Heritage Auctions Thread

[Gulag Joe | 584]

33 minutes ago, AirVillain said:

Okay... so... I know this is a big ask, but.... can someone give me the TLDR version of the most recent "events"....?

I don't want to assume anything about Wata, but I also don't have the time/patience to wade through this conversation. Haha... I'm lazy, I know. 

Is the video by Karl Jobst a good source...? Can I trust it? Haha... I bet that's the whole discussion here but let's see. 

It's been a minute since I posted anything but I'm back for a bit to say hey and check some things out. 

Thanks in advance!

Yea I can fill you in. Sports cards, comic books, and many other collectibles are selling for millions of dollars at auction right now. But because some guy made a YouTube video specifically about video game sales being a conspiracy, that is the only reason it's happening to video games. There are no YouTube videos discussing conspiracies about million dollar sales in other hobbies, so all of those instance are totally organic and only video games are the exception to the conspiracy because sealed games hurt people's feelings.

[AirVillain | 490]

3 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

Yea I can fill you in. Sports cards, comic books, and many other collectibles are selling for millions of dollars at auction right now. But because some guy made a YouTube video specifically about video game sales being a conspiracy, that is the only reason it's happening to video games. There are no YouTube videos discussing conspiracies about million dollar sales in other hobbies, so all of those instance are totally organic and only video games are the exception to the conspiracy because sealed games hurt people's feelings.

Hmmm.... "Hurt's people's feelings" or it's a pretty big coincidence. Pretty pretty pretty prrrreeeeeeeeeetty big. 

[Gentlegamer | 174]

 

[Gentlegamer | 174]

32 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

And how many people who aren't totally rich and famous do you know who leave their multi-million dollar investments laying around the house?  As much as he's been maligned, Pat Contri has it right in keeping his NWC's in a safety deposit box somewhere, not his house.  And, to date, I haven't ever heard of him announcing any sort of break in at his house.

He also retrieved them to play on the NES Marathon one year as the finale, it was rad.

[Jim Jimmer | 234]

1 hour ago, charleybrown3 said:

Estimated 12 million of these Mario 64 carts produced? Out of those do you think its possible that 1000 people kept a sealed one in pristine condition? I would be surprised if there weren't at least 1000 9.8 mario 64's. There would probably be more but the employees of WATA only have so many friends

1000 9.8 sm64? Are you out of your mind?  Game has been out for 25years this month and so far there are 3. Three!

 

unless you mean players choice? Maybe there are pallets of those in a warehouse somewhere.

 

but the thing people forget with popular games is that most were ripped open to play. My general rule of thumb for n64 is that if a game had a players choice release its because most red labels copies were sold and they stopped that print and filled the store shelves with PCs.

 

im not saying that there arent more mint sm64 laying around, but claiming 1000 is far fetched, especially in 9.8 ….

 

heck even SMB3, one of the most common sealed game doesnr even have close to that graded total. Ive heard of 2 9.8 A++.  Not tens or hundreds. Its a hard grade to get (so are vga 95s). 
 

and to your point about 3 showing up in a short time frame, it is to be expected when the sale figure reaches such a high amount. The real question is what hap’ens after these 2?  2 more? And then likely crickets for a while. It took 2 years for HA to auction a 9.4 and 2.5 years to auction a 9.8 .  It would have been a big $ game way before last signature (admittedly not remotely close to the 1.56M figure obviously). Yet they didnt show up. 

Edited September 1, 2021 by Jim Jimmer

[AirVillain | 490]

24 minutes ago, Gentlegamer said:

He also retrieved them to play on the NES Marathon one year as the finale, it was rad.

Watching video now. Thanks Gents. 

As much as I wasn't a HUGE fan of Pat & Ian mostly because their review of Battletoads in his book (petty, I know, haha) and other silly things... He's certainly correct.  No way these shenanigans should be going down. 

[Guest]

Are there back ups of the old NintendoAge, with the old data or is it just completely gone? Curious if there'd be even a minute chance of that surfacing. Forgive me if that's already been answered, I wasn't keeping tabs when all of that went down. 

[Gloves | 11,800]

1 minute ago, Shane7951 said:

Are there back ups of the old NintendoAge, with the old data or is it just completely gone? Curious if there'd be even a minute chance of that surfacing. Forgive me if that's already been answered, I wasn't keeping tabs when all of that went down. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180816150309/http://nintendoage.com/

^ The most publicly accessible and least "grey area" version will be one from WayBackMachine.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

1 minute ago, Shane7951 said:

Are there back ups of the old NintendoAge, with the old data or is it just completely gone? Curious if there'd be even a minute chance of that surfacing. Forgive me if that's already been answered, I wasn't keeping tabs when all of that went down. 

The data itself is at the very least inaccessible to anyone who doesn't have a local backup of it.  Most of the content of NA is available online at the replacement forum that GoCollect very hurriedly and haphazardly set up, but plenty of things don't work right (search, quotations, etc.), so finding anything without knowing specifically where it's at is an enormous pain.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

Just now, Gloves said:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180816150309/http://nintendoage.com/

^ The most publicly accessible and least "grey area" version will be one from WayBackMachine.

Is the database actually there, though?  I've found that the WayBack Machine usually only captures the front end data from sites that had databases built in, and either didn't bother or wasn't able to scrape the stuff that was behind the scenes.

[Gloves | 11,800]

5 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Is the database actually there, though?  I've found that the WayBack Machine usually only captures the front end data from sites that had databases built in, and either didn't bother or wasn't able to scrape the stuff that was behind the scenes.

Yeah I mean that's what scraping is, so.

It's viewable. You can't go and like, copy it down in a database format or anything. But if you're nostalgic for a game, or really curious about something specific on a certain game or whatever, the info is (mostly?) there in the same way as it was 3 years ago, visible the same way you'd have seen it then.

It's a combination I think of "it is what it is" and "good enough". Best we can hope for without Dain probably breaching his contract with GoCollect (if one was written) and/or risking being sued for sharing data he'd sold in the past.

[charleybrown3 | 12]

19 minutes ago, Jim Jimmer said:

1000 9.8 sm64? Are you out of your mind?  Game has been out for 25years this month and so far there are 3. Three!

 

unless you mean players choice? Maybe there are pallets of those in a warehouse somewhere.

 

but the thing people forget with popular games is that most were ripped open to play. My general rule of thumb for n64 is that if a game had a players choice release its because most red labels copies were sold and they stopped that print and filled the store shelves with PCs.

 

im not saying that there arent more mint sm64 laying around, but claiming 1000 is far fetched, especially in 9.8 ….

 

heck even SMB3, one of the most common sealed game doesnr even have close to that graded total. Ive heard of 2 9.8 A++.  Not tens or hundreds. Its a hard grade to get (so are vga 95s). 
 

and to your point about 3 showing up in a short time frame, it is to be expected when the sale figure reaches such a high amount. The real question is what hap’ens after these 2?  2 more? And then likely crickets for a while. It took 2 years for HA to auction a 9.4 and 2.5 years to auction a 9.8 .  It would have been a big $ game way before last signature (admittedly not remotely close to the 1.56M figure obviously). Yet they didnt show up. 

My guess is you will see a lot more of these coming up for sale. Who knows how many are in the queue at WATA? People never thought they would be worth 50k let a lone for 1.5 million. Percentage wise 1000 is a small number considering the production run. 

[B.A. | 1,139]

25 minutes ago, Gloves said:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180816150309/http://nintendoage.com/

^ The most publicly accessible and least "grey area" version will be one from WayBackMachine.

Clicking on that link and I noticed this. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180822081551/http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blog.View&Blog_Id=1&Id=1798

How well did that age?  At the very least it seems Deniz wasn't speaking out of turn when he said Dain was part on the board in a March 2018 email. 

[Hammerfestus | 3,863]

1 hour ago, Gulag Joe said:

Yea I can fill you in. Sports cards, comic books, and many other collectibles are selling for millions of dollars at auction right now. But because some guy made a YouTube video specifically about video game sales being a conspiracy, that is the only reason it's happening to video games. There are no YouTube videos discussing conspiracies about million dollar sales in other hobbies, so all of those instance are totally organic and only video games are the exception to the conspiracy because sealed games hurt people's feelings.

Hey!  It’s super dooper ultra rare Mario 64 guy!  I wondered when you’d be back.  How’s that lookin?

[Gloves | 11,800]

5 minutes ago, B.A. said:

Clicking on that link and I noticed this. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180822081551/http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blog.View&Blog_Id=1&Id=1798

How well did that age?  At the very least it seems Deniz wasn't speaking out of turn when he said Dain was part on the board in a March 2018 email. 

Even MORE damning, we may have cracked the case on this "Bronty" person's name!

 

 

"Dan" confirmed!

[DefaultGen | 5,414]

11 minutes ago, B.A. said:

Clicking on that link and I noticed this. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20180822081551/http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blog.View&Blog_Id=1&Id=1798

How well did that age?  At the very least it seems Deniz wasn't speaking out of turn when he said Dain was part on the board in a March 2018 email. 

I'm going to say it aged poorly because of the quote "they have taken the time to address all the issues presently faced in collectible video games by closely listening to and making decisions based on the concerns of our community" when so many of my problems from nice CIBs disappearing into slabs to me becoming a shut in FOMO hoarder is linked to the new graded games market 

Also this so called "Qix Master" appears to have changed his online alias in a bid to hide his identity. Rumors are it's breakfast related now. Very shady.

[BriGuy82 | 772]

31 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Even MORE damning, we may have cracked the case on this "Bronty" person's name!

 

 

"Dan" confirmed!

At the time he was "world's leading expert & collector of sealed games..."

[Alder | 243]

On 8/26/2021 at 8:16 PM, Dain said:

 

54 minutes ago, B.A. said:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180822081551/http://nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blog.View&Blog_Id=1&Id=1798

Is "I am a member on the Advisory Board of Wata Games" not considered to be "part of WATA"? Dain said he was "legally" done with WATA in 2017, so is the "Advisory Board" just slang for being a friendly advisor, or is there a legal interpretation with that phrasing?

Edited September 1, 2021 by Alder

[GPX | 1,370]

2 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

Yea I can fill you in. Sports cards, comic books, and many other collectibles are selling for millions of dollars at auction right now. But because some guy made a YouTube video specifically about video game sales being a conspiracy, that is the only reason it's happening to video games. There are no YouTube videos discussing conspiracies about million dollar sales in other hobbies, so all of those instance are totally organic and only video games are the exception to the conspiracy because sealed games hurt people's feelings.

Another take:

Some guy made a YouTube video talking about a big issue on the current graded games market surrounding HA/WATA. Some facts were made worth pursuing. Some speculation were made worth confirming or adjusting (hopefully in the next video). Is it controversial? Yes. Is it a waste of time discussing on it? No.

The games market has gone crazy. We  are all jumping up and down like gorillas because VGS is about video games, and most on here care about their games. We don’t want to focus on sports cards/comics when logging into a gaming forum.

Edited September 1, 2021 by GPX

[Jeevan | 8,914]

2 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

Yea I can fill you in. Sports cards, comic books, and many other collectibles are selling for millions of dollars at auction right now. But because some guy made a YouTube video specifically about video game sales being a conspiracy, that is the only reason it's happening to video games. There are no YouTube videos discussing conspiracies about million dollar sales in other hobbies, so all of those instance are totally organic and only video games are the exception to the conspiracy because sealed games hurt people's feelings.

you forgot to mention that there is a chance, no matter how slim, that heritage folks were bidding as well.....just a friendly reminder

[Gloves | 11,800]

5 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

you forgot to mention that there is a chance, no matter how slim, that heritage folks were bidding as well.....just a friendly reminder

To be FAIR! That'd be just about THE stupidest thing they could possibly do right now, with so many eyes on. 

If I have a history of car robbery, and someone is saying I robbed their car last week, I sure as hell ain't gonna go Rob a car THIS week!

I mean that'd be STUPID! 

... 

... 

Yeah. 

[Gulag Joe | 584]

13 minutes ago, GPX said:

Another take:

Some guy made a YouTube video talking about a big issue on the current graded games market surrounding HA/WATA. Some facts were made worth pursuing. Some speculation were made worth confirming or adjusting (hopefully in the next video). Is it controversial? Yes. Is it a waste of time discussing on it? No.

The games market has gone crazy. We  are all jumping up and down like gorillas because VGS is about video games, and most on here care about their games. We don’t want to focus on sports cards/comics when logging into a gaming forum.

The point is its happening across all collectible arenas. But here on VGS, 100 some pages of comments later, only the video game hobby is subject to the big lie and we're not allowed to talk about it any other way because it's not fair because this forum is for video games only!

[Tanooki | 4,940]

3 hours ago, LifeGame said:

Agree with you totally for many games past snes era but for example NES there isnt 50 mint copies of every game out there im pretty sure so thats not a lot

Follow up question : do you think that if there are 20-25 9.8 A++ Mario 64 that is a lot ?

A lot, debatable sure, but I would believe 100% that what that one sold for would never repeat.  The sucker who (if they did) pay that much and the premium on that(or was it with it?) probably felt it was the only one or nearly only one since another hadn't surfaced yet.  They were banking on blowing that wad on hopefully an one of a kind rating.  Once you realize there's 20 or 200 9.8 quality copies in the wild, price drops exponentially.

[GPX | 1,370]

1 minute ago, Gulag Joe said:

The point is its happening across all collectible arenas. But here on VGS, 100 some pages of comments later, only the video game hobby is subject to the big lie and we're not allowed to talk about it any other way because it's not fair because this forum is for video games only!

I think you’re looking at it from the other angle. I doubt anyone here is denying shadiness ain’t happening across all fields of collectibles. Though when there are shadiness that is occurring within the video game community, it’s only fair for the people within that community to give some emotions, questions and rants, right? 

The main issue is, how much shadiness is actually going on? What percentage of shill bidding currently exists? This is the part we’re all postulating. 

[Crystalis88 | 30]

13 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

The point is its happening across all collectible arenas. But here on VGS, 100 some pages of comments later, only the video game hobby is subject to the big lie and we're not allowed to talk about it any other way because it's not fair because this forum is for video games only!

Is there another hobby where a new grading company hit the scene and immediately became the authority. And that same grading company is in bed with arguably the most prominent pop culture collective auction house. And that the owner of this auction house bought an item froM his own auction for a substantial sum and then did a press release on this sale like it was special? 
 

and is there an executive from a grading company that has a god damn eBay store selling all high grade items? If this same phenomenon is occurring in another hobby please let me know!