The one(s)that got away for all of you sealed collectors or the one(s) that you wish you would have bought

[Frost271 | 22]

Back in the early days (2010ish), I made friends with a guy in Dallas, bought him out, and through chatting turns out he was close friends with Atwood and gave me his contact info.  I had a direct line to Atwood and all his games.  The guy vouched for me as Atwood was very particular who he sold to.  He was willing and open to selling a ton of his extra rare copies of titles that he had cases of.  I still have our email exchanges saved in a folder. 

I was a broke college kid who already maxxed out his credit cards, worked extra shifts, even pulled extra on school loans trying to compete for rare titles with the big boys.  I look back at those Atwood emails today and it breaks my heart.

I am blessed to make good money right now and wish I could go back in time and grab all the stuff i had access to lol.  I look at the list today and it blows my mind (and what he was willing to sell them for ).

Edited July 16, 2021 by Frost271

[A_Feisty_Pickle | 244]

Small stakes compared to other posts in here, but I was planning on going for a full sealed Mario Party collection. Just a year or two ago you could find sealed // mid grade copies of the N64 games for ~$1k if I remember right. 

I also sold my 9.8 A+ Futurama for PS2 either late 2019 or early 2020 for $775. At the time I was happy since I only had $250 in it, but seeing a 9.4 A sell for $5k on Heritage last week makes me wonder what it's worth now : ')

Edited July 16, 2021 by A_Feisty_Pickle

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

I don't collect sealed so I really only have one story I remember. There are many I don't remember well but I know I saw listings for all the most popular titles for $1000 - $2000 each. I remember JJGames listed a Nintendo World Championship at reverse auction (price went downward until someone bought it) and it went for $7200. I remember someone paid $4000 for a Stadium Events, someone else paid $5000 for a sealed Contra and someone else paid $17,000 for Howard's copy of Nintendo World Championships.......they all got laughed at.

As for my story, my girlfriend was browsing Varage Sale, I'm not sure if you have that in the USA. She said someone was selling games and started messaging the owner to ask about them. We made a deal and I was going to go get them but then she says someone else was interested in Bandit Kings Of Ancient China from my lot so she swapped it out with Batman Returns. She argued both are the same so the price is the same and my girlfriend got really mad at her.

I don't usually do this but I realized most of what she had is sealed so I agreed to still buy them anyway. I went over to her house and she had all 6 NES games in a little box:

• Batman Returns (sealed)
• Ghostbusters 2 (sealed)
• L'Empereur (no seal, never opened)
• Kings Of The Beach (sealed)
• Rampart (sealed)
• some other unpopular sealed game

So my story is about being upset that I missed out on a sealed Bandit Kings Of Ancient China which was worth more than double the value of Batman Returns but oddly enough now I think the values have swapped. Total price paid for 6 games was $600 CAD and I still have all of them.

I guess I do have some more stories, I remember seeing RareBucky trying to sell his sealed Little Samson for $20,000 and being laughed at. I remember seeing the last 3 Wii games on the shelf at Toys 'R Us:

• Super Mario Kari Wii
• Twilight Princess
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl

They were there forever and they had so much stock they couldn't even fit it all on the pegs. Each game was $20 or $30 and now they're worth thousands.

[AnimalHouse | 117]

Last year, a new ebay seller with 0 feedback was selling a factory h-seam sealed early copy of SMB2. It was in near mint condition. The sellers BIN price was $1K but was willing to come down to $950. At the time, I went over my budget and didn't want to be in the CC companies pocket paying those interest. Looking back now, knowing what I know about the market. I would've gladly spent the $1K. The seller ended up closing the listing because someone locally wanted to buy it.

As for CIB, a Pepsi Invaders Atari 2600. There was an ebay auction back in Jan. At the time, I went over my budget again. Reassuring myself I'd find a better copy later (like I do with other platform games). I decided not to bid and it sold for $1K. After doing research, I realized I could've saved money had I bought it than because another copy had sold for $1825 in 2005. Only 125 copies was produced.

Edited August 7, 2021 by AnimalHouse

[WarMech | 82]

I sold a sealed Conker's Bad Fur Day to partially pay for an engagement ring back in the day. Sold it for $400. 

 

Even further back than that, I had the opportunity for multiple sealed copies of Haunting Ground at no cost to me from Capcom directly through a promotion site they ran called Capcom City. I did one but I'm kicking myself that the first game I redeemed for instead was a ps2 copy of Viewtiful Joe.

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

The year was 2021.

The game was Phantasy Star Online.

It was a sealed Dreamcast version, and looked very mint in the photos. What people do not know is that I originally thought my luck was limited to the Ver. 2 copy I bought for $65 USD (before tax and shipping)! But there it was, offered by a Japanese seller with a great reputation on eBay. And it was being sold for around the same price. But for some reason I could not convince myself to just buy it.

After some time I suggested to @OptOut that he get it. Because it was a rare opportunity to get something that rare for that price. At this point I chose to skip it because Phantasy Star Online 2 managed to make me wish it was Phantasy Star Universe. And that itself made me think that me doing a Dragon Quest focus would be a better idea. (It was not.) Which has me recently find out that said version is now worth around $150-200 USD!

But I also found out that not graded, my copy is worth around $200-250 USD. With the same going for the other game I chose to have graded. With both having a "pop report" of 1 each when it comes to CAS. 

Then again, that copy looks super nice. And mine has a slightly crooked sticker, will be surrounded by high-grade acrylic, and may never know what it is like to be graded by Wata.

[mlbfan10 | 340]

I miss every single one of these. At times I've had some regret in selling them but at the same time I put the money towards other things that made me happy and as others have said never could have guessed the explosion in pricing. When I decided to jump back into sealed collecting the price rise was just taking off. I'm slowly going to add these back and some I already have albeit not as nice as these copies were. Side note Scott the Woz used this picture in his sealed collecting video! 

 

Edited August 22, 2021 by mlbfan10

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

I really regret selling this about 10 years ago.

[mlbfan10 | 340]

48 minutes ago, Bearcat-Doug said:

I really regret selling this about 10 years ago.

I remember you selling this! Beautiful copy you owned!

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,104]

13 minutes ago, mlbfan10 said:

I remember you selling this! Beautiful copy you owned!

I ended up getting a little over $8600 for it on ebay back then, which was less than I paid. It would probably bring over $100k now.

[Dumars2001 | 164]

18 hours ago, mlbfan10 said:

I miss every single one of these. At times I've had some regret in selling them but at the same time I put the money towards other things that made me happy and as others have said never could have guessed the explosion in pricing. When I decided to jump back into sealed collecting the price rise was just taking off. I'm slowly going to add these back and some I already have albeit not as nice as these copies were. Side note Scott the Woz used this picture in his sealed collecting video! 

 

Wow! This is more than likely over a million dollar (or multiple millions, depending on the grade of the Snes Super Mario World & N64 Super Mario 64) set of games in today's market!

[mlbfan10 | 340]

5 hours ago, Dumars2001 said:

Wow! This is more than likely over a million dollar (or multiple millions, depending on the grade of the Snes Super Mario World & N64 Super Mario 64) set of games in today's market!

Yeah for sure, Mario World is an 80 and Mario 64 is an 85+. The SMB3 is 90 and I had a 90+ SMB2 black circle seal not pictured as it was at VGA at the time with other Mario titles lol

Edited August 23, 2021 by mlbfan10

[Doc.Stalk | 82]

About 8 years back locally in the wild I passed up on a sealed ocarina of time for N64 because it had a ripped corner. Looking back I should have definitely spent the $180.00

I was also actively looking for super Mario RPG LotSS and Paper Mario 64 in High graded but never found ones that satisfied the grade I wanted but at the time they were only going for 1000-1200, now those are both going to be big money. I passed up Chrono Trigger and Super Metroid for only 2k a piece as well! 

#GamerRegrets

[emerald | 3]

around 2013/14 some Argos's were dumping and selling many unsold sealed games for dirt cheap. I didnt know about it til afterwards because my mum told me, luckily she bought some (some professor layton and pokemon white) which i bought off her. I wouldve bought so many and flipped a load on ebay for sure, and kept a few for myself. Still got them sealed in good condition.