The 'Warehouse Pallet'

[T-Pac | 7,539]

Collectors always toss around the hypothetical scenario where a pallet of rare games is found in some warehouse, tanking the value of a sought-after item.

Recently I've been thinking - if this were to happen to a specific game, what game would I most like it to be?

I don't personally have a solid answer yet, but I think I'd like the game to be something with great gameplay value (like Little Samson) rather than a set-filler that is easily attainable in some other form (like the NTSC vs PAL Sonic on Master System).

[Strange | 1,700]

I’d kill for it to be Little Samson.

Forget the game at that point, the real money is in the pallets. That’s right folks, you can now own one of the pallets that tanked Little Samson/Panic Restaurant/Dinosaur Peak.

[Tulpa | 3,492]

It actually did happen to Caltron 6-in-1, where a pallet was found in Mexico and sealed copies flooded the market. Aladdin Deck Enhancer had a similar thing happen.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Tulpa

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

It probably would likely be Little Samson because the later releases would have had production runs that just didn't get sold when the NES lost market share to the SNES. They would either get sent back to TAITO or sit around in a warehouse until the warehouse was sold or lease expired and it got cleaned out. I can guarantee you right now there are some warehouses in Malaysia or Singapore that contain sealed NES games, the amount of product some of those contain is atrocious and doesn't get touched once it gets pushed into a corner.

I saw on Facebook that bunnyboy even found some 8-Bit Xmas 2008 recently when he was cleaning out his desk. Things just get pushed to the side and land in a junk pile that never gets sorted.

[Startyde | 175]

Back in the day, Child World was number 2 is the US toy market. They ironically got into a scuffle with Nintendo over their warranty and return policy, of which there was virtually none back in the day, and Nintendo withheld supply for a bit.

Anyway, long story short is they ended up going under pretty quickly in early 90's and were clearing out their stores so quickly, they often were unable to get at the pallets and supply stacked high or in the back. Legend says a lot of old store stock Child World supply, including late era NES, are piled in various liquidator warehouses across the country to this day. 

That kinda take would be as interesting to sess out as the infamous Atari ET dig site. 

[Pats1717 | 62]

I don’t know all the liquidators I know just spin product warehouse space is expensive and fast nickels are better than slow dimes

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

4 minutes ago, Pats1717 said:

I don’t know all the liquidators I know just spin product warehouse space is expensive and fast nickels are better than slow dimes

^^^This. 

Most of that stuff was probably blown out long ago; I recall some distributor had lots of NES top loaders brand new (no outer box, just the foam and everything inside) for 49.99 in the late 90s/early 2000s.

A bunch of late Atari 2600 releases ended up in Venezuela for some reason.   Tanked a few games' value.

[Aguy | 772]

I think it would be cool to find something like Resident Evil Gaiden for GBC. It's not the best, most expensive, or rare, but it's a game not a lot of people know about and is technically impressive.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

I'll put my vote on Police Academy by Tengen for NES.  I remember reading an interview with a Tengen staffer years ago where he mentioned that the game was completely done to the point of being boxed, shrinkwrapped and loaded up on pallets when the order came down to field destroy them all.  Of course odds are highly in favour of them actually being destroyed at that time, but all it would've taken is for some lazy warehouse worker to be more focused on going home early for the weekend or whatever and then driving the skid into the back corner of the warehouse where it's out of the way until he could deal with it later...

Edited August 29, 2020 by Dr. Morbis

[OptOut | 8,883]

3 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

It probably would likely be Little Samson because the later releases would have had production runs that just didn't get sold when the NES lost market share to the SNES. They would either get sent back to TAITO or sit around in a warehouse until the warehouse was sold or lease expired and it got cleaned out. I can guarantee you right now there are some warehouses in Malaysia or Singapore that contain sealed NES games, the amount of product some of those contain is atrocious and doesn't get touched once it gets pushed into a corner.

This is complete bullshit, no huge warehouses full of pallets of stock from the 80s are sitting around in Singapore or Malaysia, what on earth are you talking about?

Unlike probably most of the people in this thread I have ACTUALLY been to places here in Taiwan that hold on to leftover stock from twenty years ago, and it is FAR from the images of the archives at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Usually it's smaller shops and individual wholesalers who are kind of one man operations, who just have leftover stock from years and years in business, and who haven't had time to clear it out.

It certainly is NOT huge expensive warehouses with pallet after pallet of sealed games in shipping boxes sitting pristine. Whatever you're imaging here is the reality:

Trust me when I say there is a REASON most of this stuff is still here, 99 percent of it is junk. This is what your hands look like after 10 mins of digging:

And it's always just a guy, and his attic or backroom. Any big distributors or liquidators MOVE stock, it's the little guys stuck in one place that are left holding the can on this stuff. Are there gems hidden amongst it all, yeah I've had my fair share of scores. You can ask @fcgamer about that too. But a warehouse of pallets of sealed Little Samson in Malaysia? Lol no, dream on I'm afraid.

Edited August 29, 2020 by OptOut

[Foochie776 | 1,051]

8 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

It probably would likely be Little Samson because the later releases would have had production runs that just didn't get sold when the NES lost market share to the SNES. They would either get sent back to TAITO or sit around in a warehouse until the warehouse was sold or lease expired and it got cleaned out. I can guarantee you right now there are some warehouses in Malaysia or Singapore that contain sealed NES games, the amount of product some of those contain is atrocious and doesn't get touched once it gets pushed into a corner.

I saw on Facebook that bunnyboy even found some 8-Bit Xmas 2008 recently when he was cleaning out his desk. Things just get pushed to the side and land in a junk pile that never gets sorted.

Brian found an 08?? I need one so bad  

[BreaKBeatZ | 136]

Definitely Stadium Events so I can complete my NTSC licensed set. 

[jonebone | 1,307]

NES is too old at this point. If we're talking about something that is most likely it'll be a newer console.

[GPX | 1,369]

10 hours ago, OptOut said:

This is complete bullshit, no huge warehouses full of pallets of stock from the 80s are sitting around in Singapore or Malaysia, what on earth are you talking about?

Unlike probably most of the people in this thread I have ACTUALLY been to places here in Taiwan that hold on to leftover stock from twenty years ago, and it is FAR from the images of the archives at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Usually it's smaller shops and individual wholesalers who are kind of one man operations, who just have leftover stock from years and years in business, and who haven't had time to clear it out.

It certainly is NOT huge expensive warehouses with pallet after pallet of sealed games in shipping boxes sitting pristine. Whatever you're imaging here is the reality:

Trust me when I say there is a REASON most of this stuff is still here, 99 percent of it is junk. This is what your hands look like after 10 mins of digging:

And it's always just a guy, and his attic or backroom. Any big distributors or liquidators MOVE stock, it's the little guys stuck in one place that are left holding the can on this stuff. Are there gems hidden amongst it all, yeah I've had my fair share of scores. You can ask @fcgamer about that too. But a warehouse of pallets of sealed Little Samson in Malaysia? Lol no, dream on I'm afraid.

I recognise that hand...the hand of a scavenger going through old retail stock! 

[a3quit4s | 4,097]

I thought this was a thread about the old NA story of the dude who found a case of unopened stadium events

I wanna see something I haven’t seen before. 

Edited August 29, 2020 by a3quit4s

[Lincoln | 230]

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

I thought this was a thread about the old NA story of the dude who found a case of unopened stadium events

I wanna see something I haven’t seen before. 

The guy with cases of nes games saved them from a warehouse clearout in the 90s.

I saw just yesterday a tweet showing of thousands of NOS mask toys just discovered in chile. Nes games could definitely still be out there.

[The Count | 527]

Yeah, likely no more NES pallets lying around. That was 25+ years ago. I could see GBA or Wii cases sitting about.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

27 minutes ago, The Count said:

Yeah, likely no more NES pallets lying around. That was 25+ years ago. I could see GBA or Wii cases sitting about.

I'm quite sure there's still more pallets of Bratz to be found!

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

A bit of a boring answer but I'd have to say Stadium Events for completely selfish reasons since it would decrease the cost to finish my set.

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

Honestly, it would be pretty cool to find a huge box of leftover competition used NWC carts. 

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

I'm gonna go left field and say something different.

I want to just know what a case of Deluxe sets look like. It can be the Non-Deluxe, the regular Deluxe, or the Deluxe with Stack-Up.

[phart010 | 1,707]

I think it could be possible that there is a pallet of NES games somewhere in South/Central America. A lot of late release NES games made their way down there. Probably because the publishers would print an initial run to try and sell to department stores only to find that department stores were not interested in placing orders for NES games anymore. This was after SNES had already launched, so retailers had already moved on to filling their displays with SNES games.

So the publishers probably found a distributor contact in South/Central America that was willing to take any and all NES games at a steep discount. Then they would be sold into Mexico, Brazil, Chile etc..

Sure in the USA we would want to clear out old stock from a warehouse ASAP and keep product moving because overheads and real estate pricing is high. These were developing nations at the time so cost of running a business was significantly lower. Some of these countries, (depending on location within the country of course) may have had very lax tax collection practices, and real estate may have been much cheaper. So it wouldn’t be unreasonable to think that a pallet in South/Central America could go unnoticed for a long time.

Edited August 29, 2020 by phart010

[RH | 4,903]

I could easily see this happening to Earthbound.  Maybe a couple of times.

[Abelardo | 154]

This recently happened in Mexico, I can't find the original pictures but remember seeing them on Facebook, here's a video a youtuber did talking about the find:

 

Apparently these were found in a famous flea market in Mexico City called Tepito, a seller had a big quantity of these and these are just part of the original lot, which has been said that originally these were impounded by the Mexican customs, they sat there for years and somehow ended up in the hands of the Tepito seller.

 

EDIT: Here's a picture:

Edited August 29, 2020 by Abelardo

[guitarzombie | 924]

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