Heritage Auctions Thread

[Dumars2001 | 164]

1 hour ago, GPX said:

Thanks for some of these comparisons. The closeness in prices probably reflects a general increase in market values overall across the high end graded games. It also reflects market values of items between the $1,000 and $10,000. 

So from the above, the WATA 9.6 Tengen Tetris for $36,000 looks a bit of a significant anomaly to me. It would have been nice if there were some direct comparisons of the high end Pokemon or Mario graded games that have been going bonkers over at HA.

I agree with you, it would have been nice to see some high grade Pokemon and Mario games auctioned off at CertifiedLink yesterday (and see their final prices), but Pokemon and Mario games have been selling for extremely high prices on Ebay over the past few months already, so I am slowly turning into a believer of this massive popularity and high prices in the hobby.

I am not saying there weren't any shenanigans going on with that record Super Mario Bros sale for $660,000, but it appears some of these sales are much more legit than I previously had thought. Once again, just my own humble opinion.

[Dumars2001 | 164]

6 minutes ago, kell said:

I may be wrong but I thought I read that HA fees are much higher than CL. As a seller CL may not be a bad alternative.

I think HA only charges the seller 10% for fees and I read that you can negotiate the seller's fee down, depending on what you are selling and how much you are selling at HA. I am unsure of what CL charges the seller but it is nice to see that they will auction off VGA graded games.

[Code Monkey | 2,010]

Heritage Auctions includes a 20% buyer's premium in their sold price so that Super Mario Bros. only sold for $550,000 plus $110,000 buyer fees. Does Certified Link include those fees in the sold price? Are you comparing equal pricing?

[Dumars2001 | 164]

9 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

Heritage Auctions includes a 20% buyer's premium in their sold price so that Super Mario Bros. only sold for $550,000 plus $110,000 buyer fees. Does Certified Link include those fees in the sold price? Are you comparing equal pricing?

I just found this on CertifiedLink's website:

All transactions are subject to a three percent (3%) Buyer’s Premium which is in addition to the purchase price, which premium will be rebated if the purchase price is paid on time and under certain payment terms, such as check, money order, or bank wire. 
 

So, the sold prices for CertifiedLink look like they don't include any buyer's premium in their final sold price, which makes the comparison of CL's prices and HA"s prices even closer and in some cases, the CL prices beat HA's prices.

[GPX | 1,369]

23 minutes ago, Dumars2001 said:

I agree with you, it would have been nice to see some high grade Pokemon and Mario games auctioned off at CertifiedLink yesterday (and see their final prices), but Pokemon and Mario games have been selling for extremely high prices on Ebay over the past few months already, so I am slowly turning into a believer of this massive popularity and high prices in the hobby.

I am not saying there weren't any shenanigans going on with that record Super Mario Bros sale for $660,000, but it appears some of these sales are much more legit than I previously had thought. Once again, just my own humble opinion.

The thing is though, a lot of the high end graded games were already in the low 4 digit figures even before WATA came along. So with the rising popularity, it’s no shock to see some go double or triple the recent years of market prices. It’s the games that are going at 50 times the recent years that are raising the most questions. 

So you might have seen me question some of the HA sales in prior posts, I never meant to question that the market value isn’t genuinely at an all time high. The question is more “are all these sales legit?” 

[kell | 102]

45 minutes ago, Dumars2001 said:

I think HA only charges the seller 10% for fees and I read that you can negotiate the seller's fee down, depending on what you are selling and how much you are selling at HA. I am unsure of what CL charges the seller but it is nice to see that they will auction off VGA graded games.

Yeah, sorry I didn't articulate my thought well. I think I did the math some time ago and seller would get about 68% of the selling price on HA.  Therefore, I believe sellers keep a higher % of the final bid on CL versus HA. 

Edited April 14, 2021 by kell

[sp1nz | 612]

The prices in real auction houses are real of course but it's more interesting to think about who the current buyers/sellers are and why. Who is to say whether it's genuine interest, cluelessness, money laundering, market manipulation, racket or whatever else - at least to me it seems like it didn't rise from organic demand but Wata/HA marketing quickly turning into twisted perception + all areas of collecting being hot due to American circumstances. The market prices aren't nearly settled and the generated hype of HA or even Pokémon cards has affected CL and eBay anyway, so it's no surprise if the prices are comparable when people are FOMOing all over, since who knows when the market settles or corrects itself. It's a fact that there are random collectors and investors who are sitting on shipping cartons or accrued stacks of certain sealed games and are trickling them into the market, waiting even more or just want to keep them in their collection. Without population reports and even with them, you can't predict the absolute rarity nor expected value at the current time unless you are someone who has been into sealed collecting before it was hot and knows about the movement of shipping cartons and singular sealed items within the market.

Edited April 14, 2021 by sp1nz

[avoin | 24]

Look what has returned 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mario-Kart-64-Factory-Sealed-VGA-1st-Print-READ-DESCRIP-New-N64-Nintendo-64-WATA/184750590590?hash=item2b03fe4a7e:g:zuAAAOSwgbNgZ4cG

 

I can't imagine asking any amount of money period for this thing and keeping a straight face. I feel like the only prospective buyers would be people who literally dont check the pictures at all and just hit buy it now.

 

Sorry Swamp Thing, that games a dud now.

Edited April 14, 2021 by avoin

[OptOut | 8,884]

10 hours ago, avoin said:

Look what has returned 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mario-Kart-64-Factory-Sealed-VGA-1st-Print-READ-DESCRIP-New-N64-Nintendo-64-WATA/184750590590?hash=item2b03fe4a7e:g:zuAAAOSwgbNgZ4cG

 

I can't imagine asking any amount of money period for this thing and keeping a straight face. I feel like the only prospective buyers would be people who literally dont check the pictures at all and just hit buy it now.

 

Sorry Swamp Thing, that games a dud now.

Oh dear, I think my LUNCH is just about to return again too! 

[tidaldreams | 654]

On 4/14/2021 at 3:06 PM, avoin said:

Look what has returned 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Mario-Kart-64-Factory-Sealed-VGA-1st-Print-READ-DESCRIP-New-N64-Nintendo-64-WATA/184750590590?hash=item2b03fe4a7e:g:zuAAAOSwgbNgZ4cG

 

I can't imagine asking any amount of money period for this thing and keeping a straight face. I feel like the only prospective buyers would be people who literally dont check the pictures at all and just hit buy it now.

 

Sorry Swamp Thing, that games a dud now.

How'd this get a VGA 85 with so much sh*t on it? Am I missing something here?

[OptOut | 8,884]

31 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

How'd this get a VGA 85 with so much sh*t on it? Am I missing something here?

The mold may have grown AFTER encapsulation.

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

21 minutes ago, tidaldreams said:

How'd this get a VGA 85 with so much sh*t on it? Am I missing something here?

It was graded before the mildew kicked in.

The original owner (presuming this seller is not that person) more than likely stored it in a room (or closet) that neither had the temperature or humidity in check. CAS has a page detailing that if those things are left uncheck... Guess what? Both mildew and mold spores will form. Which is something that VGA does not bring up, nor does Wata. And even then I wonder if anybody would have read that if they did.

As for the photos... I am calling it mildew. The particles look different when compared to mold. Along with additional signs that heat was the contributing factor to that issue. 

[AdamW | 713]

An interesting counterpoint to the Pokemon record Crystal sale from the last big HA auction (a WATA 9.8 that sold for $90000 inc. buyer's premium): this VGA 90 copy just sold off eBay for $79,500, if the transaction completes:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184696387646?nordt=true&rt=nc&nma=true&orig_cvip=true

edit: the HA copy was the slightly less common y-fold print that I reckon is second print; the eBay copy was the slightly more common double-ended print that I reckon is first print. Dunno if the buyers knew or cared.

edit 2: that's the third highest total price paid for a Pokemon game that I'm aware of, after the HA Crystal and the Red #1 HA sold in the same auction.

Edited April 27, 2021 by AdamW

[CIB_Wholesale | 418]

On 4/17/2021 at 1:07 AM, FenrirZero said:

It was graded before the mildew kicked in.

The original owner (presuming this seller is not that person) more than likely stored it in a room (or closet) that neither had the temperature or humidity in check. CAS has a page detailing that if those things are left uncheck... Guess what? Both mildew and mold spores will form. Which is something that VGA does not bring up, nor does Wata. And even then I wonder if anybody would have read that if they did.

As for the photos... I am calling it mildew. The particles look different when compared to mold. Along with additional signs that heat was the contributing factor to that issue. 

you could say it was water graded

[OptOut | 8,884]

54 minutes ago, SealedWholesale said:

you could say it was water graded

[CIB_Wholesale | 418]

1 hour ago, OptOut said:

something got you bogged down?

[final fight cd | 186]

I inquired about an item with sun fading to the spine. Of course there is no picture of  said sun fading.  I asked for a picture so I could assess it, as I don’t care what the grade says.  My automated response: well get back to you in 2 weeks.  Auction is long gone in 2 weeks.  What!?!  

[YOURTURN | 1,256]

11 hours ago, SealedWholesale said:

you could say it was water graded

Yeah... Wata they gonna do when people find out their grades are watered down? 

[AdamW | 713]

Hmm, the Pokemon Yellow #1 9.0/A that sold at recent HA auction for $11,700 is now apparently up on eBay for around $23k:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174750524466

I'm not sure it's even a legit sale since they're clearly just using low-res copies of HA's listing pics. But assuming it is, think they're gonna have trouble getting that price for 9.0...

[AdamW | 713]

So in case people didn't see, HA is listing items for its next 'signature auction' of games now. Not sure if this link will work, but:

https://comics.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=6717+792+4294942411&ic=Items-OpenAuctions-ComingSoon-BrowseTitle-071713

Doesn't really look like much great stuff. A grey NWC cart and an SE cart, okay, a 9.4 Left Bros., sure, but then some SMB copies that I think aren't terribly interesting, 9.4 Pokemon Red and Blue (still no "Red text" Blue, though)...and then there's a lot of just, uh, kinda crap? Or is someone actually excited to buy a graded copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Toki for Genesis?

Interesting there's a lot of late 2020/early 2021 grading dates on these. Lots of February 2021 grading dates on second or third tier stuff. Probably from the first wave of crap people sent in after reading about the January auction.

Edited May 10, 2021 by AdamW

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

28 minutes ago, AdamW said:

So in case people didn't see, HA is listing items for its next 'signature auction' of games now. Not sure if this link will work, but:

https://comics.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=6717+792+4294942411&ic=Items-OpenAuctions-ComingSoon-BrowseTitle-071713

Doesn't really look like much great stuff. A grey NWC cart and an SE cart, okay, a 9.4 Left Bros., sure, but then some SMB copies that I think aren't terribly interesting, 9.4 Pokemon Red and Blue (still no "Red text" Blue, though)...and then there's a lot of just, uh, kinda crap? Or is someone actually excited to buy a graded copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Toki for Genesis?

Interesting there's a lot of late 2020/early 2021 grading dates on these. Lots of February 2021 grading dates on second or third tier stuff. Probably from the first wave of crap people sent in after reading about the January auction.

Excuse me, Call of Duty Finest Hour is the first console Call of Duty game! A key!!!

[Gulag Joe | 582]

5 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

Excuse me, Call of Duty Finest Hour is the first console Call of Duty game! A key!!!

You can count on me watching that one closely

[Gulag Joe | 582]

6 hours ago, AdamW said:

So in case people didn't see, HA is listing items for its next 'signature auction' of games now. Not sure if this link will work, but:

https://comics.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=6717+792+4294942411&ic=Items-OpenAuctions-ComingSoon-BrowseTitle-071713

Doesn't really look like much great stuff. A grey NWC cart and an SE cart, okay, a 9.4 Left Bros., sure, but then some SMB copies that I think aren't terribly interesting, 9.4 Pokemon Red and Blue (still no "Red text" Blue, though)...and then there's a lot of just, uh, kinda crap? Or is someone actually excited to buy a graded copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl or Toki for Genesis?

Interesting there's a lot of late 2020/early 2021 grading dates on these. Lots of February 2021 grading dates on second or third tier stuff. Probably from the first wave of crap people sent in after reading about the January auction.

Sounds like all the good stuff must be spoken for, which might mean prices could go even higher!

[AdamW | 713]

Looks like the person who bought a Pokemon Blue for $10,800 at the last HA auction is trying to flip it on eBay for C$35k:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284290560104

seems odd to buy it from the US to Canada and either pay or run the risk of avoiding a bunch of tax, only to flip it to a probably heavily American buyer pool. Why not just keep it in the US the whole time? OK, they're a long way north of the border, but you'd think someone doing this sort of thing as a business could come up with some sort of arrangement to have a US location...

[DefaultGen | 5,405]

2 minutes ago, AdamW said:

Looks like the person who bought a Pokemon Blue for $10,800 at the last HA auction is trying to flip it on eBay for C$35k:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/284290560104

seems odd to buy it from the US to Canada and either pay or run the risk of avoiding a bunch of tax, only to flip it to a probably heavily American buyer pool. Why not just keep it in the US the whole time? OK, they're a long way north of the border, but you'd think someone doing this sort of thing as a business could come up with some sort of arrangement to have a US location...

If it's just for the money in this era of free money, why not just YOLO 10 grand into cryptocurrency instead of paying all time high prices for a game and the added risk of shipping, customs, buyers, etc. If anything is going to insta-flip for 20k premiums, it would probably be something in mint condition or an early print, not a basic bitch pidgey Pokemon Blue!