Heritage Auctions Thread

[Code Monkey | 2,023]

They actually have a human that shouts the prices? Why? Does anyone actually prefer this to online?

[AdamW | 713]

Yup they do. Sign up for a ha.com account (it's free but you have to give them name and address and stuff) and you can watch the livestream. It's kinda absorbing, I guess. And funny when the stream goes down and they get very confused about what sold for how much to who...

[AdamW | 713]

@tidaldreams
I think maybe it's better to say "advance bids" and "live bids" than internet and live, I guess. Cos yeah it seems like you can live bid via the stream somehow. I guess your bid would go to one of the proxies in the room? I don't know because I don't have any intention to actually buy anything from HA so I didn't try that part of the process

[GPX | 1,376]

5 minutes ago, AdamW said:

@tidaldreams
I think maybe it's better to say "advance bids" and "live bids" than internet and live, I guess. Cos yeah it seems like you can live bid via the stream somehow. I guess your bid would go to one of the proxies in the room? I don't know because I don't have any intention to actually buy anything from HA so I didn't try that part of the process

If there’s 2 stages of bidding - auction/“early stage” and live bids..

what would be the incentive of bidding high at the auction stage?

Thinking from an eBay perspective, would anyone bother to bid high at the 1st auction stage, if knowing there will be another round of bidding to go? Seems like whatever’s going on at HA, it’s like a parallel universe where auction rules and behaviors are rather perplexing!

[AdamW | 713]

Well the point is if you bid high enough you win? It's just like the difference between just putting in your max bid early on eBay vs trying to snipe at the end, I guess.

I mean, I'd guess this system evolved from a pure live auction system? They added an "advance bidding" step for people who couldn't make the live auction and didn't want to set up a proxy? That's how you'd wind up with this setup I guess.

[AdamW | 713]

BTW, I take back my "not much happening in Pokémon sales after the HA auction" from earlier...in the last few hours half a dozen boxed copies sold over $500, red, blue, yellow, firered. And a crystal CIB for $2000. Two fairly high grade sealed copies (a firered and an emerald) that were previously up at super high BIN prices have been taken down and listed for straight auction with low starting bids, so they could go anywhere. Looks like the crazy ride continues...

[GPX | 1,376]

9 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Well the point is if you bid high enough you win? It's just like the difference between just putting in your max bid early on eBay vs trying to snipe at the end, I guess.

I mean, I'd guess this system evolved from a pure live auction system? They added an "advance bidding" step for people who couldn't make the live auction and didn't want to set up a proxy? That's how you'd wind up with this setup I guess.

I’m thinking more the examples of prices where prior to the HA auctions they might sell for X dollars, but you see the auction bids on HA they go for 5-10x more, and then at the live auction they barely budge further. 

A more sensible approach would bid at X dollars kind of range, and then go up at the live auction. This would better your chance of getting it at lower dollars. 

Regarding the eBay analogy, people usually save their best bids at the end, not show all their hands at the midway point. The patterns of bidding on HA, as far as I can tell, seems to be total chaos!

[GPX | 1,376]

9 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I bet the guys at Wata are laughing their assess off (after wiping them with $100 bills, of course) looking at the population reports.

How many of these buyers are Bitcoin millionaires? I have disposable income and could join the party if I really wanted to, but I can't comprehend parting with my hard earned money as frivolously as these buyers do.

And part of the frustration is the misconception that people who are questioning the HA trend can’t afford it, or are just jealous of the richer people. I’m sure there are plenty of people on here with significant disposable income that could “play” on HA, but some are choosing to wait and question before their spending.

A lot of the longterm sealed or VGA collectors I can imagine would all have the potential to become bidders on HA. Would be interesting to know what percentage of bidders on HA are longtime collectors versus new-arrival collectors?

Edited April 5, 2021 by GPX

[Gulag Joe | 584]

4 hours ago, GPX said:

If there’s 2 stages of bidding - auction/“early stage” and live bids..

what would be the incentive of bidding high at the auction stage?

Thinking from an eBay perspective, would anyone bother to bid high at the 1st auction stage, if knowing there will be another round of bidding to go? Seems like whatever’s going on at HA, it’s like a parallel universe where auction rules and behaviors are rather perplexing!

HA is a traditional auction. The auction continues until the highest bid is reached and nobody else wants to bid higher.

Ebay is a timed auction that ends at an exact time and doesn't truly allow for the highest bid to be reached.

[Dumars2001 | 164]

11 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

You're so late on this. You could have posted this a year ago and maybe it would have been valid. Not anymore. Hang around where normie collectors are - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc. You'll see high end collectors, not "high end video game collectors," but high end collectors, who regularly buy and sell 5 or 6 figure collectibles, are now including video games and Pokemon cards in their portfolios. These are people who were trading sports cards, comic books, fine art, watches, etc. for years. Wata / Heritage accelerated the hype by opening up the subcategory in their comics section and the demand has arrived. You'll also find people who are better off than the average thrift store video game hunter, ready to drop 4, 5 figures on sealed or graded video games, and they are doing this as a short or long term investment, and they do this with other stuff too. I had my first experience selling to this kind of crowd a couple months ago and my head was spinning from how enthusiastic they were about it and how ready they were to put serious money in. 

Better yet, go into the Heritage Auctions categories outside of video games. Look at comic books and the rest of the stuff they have there. You will see years worth of lot after lot after lot of stuff moving for 4, 5 figures with no end in sight. These are mature markets now, people expect that the value is there long term, and their are enough high rollers out there that can continue to bring the demand. Then go check out some of the other auction houses and see how much money continues to come and go in these various categories. 

Look, there was a time when high end comic books or trading cards like Magic The Gathering seemed like niche markets that didn't have legs. There was a time when people questioned them. But there was enough hype and cultural validity for those things that new buyers came along with enough money to keep propping up the values until we got to the point that no one questions the prices of the high end items in these categories any more. 

I think this $660k SMB will show up again at one of these auction houses, sometime down the road, and could fetch more when it does. 

Sure, there could come a time when the market has a major correction, prices come down across the board, etc. But I think that's more likely to happen across all the collectibles markets, not just in this one. Because there's no reason to believe that the current mania is unjustified in this one market but justified in all the others. Either they are all justified or none are. 

And to that last point I will say, Garbage Pail Kids collectibles have exploded in value in the past year. If games are a bubble then it can't be the worst one. 

You are 100% spot on with your content in your post! Very well said and I have to agree with what you wrote!

[MiamiSlice | 3,100]

On the eBay sniping thing - I've heard from people who do traditional auctions that eBay does them wrong. Any other auction is supposed to extend the ending time if bids keep coming in. Interestingly enough, I just got into a bidding war on Yahoo Japan Auctions and the end time was extended each time I placed a bid. 

I think when it comes to auctions, people like to get into bidding wars because it means there's demand for the item they are trying to win. If you win an auction as the sole bidder, you are taking a risk that you are the only one who wants the item, with the hope that maybe the demand will come along sometime in the future. But if the demand is there right now then you are establishing a price for it and there's a decent chance someone else will be willing to pay more to get it from you. So in an auction like this, no one wants any item to end before the "fair price" is set by the bidders - they want to get in the max price they are willing to pay and they want to set that price publicly. My $0.02. 

[dewisp02 | 47]

9 hours ago, tidaldreams said:

Ok, this is actually different from how I thought it works lol. I thought you can still bid online during the live auction though? 

 

And the award for worst auctioneer goes to.... 

[sp1nz | 628]

1 hour ago, MiamiSlice said:

On the eBay sniping thing - I've heard from people who do traditional auctions that eBay does them wrong. Any other auction is supposed to extend the ending time if bids keep coming in. Interestingly enough, I just got into a bidding war on Yahoo Japan Auctions and the end time was extended each time I placed a bid. 

I think when it comes to auctions, people like to get into bidding wars because it means there's demand for the item they are trying to win. If you win an auction as the sole bidder, you are taking a risk that you are the only one who wants the item, with the hope that maybe the demand will come along sometime in the future. But if the demand is there right now then you are establishing a price for it and there's a decent chance someone else will be willing to pay more to get it from you. So in an auction like this, no one wants any item to end before the "fair price" is set by the bidders - they want to get in the max price they are willing to pay and they want to set that price publicly. My $0.02. 

Here I come bashing on game collecting investing again. But really to anyone involved, you do you.

Bidding wars often result in items going for more than market price. People get competitive and throw reason out of the window. When you're sniping on eBay you're usually against other snipers, usually the max price is informed by the market knowledge but the call on what you're willing to pay is made before the end and you don't have time to adjust or you're using some tool that doesn't even need you to be there. So you have a maximum snipe and you still only pay slightly above second highest bidder, if you happen to win. This too can cause big bump if multiple people value the item at some higher level but if you were willing to pay that price, then you didn't lose anything, you just didn't get a cheap snipe like you might have. So sniping works for occasional deals for flippers and collectors alike or you get to pay your maximum or you lose. In the end you were expecting all of these scenarios to some degree but you didn't actively partake in any bid war.

Heritage just by "prestige" alone pulls the eyes of the speculators and others and the bidding style of live auction is to entice bidding war. You get these auctioneers drop in some historical significance, print run or whatever to prime the item for the floor. The new speculators have no clue what some item "should" go for (or what the item even actually is) and the prices aren't high enough for them to care about overpaying compared to historical sales, if they even know of those historical sales (and hopefully not just in their single auction house bubble). When they have relative graded price information it has still been made in the last couple of years and the info is usually from some sealed collector inside knowledge or scouring past sales - the new price is based on assumptions and hopes of quick price appreciation when people pull multiplier bids out of their hind ends. So yeah "fair price" for clueless people. I don't mind items appreciating in value but overnight multipliers would almost never happen without new hype speculators - and by overnight I mean that you have comparable sales somewhere like eBay in recent past and then people just pay 2-20x the price for the heck of it in a day or a month or something.

Like who bids $455 for Genesis 6.0 CIB Sonic the Hedgehog "Early Production" (on eBay) or $1680 for NES 1942 8.0 CIB (on Heritage). I must own a handful of more rare Sonic variants and I would value only one of them above $100. 1942 is imo pretty average game and even though Capcom developed the game originally on many platforms the NES version was developed by Micronics and just published by Capcom - the "music" in this game makes you want to dig your ears out. Naturally collectability isn't same as playability but I don't see that much collectability nor playability appeal here.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sonic-the-Hedgehog-Made-in-Japan-Early-Production-WATA-6-0-CIB-Sega-1991-/333923567277

https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/1942-nes-capcom-1986-wata-80-cib-complete-in-box-/a/121909-11352.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

Then again there is no "fair" bidding, so these issues are inevitable when there are items for sale that have demand. Just nowadays the demand feels more manufactured than organic. Anyway it's not my money being spent and I haven't got that much interest in graded games (I own 0 currently), so I guess we'll see how these investments pan out to these people. Some of the "investments" will keep high value and even go up but there's also so much unbelievable stuff in-between that my eyes go round and round. It's like the art world propping up some new eccentric artists as a gods to invest in and people throw millions at them just because they trust the "lie" of the art hype - even if it's a lie at start, it can legitimately turn into truth, no matter how low quality or bad looking the art being sold is, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, marketing done right is more important than the content and the moneybags being spent are sometimes drops in the ocean for some people.

Edited April 5, 2021 by sp1nz

[final fight cd | 194]

That CIB wata sonic is ridiculous haha

[avoin | 24]

gotta say we've seen some doozies, but 455 dollars + shipping + taxes for an average cib copy of SONIC THE FREAKIN HEDGEHOG!!!!!! might be the dumbest thing i've seen yet.

that being said i have a similar copy ill be taking offers starting at 1000 dollars, it is of the "salvation army" pedigree.

[tidaldreams | 654]

2 hours ago, avoin said:

gotta say we've seen some doozies, but 455 dollars + shipping + taxes for an average cib copy of SONIC THE FREAKIN HEDGEHOG!!!!!! might be the dumbest thing i've seen yet.

that being said i have a similar copy ill be taking offers starting at 1000 dollars, it is of the "salvation army" pedigree.

How about this one? A 5.5 CIB Mario Bros for over 1k, which might be even worse than salvation army quality: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Mario-Bros-WATA-5-5-CIB-No-Rev-A-Round-SOQ-Mid-Production-NES-1985-/333934329585?_trksid=p2047675.m43663.l44720&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true

[DefaultGen | 5,506]

Graded Mario/Pokeman collecting is like a different hobby from collecting video games. People are just looking for a token to park money into. You can get pretty amazingly collectible games for $1000. One might even say more collectible than a poor condition CIB Mario. 

[avoin | 24]

1 hour ago, DefaultGen said:

Graded Mario/Pokeman collecting is like a different hobby from collecting video games. People are just looking for a token to park money into. You can get pretty amazingly collectible games for $1000. One might even say more collectible than a poor condition CIB Mario. 

Very true, for well under a grand/half a grand i've gotten a couple self coveted sealed games recently so the deals still exist if you search frequently enough.

Edited April 5, 2021 by avoin

[tidaldreams | 654]

Ungraded CIB chrono trigger (albeit a very nice one) sold for over $2.5k: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Chrono-Trigger-SNES-Authentic-CIB-PERFECT-Original-Owner-MUST-SEE-/184728611155?_trksid=p2349526.m4383.l44720.c10&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true 

[GPX | 1,376]

3 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

Graded Mario/Pokeman collecting is like a different hobby from collecting video games. People are just looking for a token to park money into. You can get pretty amazingly collectible games for $1000. One might even say more collectible than a poor condition CIB Mario. 

Yes, but with that, some of the bidding (particularly average condition CIB Mario) is evident that some of these end buyers have ZERO clue as to what a video game should be worth.

Understanding the basics is important to chuck in bids, lesson 1:

A CIB Mario in average condition is possibly the commonest game you can find. 

 

 

[GPX | 1,376]

7 hours ago, sp1nz said:

Here I come bashing on game collecting investing again. But really to anyone involved, you do you.

Bidding wars often result in items going for more than market price. People get competitive and throw reason out of the window. When you're sniping on eBay you're usually against other snipers, usually the max price is informed by the market knowledge but the call on what you're willing to pay is made before the end and you don't have time to adjust or you're using some tool that doesn't even need you to be there. So you have a maximum snipe and you still only pay slightly above second highest bidder, if you happen to win. This too can cause big bump if multiple people value the item at some higher level but if you were willing to pay that price, then you didn't lose anything, you just didn't get a cheap snipe like you might have. So sniping works for occasional deals for flippers and collectors alike or you get to pay your maximum or you lose. In the end you were expecting all of these scenarios to some degree but you didn't actively partake in any bid war.

Heritage just by "prestige" alone pulls the eyes of the speculators and others and the bidding style of live auction is to entice bidding war. You get these auctioneers drop in some historical significance, print run or whatever to prime the item for the floor. The new speculators have no clue what some item "should" go for (or what the item even actually is) and the prices aren't high enough for them to care about overpaying compared to historical sales, if they even know of those historical sales (and hopefully not just in their single auction house bubble). When they have relative graded price information it has still been made in the last couple of years and the info is usually from some sealed collector inside knowledge or scouring past sales - the new price is based on assumptions and hopes of quick price appreciation when people pull multiplier bids out of their hind ends. So yeah "fair price" for clueless people. I don't mind items appreciating in value but overnight multipliers would almost never happen without new hype speculators - and by overnight I mean that you have comparable sales somewhere like eBay in recent past and then people just pay 2-20x the price for the heck of it in a day or a month or something.

Like who bids $455 for Genesis 6.0 CIB Sonic the Hedgehog "Early Production" (on eBay) or $1680 for NES 1942 8.0 CIB (on Heritage). I must own a handful of more rare Sonic variants and I would value only one of them above $100. 1942 is imo pretty average game and even though Capcom developed the game originally on many platforms the NES version was developed by Micronics and just published by Capcom - the "music" in this game makes you want to dig your ears out. Naturally collectability isn't same as playability but I don't see that much collectability nor playability appeal here.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sonic-the-Hedgehog-Made-in-Japan-Early-Production-WATA-6-0-CIB-Sega-1991-/333923567277

https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/1942-nes-capcom-1986-wata-80-cib-complete-in-box-/a/121909-11352.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

Then again there is no "fair" bidding, so these issues are inevitable when there are items for sale that have demand. Just nowadays the demand feels more manufactured than organic. Anyway it's not my money being spent and I haven't got that much interest in graded games (I own 0 currently), so I guess we'll see how these investments pan out to these people. Some of the "investments" will keep high value and even go up but there's also so much unbelievable stuff in-between that my eyes go round and round. It's like the art world propping up some new eccentric artists as a gods to invest in and people throw millions at them just because they trust the "lie" of the art hype - even if it's a lie at start, it can legitimately turn into truth, no matter how low quality or bad looking the art being sold is, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, marketing done right is more important than the content and the moneybags being spent are sometimes drops in the ocean for some people.

This is a very well thought-out response! I hate how people are equating an obvious bidding war between rich people, resellers, and/or money launderers; and then concluding that “this is the new market value”. The media plays along, but these writers are likely noobs, resellers, or market manipulators themselves. And so the cycle repeats. I wonder when the tax auditors will start knocking on some doors?

[Nesmaster | 402]

3 hours ago, tidaldreams said:

How about this one? A 5.5 CIB Mario Bros for over 1k, which might be even worse than salvation army quality: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Mario-Bros-WATA-5-5-CIB-No-Rev-A-Round-SOQ-Mid-Production-NES-1985-/333934329585?_trksid=p2047675.m43663.l44720&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true

I bought that exact version in very similar condition off jjgames for $22 and felt like I overpaid. I'll happily grade it to dump it if I could find a second bidder lol.

[tidaldreams | 654]

7 minutes ago, Nesmaster said:

I bought that exact version in very similar condition off jjgames for $22 and felt like I overpaid. I'll happily grade it to dump it if I could find a second bidder lol.

O.o is it real though? How long ago was this lol

EDIT: nevermind I thought you quoted the chrono trigger

Edited April 5, 2021 by tidaldreams

[DefaultGen | 5,506]

This Thunder Force II is trash, but it scored 9.8 A+ and sold for $2600. Literally has half the ink faded off it and sharpie on the front. WTF Wata, lmao.

https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/thunder-force-ii-wata-98-a-sealed-gen-sega-1989-usa/a/7242-97219.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

[GPX | 1,376]

30 minutes ago, DefaultGen said:

This Thunder Force II is trash, but it scored 9.8 A+ and sold for $2600. Literally has half the ink faded off it and sharpie on the front. WTF Wata, lmao.

https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/thunder-force-ii-wata-98-a-sealed-gen-sega-1989-usa/a/7242-97219.s?ic4=ListView-ShortDescription-071515

That my friend, is exactly what I’m talking about - WTF is going on?