of it all, and I still need 200+ Genesis titles. But I look on eBay, and I'm just like... it's just too much.

I guess I’m lucky to have 3 retro game stores within driving distance to me where I can pick up a bunch of cheap Genesis games and not have to pay shipping individually. Even with the more expensive stuff they know me and will still cut me a deal from pricecharting. 
 

Even outside Genesis, pricecharting has become the place for people to get a price and still add 10-20% on it for eBay. It’s really a bummer. PC or GVN used to be the starting point and maybe lower the price based on relationship or quantity of the purchase. Now I’m lucky to pay the pricecharting price. I get inflation but that shit is supposed to take time lol

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

3 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

People buying above BIN is one of the funniest eBay quirks. It only makes sense if you're winning multiple auctions with combined shipping, and even then it's a bit suspect. Whenever I'm tracking an item I really want, I always have the most reasonably priced BIN in my cart ahead of time. If the auction price gets close, I just BIN the other one and move on with my life.

This happened to me last night with Tombs and Treasures for NES, there was one for $24 and change after shipping BIN and I was bidding on one that got up to over $25 I was like why wouldn’t you just BIN the other one? Same condition and loose

edit: I did buy the BIN one lol

Edited January 20, 2021 by a3quit4s

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

I guess I’m lucky to have 3 retro game stores within driving distance to me where I can pick up a bunch of cheap Genesis games and not have to pay shipping individually. Even with the more expensive stuff they know me and will still cut me a deal from pricecharting. 

Yea there's a few near me. Literally have them wiped out, if there is a Genesis game they have, I have it. Unless the rare occasion that they get a good trade in.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

I understand the revulsion, nausea, fury of all this, sadness and whatever else.

I think we can all more or less agree on this statement that in general (there are always exceptions) that the large majority of gameboy, gameboy color, and advance games have traditionally stayed cheap, very cheap, when no paper(manual, posters, boxes, etc) are involved.  You could gobble up a majority of the library between dollar games up to original more or less retail ($30) with quite a few falling more in the middle/lower middle of that.

Since the last year though, ugh, that has not been the case.  And even in the cases where that rule still holds true, it's only because suddenly that $5 game is now $10-15 easy, maybe $20.  This is no natural escalation as some price shilling trolls like calling natural inflation.  That is gradual over time, not suddenly hey look well that was $300 two years ago, now it's worth $5000-$10000 UNGRADED?!?!, and that bump mostly in the last year's time.  I know that's kind of specific, I'm just disgusted how far up a sealed copy of Pokemon Red went.  But hey want to talk loose?  Pokemon Emerald, how the hell that can be justified to be a $100 purchase or higher now, LOOSE, when it was an easy $25-30 pick up 18 months ago, $40 a year ago, and now it's up $60-70+ in  year?  Yeah...no.  Stimulus activity entirely.

 

Think I'm joking about Pokemon Red, look at this shit, yeah I'm not sugarcoating it...shit.  Notice that dented box price?  I don't like this site, but the line graph sells it.

 

[Pendragonx | 117]

that's crazy! o_O

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

OK so I revived this thread the other day because I had a couple crazy stories of my own to share. But firstly, I've been following online listings, Facebook groups, Reddit, etc. etc. for a year solid now, it's like my hobby, just whenever I'm bored I pop out my phone and I'm looking at this stuff day in day out. So I have some thoughts. One thing I've noticed is that "available supply" has been scarce since COVID lockdowns started. Some items that used to be readily available are near impossible to find now, and not because people are buying them up - I mean you just don't even see listings for these things. One example is the Gotcha Force strategy guide which I wish I had picked up a couple years ago when you could find it on eBay for $35 - $40. I haven't seen a listing for one in months. Finally one popped up on eBay recently but it's an auction and the seller is asking a crazy price. It's so frustrating. I mean if you haven't been doing this for a long time then you could really be led to believe that these things are super rare. Doesn't matter where you are looking, local game stores or online, the stuff just isn't there. Another item I rarely see now is Kirby's Dreamland 2 CIB. I also recall Mario Party 2 CIB got hard to find. I can name a bunch of items that I've been searching for that used to be relatively common before last year and the "available supply" just dried up. So when you have inexperienced buyers who think prices only go up and are looking to acquire something quickly, they really don't care if something is actually rare or just "seems rare because I can't find many listings for it," they will pay up. 

That being said I do think some of this stuff was due to go up in value eventually. The way I look at it is this. Little Samson is kind of my barometer for NES values and mid to high end collecting in general. Little Samson cart only is kind of rare, not crazy rare, and that has been pretty consistently in the $1.3k range for the past few years. It hasn't exploded like other stuff has in the past year. So the way I look at it is, if there's a game in another console library that is pretty similar to Little Samson in terms of rarity, should it have parity? Should they go for the same price? Because if anything, the price difference is more about the demand for that console library and not so much a difference in supply for the games themselves. So like Gotcha Force CIB - similar rarity maybe? Maybe I'm way off here but if GameCube collecting is really hot then I wonder why shouldn't Gotcha Force CIB be a $1.3k game? Or a CIB Return of the Ninja. I mean my point is if another console library gets to be as in-demand as NES then I would expect a game of similar rarity to Little Samson would command a similar price. OK make of that what you will. 

Anyway, so, 

22 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I feel it has gone bad to worse as far as being a buyer goes

Co-signed. It's bad. I've been frustrated with some of the stuff I've been hunting for. Like, it doesn't feel like the effort is worth it. I know these things aren't that rare but it sure feels like it since they just aren't popping up. I'm also increasingly convinced that post-COVID, whenever that happens, we will see a lot more inventory show up on the market because people will finally be comfortable sending their stuff to the thrift or having garage sales or whatever and then maybe prices will really come down somewhat. Who knows. But I have to share a couple stories from the seller side that had me blown away a bit. Obviously I don't deal in high end stuff so I'm not pocketing big money like some people are right now. But here's two examples of sales I thought were just a bit too wild. 

1. Some lady in a Facebook group was looking to sell a sealed Intec AV Switch & Speakers bundle for the GameCube. The one she was selling was black and she mentioned that she really wanted the purple one instead to match her GameCube. So I replied, out of the blue, what if someone had a purple one and would be willing to trade? Because seriously, I have a black GameCube and a purple AV Switch & Speakers set. I got the accessory from a GameCube haul I picked up a couple years ago that at the time I felt wasn't the best haul. I still have a spreadsheet of stuff I sold from that haul, like an Intec screen that had bad speakers (sold for about $60) and some games like a CIB Wind Waker I sold for $33. That's a $60 game now if not more. So I mention this because looking back at this list now it feels like I sold all that stuff for peanuts, even though those were the going prices at the time. I mean my brain can't really process these numbers now. So back to the accessory I still had, this lady was willing to actually trade me the sealed set for my loose set and just have me pay her $20 to cover her shipping, but then backed out of the deal. She ended up selling the set and then contacted me a few days later asking if I would sell her my purple set FOR $200. $200! Literally this:

When I bought this thing 2 years ago I figured it was worth $50 at best. And I wasn't planning to sell it, but I thought about it a bit and decided I'd rather have the money and use a $20 AV Switch from GE instead (which I purchased that same night off Amazon). But seriously, have you seen what, like, the Intec screens and such have been going for? These things aren't rare! 

2. I bought this bundle 11 months ago. Not even a year ago. On the bay. For about $160: 

At the time it seemed like a pretty good deal! I still have most of the stuff in that picture. But I did some research on the game in the middle and figured out that it's pretty uncommon and happens to be the first Game Boy game from the studio now known as WayForward. So whatever, pretty cool, into the collection it goes. (I also played the full thing in one sitting... it's good if you like puzzle games but nothing special). Anyway, so I'm hitting this point recently where I'm spending too much on stuff and feeling like I need to let some things go, and I decide I'd be willing to sell this if I can get a good amount for it. So to make a long story short, I had it on eBay for a bit at $299 with offers and I ended up with 8 watchers and ended up selling it to someone who offered $245. But here's the crazy thing. The buyer is in Europe, and eBay showed me the total the buyer paid with taxes and shipping. Fellas... it was $340 in total on their end. For this: 

It's not sealed and it's not mint, but I guess hey, it was the only copy on eBay aside from another copy from a seller in Europe that was asking like $800. 

It's just blowing my mind on multiple levels. Like I think back to the prices I was seeing a year ago, which to some of you were probably already getting too high, and thinking "why didn't I buy everything I could find then???" 

Anyway that went on long but I had to share this somewhere. I'd be happier if I already had all the items I wanted and wasn't still hunting. As it is, even when I'm selling stuff at great prices I'm still mad because I will have to pay up for the stuff I want. T_T

Edited January 21, 2021 by MiamiSlice

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Yeah that kind of jives with what I've been seeing.  As my ability to roll out and hit flea markets was cut off entirely, so it's basically retail thrift things are sketchy slim, and facebook marketplace was about it otherwise and over the last 6 month has become crappier too.  I'm combating it being a bit more aggressive and looking outside my area too as I want to get GB family stuff to repair, upgrade, refurb and turn around what I don't keep.  Due to this I keep a perpetual watch on ebay consistently for newly listed stuff, and every day or two I check the stuff closing out in that period as well and wait.  I've seen what you're saying on stupid prices for common stuff and it's spreading.  Usually I find around the hand out or threat of free government money you'll see spikes, some idiots due to the good word, more so once the money starts to flow which is sick.  That's why I've kept up on that Pokemon Red I have, because that was a $100 investment that was worth $300-350 at the time I got it around January 2019.  Two years later, somehow it's worth $10000 not perfect, great shape though, sealed, and not idiotically slabbed.  Does not compute.

I've seen the strange trend of the values of handhelds going up as well, but they kind of topped at this point of what people will pay, and jackasses who try and find that next sucker who will pay too much and mostly thankfully they fail.  The problem I'm finding is, it's slimming out my ability to repair and refurb where I can make something on the side for my hour or twos worth of work and temporary investment into the repairs.  The margin is narrowing so I've backed off buying more gameboys unless they're pre-stupid priced at this point or can be made so with bundled games.  Any GB, GBP or GBC that costs $50 now annoyingly, once you have to invest $80-90 into the LCD and other parts needed, then remove 15% for the ebay+FVF/pp fees, then shipping charges too and it gets slim.  The fact the handhelds have gone up like 33-50% in price sucks.  Take for instance my current order I got a setup for 2 GBP to repair and 1 DMG.  The DMG parts cost me $90, I can sell that for $150 as I've got that before. Roughly 150 -5(ship) -90 (parts) -25 (fees) $30 remains.  GBP though is less desirable and I had to get $80 in parts, they sell for usually around $130 so figure -80 -20 -5 and $25 remains.  It's getting bad.  I may just raise my prices and squat on them and hope they move since they seem to maybe starting to creep up too hopefully.  Just wanted to write that out to show it's not just the old, but the newly refurbished and the damaged remains to do those that are getting bad as well.

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

On 1/20/2021 at 10:28 PM, Tanooki said:

But hey want to talk loose?  Pokemon Emerald, how the hell that can be justified to be a $100 purchase or higher now, LOOSE, when it was an easy $25-30 pick up 18 months ago, $40 a year ago, and now it's up $60-70+ in  year?  Yeah...no.  Stimulus activity entirely.

It makes sense, it's not it's the most common GBA game ever. It's like... the third most common GBA game ever.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

....must...not...laugh at that level of stupidity, nope failed, clicked the button.

[a_profile_name | 230]

I think that with common loose games, it's actually market manipulation. Not WATA-Heritage-level manipulation like you see with the speculation on graded/sealed stuff. You have these 2-3 web based used games stores who probably have enough money to buy every loose copy of a specific game that come up on ebay. It's reasonable to assume that for common popular games they have dozens in stocks all the time, and they also get some from trades-ins probably. All they need to do is bid up stuff on ebay.

All the time on ebay I see users with 5 digit reputation scores bidding items up to the higher end of the current market price. Most chances are these users are businesses. Now, they can't make a profit if buy it for 90% of they sell it for, but even if they don't sell it for a profit, they help secure a higher price so they can make that profit on their current stock.

A common game doesn't go organically for two times the price in one year, even if everyone gets free money (unless maybe there is some sudden rise in demand, like a new remake or something like this). Hell, even if everyone got money which they are only allowed to spend on old used games, I don't think that Pokemon Emerald would have doubled in price.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

I'm certain it's entirely manipulation and you're right if you look at the say top 5 ebay/web based combo resale people they always ask more than a normal seller and dumbasses buy from them like that's some magic shield of protection and trustworthiness.  I've had a fair many games bought by some of them using ghost accounts on ebay, but when I get the printed label done up it'll say hillbilly, sosa, dkoldies, whatever and it sucks...for the buyer to come, because they'll pay full price, they're not even after deals because they know they have a consistent stream of suckers.  And when they sell, then random people like you and me can then ask more because they drive up the figures.

But I think absolving the racket that wata/ha has been scamming isn't right either, because many of these doofuses have a disconnect on value they just see the game so they'll post that pokemon yellow for $50 when it clears $30 and ask $80 on a $40 GB Color just because someone else did it.  It didn't matter if theirs is beat up, missing parts, shows wear, it's just the same item to them and they hope someone else is slow enough to think the same too.

[a_profile_name | 230]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

 ...and ask $80 on a $40 GB Color just because someone else did it.  It didn't matter if theirs is beat up, missing parts, shows wear, it's just the same item to them and they hope someone else is slow enough to think the same too.

You mean like this guy over here? https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pokemon-Stadium-N64-1995/133443502925?epid=8020&hash=item1f11da434d:g:wAAAAOSwYcRe7Rp5

I honestly find it sad that people have such low standards of quality. Not realizing that your game should sell for discount, and instead trying to sell it for about 2 times the value of a standard cart.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Yup that's a perfect example of the stupid factor right there. I checked ebay and it's like 25-35 depending on the buyer for a nice one, so it fits with my mental image of not offering more than $10 on it like that, $15 tops, and that fits.  He'll either get the point, or since it is pokemon maybe it'll go up to $50 shortly for a crap copy and he'll feel justified.

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

33 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Yup that's a perfect example of the stupid factor right there. I checked ebay and it's like 25-35 depending on the buyer for a nice one, so it fits with my mental image of not offering more than $10 on it like that, $15 tops, and that fits.  He'll either get the point, or since it is pokemon maybe it'll go up to $50 shortly for a crap copy and he'll feel justified.

Here's the thing though. While we are here complaining about asking prices that are too high, people are walking into brick & mortar retro games stores across the country and paying more than even eBay going prices for this stuff. I swear I just saw this post on Reddit: 

This made me GROAN. This kid got robbed, fleeced, etc. $30!!! And yet he looked at this sad little cart and his eyes lit up and he thought I BETTER GRAB THIS NOW BEFORE ANYONE ELSE SEES IT AND PAY UP AND GO TELL REDDIT ABOUT MY AMAZING FIND. 

And you know what? Someone will walk into another store and find a Pokemon Stadium cart looking like it was a competitor in a destruction derby and pay $50 for it because WOW POKEMON and hey it works right? 

Obviously I'm preaching to the choir here but yeah there are people that pay these ridiculous prices like the Amazon listings that are way higher than eBay and so on. We always assume it's market manipulation or something but remember Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Or in this case ignorance because no one is really stupid for doing stuff like this, they just don't know any better. And yeah as a market like game collecting grows quickly and a lot of new buyers enter the market they will do ignorant stuff like this and some people will benefit financially. 

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

The part that gets me is "I don't really know if this is rare". Like OK, maybe you're young and this is your nostalgia sweet spot. Maybe you spent you whole life with loose DS carts so it doesn't bother you. Maybe you don't care that it sells for half the price you paid complete because you want it in your hand right now. But it's at the top of DS bestseller charts and DS is Nintendo's bestselling system man! You don't KNOW whether it's RARE?

But hey, these guys either just want to play games or are at the beginning of their collecting life. I was excited to have a physical Mario/Duck Hunt for the first time. But I mean... I paid $0.25 for it.

Edited January 24, 2021 by DefaultGen

[Tabonga | 2,317]

The tulip market in 1637 Netherlands.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

16 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Here's the thing though. While we are here complaining about asking prices that are too high, people are walking into brick & mortar retro games stores across the country and paying more than even eBay going prices for this stuff. I swear I just saw this post on Reddit: 

 

This made me GROAN. This kid got robbed, fleeced, etc. $30!!! And yet he looked at this sad little cart and his eyes lit up and he thought I BETTER GRAB THIS NOW BEFORE ANYONE ELSE SEES IT AND PAY UP AND GO TELL REDDIT ABOUT MY AMAZING FIND. 

And you know what? Someone will walk into another store and find a Pokemon Stadium cart looking like it was a competitor in a destruction derby and pay $50 for it because WOW POKEMON and hey it works right? 

Obviously I'm preaching to the choir here but yeah there are people that pay these ridiculous prices like the Amazon listings that are way higher than eBay and so on. We always assume it's market manipulation or something but remember Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Or in this case ignorance because no one is really stupid for doing stuff like this, they just don't know any better. And yeah as a market like game collecting grows quickly and a lot of new buyers enter the market they will do ignorant stuff like this and some people will benefit financially. 

1. He's a lying sack of crap, doesn't know.  Yeah, like he doesn't know he needs to breathe air or take a shower not to stink like his post.  $30 is a joke.  $30 is what the remaster on 3DS games in like new shape, not the loose lesser DS copy, total tool looking for another tool.  Stuff like that is why we have problems.

2. Yup, stupid people are stupid, you can't fix stupid, even trying to educate stupid if it works, comes after the fact when the damage is done.  So yeah, someone will think ooh pokemon I'll pay that, when that is like 2-3x the price because well pokemon.

3. Yes preach and preach on, might as well have somewhere to vent this idiocy.  I mean I can't complain incredibly hard, I'm still offloading my toy and gaming collection years into it now, so if morons want to pay more, helps me out just fine.  I just see it as a means to an even nicer PC when this six year old one craters.  I've never heard of Hanlon's Razor before, Occams yes, but now I got another and it fits.  Hanlon entirely fits the buyers unfortunately, but after seeing so many shifty posts and people pulling garbage online and locally, I can't give that benefit to a great many sellers.  Perfect example been watching for weeks this guy trying to sell a GB w/Pokemon Yellow and wanted like $60 and +20 on the game, he finally dropped it to 40+10.  I was like ok, buy it, when I get there he thinks it's broken (screen) and it wasn't, the contrast wheel was at zero, but he was wanting to sell it unusable.  That was a case of stupidity as it fits with Hanlon, he didn't know better, and thankfully didn't re-raise the price...yet he did also want $80 on a GBC that did work with a repop game in the slot.  I was nice and said no.

[LifeGame | 760]

Here is a nice one for ya

As perfect as it gets but still box only