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At what point do you sell a valuable item from your collection?


Brickman

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I'm sure we've all been there. Some items you have in your collection that you picked up for a cheap, or reasonable, price have sky rocketed and you've sold it off only to regret it a few years later. It happened with me and  selling off some of my Saturn collection that I've now since re purchased. Some items for not too much more and others quite a lot more (but were condition upgrades from what I had originally). I don't mind too much because I used the money towards a house deposit.

At what point do you say it's time to go to an item? Is it the money, life change or just bored of the item? Any regrets?

What prompted me to ask this question is I have a non video game item that has jumped in price quiet a bit and I'm torn if I sell it for the profit or hold on to it so I don't have regrets later. But on the flip side, I could sell it and add some nice items to my collection.

 

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4 hours ago, Shmup said:

I'm sure we've all been there. Some items you have in your collection that you picked up for a cheap, or reasonable, price have sky rocketed and you've sold it off only to regret it a few years later. It happened with me and  selling off some of my Saturn collection that I've now since re purchased. Some items for not too much more and others quite a lot more (but were condition upgrades from what I had originally). I don't mind too much because I used the money towards a house deposit.

At what point do you say it's time to go to an item? Is it the money, life change or just bored of the item? Any regrets?

What prompted me to ask this question is I have a non video game item that has jumped in price quiet a bit and I'm torn if I sell it for the profit or hold on to it so I don't have regrets later. But on the flip side, I could sell it and add some nice items to my collection.

 

If I would prefer to have money more than a game, then I couldn't call myself a game collector.

I would sell if I had a major life change like a terminal illness.

If I sold a game because I got bored of it, then I could not call myself a game collector.

Some of my games have recently risen $20,000 in value for single games and I still refuse to sell them because I don't care how much they're worth. I bought the games because I collect them, they're not an investment. I kept them when they were worth $1000 and I'll keep them if they're worth $100,000, it doesn't matter to me. 

Edited by Code Monkey
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I sell things all the time so I can keep collecting for free, I find it to be a fun challenge. Pretty much anytime you sell anything decent the price is quickly outdated in a year or two, sometimes tremendously so. As long as you are spending that money in a way that brings you enjoyment, whether other collectibles or just the joys of living life, then you shouldn't regret it. Its just money.

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Moderator · Posted

For me I would consider selling if it would change my life significantly and I was looking for that change. That would take me selling my entire collection, should I decide to buy a cabin, or another few houses to start renting them out. Otherwise I still enjoy trying to fill out the sets I’ve sought after, although I’m getting close to the end on them. 
 

I would likely try to sell all in one large lot, which has proven to be very hard outside of Twizzer, so I’d have to do some pretty good marketing to get it out there. These new comic money collectors have the funds, just not sure they would be interested in CIB, even though it would be full system collections for the most part. 

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4 minutes ago, doner24 said:

For me I would consider selling if it would change my life significantly and I was looking for that change. That would take me selling my entire collection, should I decide to buy a cabin, or another few houses to start renting them out. Otherwise I still enjoy trying to fill out the sets I’ve sought after, although I’m getting close to the end on them. 
 

I would likely try to sell all in one large lot, which has proven to be very hard outside of Twizzer, so I’d have to do some pretty good marketing to get it out there. These new comic money collectors have the funds, just not sure they would be interested in CIB, even though it would be full system collections for the most part. 

To echo this post, I dont break sets and sell out of them. In that case I say you don't sell at all unless your ready to part out the set. I was speaking more to the point of someone who has a lot of games and the game in question doesn't break a set at all.

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I think - if you take the value out of the equation - whether it be $5 or $5000, it comes down to either 'i need the money and am out of options to make it in another way' or 'I won't feel any regret if this leaves my life'. I'm of a mind that if I were to be tempted by the money, I probably don't care about the game and so I wouldn't be torn.

On a personal level, despite the value, I don't think of this as an investment; there are other avenues for that. Selling high value pieces just never crosses my mind.

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I have been sitting on the older parts of my collection for about 30 years (SNES, Genesis and Sega CD) and the rest was mostly added when the platforms were current.  Most games were bought new or used when used games stores sold them as used at about 1/2 retail.  So I have no pressure to recoup the money I have spent - although I have a lot of now really valuable games* (more so since I have all the boxes, manuals, and game related inserts - with the exception of the gameboy formats - I got into those late and those boxes are just to hard to come by - except for 2 or 3 games I do have manuals for all of them though).  But I never collected for potential value - just games I liked. (Fortunately RPGS were one of my favorite genres.)

Down the road I will likely start getting rid of stuff.  Not sure when though. I can always sell at any time - it would be a bitch kitty to replace everything if I changed my mind after unloading stuff.

*I also have a large number of guides - if I got a game and knew there was a guide I would pick it up when I could.

Edited by Tabonga
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I'm only ever interested in selling/trading duplicates and after that I might not want to own the same game on multiple platforms or every variant of every game but it all depends on the platform goals and how much I appreciate a game or a series. Like say I own a GB CIB of Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge -UKV (England's country code for most Nintendo items) and later get a CIB -SCN (Scandinavian version) of it, then I will consider -UKV inferior, and while it's nice to have I might let it loose at some point. Even though Mega Man is a great series and the game is good, I don't see myself hoarding every variant of every GB Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge because hoarding minor variants is not my main interest in Nintendo collecting nor is it the best use of my space, since I collect for a ton of platforms.

I made a trade recently, where I traded away a better condition box (maybe 8.3-8.8 condition) of a high rarity GB game and received lesser condition box (maybe 7.5-8.0 condition) + rare variant CIB of a GB game I was after (only country variant with English on box/instructions) and 50% of what I paid for the original CIB of the high rarity game. Without getting a sufficient condition box in return, I wouldn't have traded, without the extra game I was after, I wouldn't have traded and without the sufficient cash difference I wouldn't have traded. It was more than fair trade on my end and they felt it was fair on their end and they suggested the trade conditions in the first place. I wouldn't have sold my CIB or my box for straight cash because I want to own it. Some items take years to appear on public sale (whatever the cost is at that point) and I don't want to return to being the bidder from being an owner - especially with the speculative and hype-driven nature of current game market.

If someone legitimately offered me $1,000,000 for a game "worth" $2,000 then I would seriously have to consider my position because more than likely you can get another copy of most items or just not owning that game or set ever again against getting your whole collection's worth many times over from one game sounds crazy. But not even the comic book dentists would go this far and I doubt I have anything they'd want, so we're all good on this hypothesis.

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I'll simplify by saying that my only legitimate points where I sold collectibles were based on the following two reasons:

1. English speaking "fans" have created ways to ruin a franchise for me.

2. Complete burnout or my anxiety has become an issue; very rarely both.

Outside these issues I can only feel that maybe, just maybe, I would sell any game I might have if I have a chance to get a replacement that is in either equal or better condition.

And yes, I have thought about this many times. And I feel that I'll let the person I give them to make that decision.

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8 minutes ago, ThePhleo said:

I have no good reason to own 10 CIB copies of RBI Baseball....it’s not hoarding I SWEAR! I need to document these 5 digit codes on the top right flap you see!

Right, what if someone discovers even more variants of Madden 94 and I can check all mine to make sure I have the good one!

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Pretty much I only sell my doubles whenever I obtain them or stuff I do not really want in my collection anymore. Like I come across so much doubles and that helps fund my ability to add on to my collection. Collector before money for me for anything as what I sell usually funds for the next games and so forth (for my case going for a full Switch set so having extra funds is crucial lol). Like I have a game that is selling for $2,000 right now for some reason when I only paid around $200 for it, but still won't sell it as it is apart of my collection and do not want to ever let it go since it would be hard to find it again. However, if I had an extra copy of it, then yeah I'd sell it.

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