DefaultGen

These little feet are going to catch against other games when you pull them off the shelf. The case design in general just doesn't look well designed from an aesthetic, security, or convenience sense.

I don't think exact copies exist anymore. Jewel cases were heavier in the 90s than they are now. If you weigh a modern case and find one that matches 1:1 to the gram, let me know. Still can't beat Goodwill CDs and dollar bin PS1 games to get 1:1 cases as far as I can tell.

PCE Works text on the back is wrong. Look at the "FOR SALE and USE IN JAPAN ONLY" text on the back, specifically the boldness and positioning. This is PCE Works: This is real: Here is a legit inner disc code: PCE Works discs may obviously say PCE Works on them where it should say Konami. There seem to be a few disc variants. There may be a "more legit" looking one which I why I posted the legit ring code. Above info courtesy of Gex and Hyrulevyse. There may be many other subtle differences, this is just what I have in my notes. Fuck PCE Works btw.

I need to stare and compare more codes to figure out the date code on the end. More of them seem to match (just look at how many Kieta Princesses are K17s). The digits can be a little offset sometimes, not sure if that can mean anything (like it was stamped twice?). The later date can be either before or after the first date. A mystery

Yeah the disk writer games would make things tricky, but good job! I gotta make a little converter for all these so I don't have to keep counting on my fingers.

Jeez, even the 3DS version is over $100. I didn't realize how far the Shantae madness had penetrated. It's kind of funny that a company that creates limited products is creating more limited products to meet the demand created by their own scarcity. LRG is a money printing machine baby.

Not 100% sure, but maybe Sonic 2 around Christmas 1993.

This list looks good. Just gotta add Shakedown Hawaii.

Did you end up figuring this out? There's a seller on YAJ who claims he has a real and fake Recca for sale and they've been up a while. I have both sets of pictures saved to compare, but whenever another Recca comes up I still usually can't tell 100% what is real and what is fake. I can sometimes easily tell fake ones, but I can't 100% call something real, especially since the reg cards and everything are repro'd. I just figure if I get one I'll need someone local or a trustworthy dealer to authenticate one for me.

I'm looking into the actual serial numbers on the disks. I didn't find anything with a quick search. I don't want to reinvent the wheel if someone already knows what these mean. Zelda has a lot of them, which makes sense since Zelda probably was in print for a very long time so that's a good place to start. At a glance I see Zeldas with serials starting with H, I, J, K, and L. The second letter seems to be I, J, or K from what I've seen. Looking at a late release like Time Twist, the serial isn't too far off from the average Zelda, so it might not be related to date. I'm hoping these can be used to help authenticate rare games or piece together correct inserts with certain disk variants, but I'll need a lot more information since I'm at square zero here. All the Charumera Zeldas I see at a glance are one digit off from each other so I doubt they're completely random. Some random Zelda 1 disk codes in case that helps anyone figure it out: K15J04 I296I04 J145I24 J316I22 J026I03 K215J29 K296K10 K155J11 K086J16 K135J11 (Charumera) K145J11 (Charumera) K195J11 (Charumera) L185K38 Time Twist, a game that wasn't released until 1991: Charumera Zelda:

If you want an answer besides "NES, first party Nintendo", I would guess that sealed prices put a cap on what carts and CIBs could sell for in the past because this game was $60 common as balls sealed. Those have either been bought up or prices hiked up to $100s.

There's certainly no inserts to document, don't worry.

This is amusing because some of these will likely have more copies that exist than people who have ever played the game. How many games can say that? Can any? No "player" market, no used market, no digital market, not some collectible rerelease. These are games no one has ever played going straight to shelves. If your game can't cut it for $5 in digital stores and has to be sold in a limited time window one-time before anyone can review it, I can't imagine you have a lot of faith in your game's performance. So who's gonna open them?

It's called a population report and grading people have all been mad for years that Wata doesn't release this information when every other grading company does. AFAIK Wata was only planning on initially releasing NES population, maybe that changed.

Had a snipe on an auction with a bid. The auction got taken down and the seller put it up as a BIN for half my max bid, which of course sold instantly. Then I had a hit on a different saved search for the first time ever and it was a $40 BIN, gone by the time I saw it. Both uncommon Commodore 64 games, really not the end of the world, but people putting random BINs on items with no price history, what motivates you! Just put up an auction! The worst that can happen is one person bids for your minimum bid price! I'm trying to give you money Side note, every seller who puts a random too-low BIN on an item that I nab in time, good on you. Keep up the good work.

I mean whoever bought it has another 20 million dollars at least. They still could do things beneficial to humanity. I'd personally want the shiny rock if I was mega rich too. #materialism

Sweet! I need more TV-Game variants. The boxes are always rekt and my brain doesn't want to process that they're 45 years old so it's not going to look like a nice Super Nintendo box.

https://www.shopgoodwill.com/Item/123623470 Poor guys who donate this stuff only for someone in the Goodwill back room to recognize this oddly shaped, unlabeled cartridge for what it is.

Never looked interesting to me so I've never played. I didn't really like De Blob that much. I do love that Nintendo made a totally new popular franchise with all new characters though.

Damn, 40 hours a week when you're 16 on top of school? Get a life kid, you're only 16 once! This isn't too different from what a lot of us did. Buying from an underpriced market (whether $2 copies of Contra at the flea market or Switches at Best Buy) and selling for market value on Ebay. This kid is just doing so at a massive scale. I always blame buyers more than scalpers for creating the opportunity. I live a comfortable life and I wouldn't pay $25 over MSRP for a Switch, I'd just wait. People paying $500 for a Switch due to impatience are just nuts to me. Props to the kid for the head start in life. I still personally wouldn't sell one of my teenage years for $100k though. 16 is a cool time to be alive and with friends that aren't your employees.

Loose Stadium Events, lol. I know it's a default answer for most NES cart collectors, but it's a game I would pay $1000s for. Since the high end world is all about conditional rarity and popular franchises, I'm not keen on spending 20 grand for a loose cart of questionable significance compared to other significant games that might go up in price. A CIB Papillon Gals has been on Ebay for months (years?) with no buyers. Gonna need someone to maybe correct me, that's much rarer than SE, Myriad, or Panesians right? In terms of opportunistic FOMO buying, I'd probably do better off buying mint, common Pokemon and Mario games I don't have than something that only has rarity going for it. I do want to be in the loosie SE club, it's just the wrong time to buy. I was looking for a real nice CIB Bucky o Hare when it was in the $400 range, then it went into a drought for a long time and the next ones that came up started going for like $900, and who knows what they're at now. Cool game, but not worth a grand to me. Still weird to me living in a world where "normal" video games are just casually $1000 now, not the highest of the high end stuff.

Some interesting high end collectible auctions today at Sotheby's. The two most hyped stamps on the planet got demolished, millions under their estimates and what the seller paid for them. The 1933 Double Eagle coin sold for millions over the estimate, highest selling coin ever. Can't beat collectible money when you're selling to the money! https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/three-treasures-collected-by-stuart-weitzman In the truest of 2021 fashion, it looks like the one-cent magenta is turning into a fractional share investing company. Own your own piece of the stamp that gone down a million dollars in 7 years of a bull market. What a deal! https://www.1c-magenta.com/ Not sure if the what the actual wolves of Wall Street are buying affects the sheep of video game Wall Street, but I like watching this stuff.

Those guys should just make you write out merge sort in pseudocode on a whiteboard like you're supposed to for a dev job! (Is that still a thing btw)

My favorite bad interview was a huge group interview for Freddie Mac, 2012 or so. Maybe 50-100 people round robining between different interviewer stations. It seemed... impersonal and bad. But the best part is we got a FOURTY FIVE MINUTE presentation on why Freddie Mac wasn't a cause of the 2008 financial crisis. It was masquerading as a "So what is Freddie Mac?" presentation but was 100% an attempt to convince people that they weren't involved or at fault in the mortgage crisis. It was hilarious with everyone looking around with the "Is this for real?" look on their face. You know what companies that weren't involved in the 2008 financial crisis don't do? Give you a 45 minute presentation absolving them of being involved.

Is that your poster. What a hidden gem that one is. Movie Jesus should cover it.