jonebone

Haven't seen Jason Smith post in probably a decade or so. DOV hauls were great and the items he sold are collectively millions of dollars now. Good times...

Hey man, good to hear from you. I won't tell you how much those Black Boxes are worth now... I still have the Minty CIB Earthbound I got from you in June 2009 for $250. Good to hear from you bud, the downfall of NA was a sad sight to see.

First time podcast listener and I laughed in the first two minutes. Ken talking about how collecting is a gene, which I agree with. "It's a lifelong thing... most people sharing collecting stories, 'when I was three I started collecting rocks.' ". That's so true, I had a small rock collection starting around 5. Great times.

Goldeneye with Mario characters is actually the only hack I've ever bought on cart to this day! Was well worth the nostalgia flashback to try out.

There were plenty of people who made absolutely life changing amounts of money, my gains were much more modest. Also only have to pay 15% gains since I held for more than a year plus but yeah, it worked out for most part. Bought some PFE today with some profits, not sure what else I want to buy. Of JNJ, PFE and MRNA, the main coronavirus vaccine makers, I like the PFE fundamentals and chart the best. In at $36.xx today and I see 2021 potential in the mid $40s. I assumed the vaccine would already be priced into the stock, but shockingly it looks like it has plenty of room to run. 4% dividend also hedges against downside risk.

I know, 2 years too early. I exited 250 more shares at $34.50 and only holding 250 now for the final ride. Can't believe how much it blew up today, almost fully out of my position now. Of course I did that with ETSY a few years back, had $10ish shares that I exited around $20 and it was a very small position. Think that one is around $180 now...

Well I bailed on 380 shares at $29 an hour ago but wondering if I should dump the rest around $35 right now. As I mentioned, one thing I've learned is that hype knows no bounds. Predicting a top of something once hype kicks in is impossible.

Gamestop $28 and running, holy smokes. Glad I'm still holding a bunch, will look to take some profits perhaps.

I'm not a big fundamental guy. I just know that within the Pizza to go market, Papa Johns is going to take some market share with the stuffed crust offering. Maybe it's temporary or maybe its semi-permanent but either way it's going to boost some visibility to the company. With COVID still lingering around and eating out being obsolete at the moment as well, I just find PZZA to be a very solid low risk play. I'd be more worried about a total stock market correction that brings down most of everything across the board than a P/E value on this one.

PZZA has been on a tear since I called it out last week. My first shares were at $83.xx then I bought more at $88.xx after trying the stuffed crust last weekend (it was solid, would buy again). Wanted to get a bigger position but my buying opportunities may be gone, it's now at $95. My target on it was $100-$120 easily, maybe it will spike pass $100 and I can get a reentry there. Time will tell.

I don't have any specific expansion goals really, other than finding any Mint Sealed / CIB games of interest that I come across. I do have a pruning goal, need to trim the collection a bit. Constant struggle of running out of room. I also don't want to pass down 3,000 games to my children when I go. I'm only turning 37 this year but I do want to refocus my collection a bit. Natural progressions of a collector!

Streets of Rage 2 is a perfect button masher that keeps them engaged. My 4 and 6 year olds also loved watching me play through Zelda Link's Awakening on Switch. Oldest would play a lot of overworld parts but would get scared in the dungeons and turn it over to me! PS - I believe the NA thread that you referenced was started by me too. Time flies!

Tough question for me, I'm more of a one and done guy and don't replay a ton. I really can't think of anything I've beaten more than 2 or 3 times.

A couple of points that I thought were worth addressing. Too many to quote people: 1) Grade Variability I've seen games from both grading companies where I don't necessarily agree with the grade. But that's normal, grading is subjective and if you asked 10 experts to grade a game I doubt you'd get the same exact 10 answers. End of day, if you believe in a company, you do so because you find yourself agreeing with them "most of the time". Or, for some people who don't have the patience or experience to develop an eye, they just buy the grade, effectively agreeing 100% of the time. 2) "Completeness" of Games I love having 100% complete games and hate that it is reduced to a box when graded, realistically speaking. And while inserts / styros / baggies / phamplets / etc. are important to document, realistically the Game Specific Inserts affect price much more than generic ones. People pay more for a Kid Klown complete with poster but not so much a fully complete random Akklaim game. I do think a fully complete game of even a common will outsell by at least $5-$10 if well pictured, yet when the cost of grading a CIB is $75+, that stuff is white noise. From a value standpoint its RPGs with their maps, games with their specific posters, etc. The grading is more valued focused so they're doing what they can for now at least. It's a compromise but better than nothing. 3) Taking away from the CIB ungraded pool Personally I find myself buying a playable CIB and a graded CIB if the game is meaningful enough. Let's face it, if you have some Gem Mint box where the hinge feels tight and basically opened once or twice, do you really want to be opening that up a lot to play? Probably not. For me, it makes sense to grade that and buy another average shape to have playable, or to have for my "set". Then the Mint copy is elevated to more of a collection piece. If a CIB collector is truly a gamer, I suspect they would rather have the Excellent / Near Mint copy at a discount to the true Gem Mint CIB copy (with an increased price), as that would be more playable. Either way, CIB grading is not for everyone and it's taken me awhile to come around to it. The way I've accepted it is by having a CIB playable of anything I'd want to play, and graded CIBs are collection pieces. If the game is good I can aspire for one of each.

Hey let me give you some real worthwhile advice if you want to read it. Another person cannot make you angry. You allow yourself to become angry and express anger in the way you see fit. Every human experiences anger and it is a normal emotion. You have to identify your triggers then consciously remove them when you are in a non-angered state of mind. The trigger here was you / your family's personal safety, and when the safety was in jeopardy, your body entered an angered state of mind. Fight or flight kicked in, and you verbally "fought" the battle in a way which you are a bit embarrassed about. I don't care about the specific details here, but you did mention you were hot-headed and I'm sure you would agree you do not want your family to see you like this again. Stop focusing about what was right or wrong in this situation and focus on how you can change your reaction to prevent this from happening again. My direct advice in this situation, children's safety is a trigger for you (it is for a lot of parents). It's not about preventing yourself from ever becoming angry again (it will happen), it is about managing how you express anger, and reducing the risk of you being in angry situations. If you know masks are a big deal, I would recommend avoiding the public play areas. Retrain your brain a bit to think about how you would respond if a stranger without a mask approaches your kid again. Make that a focus in 2021, expressing anger in a more healthy manner and you and your family will live a much improved life. Anger causes an adrenalin release similar to getting a high, so it is important that your non-angered state of mind makes a conscious effort when your angered brain is not thinking logically. Wish you the best as a fellow parent who tries to set the best example for his children.

My new stock pick for you guys, PZZA, Papa John's. Started a position today. Personal Take: They just rolled out a stuffed crust pizza, and as a pizza fan, I'm excited. You didn't see this innovation under the prior owner, and we're a couple years removed from his fallout. Shaq has been on board and it's going to pay dividends at some point. Also, I remember thinking the same thing with Domino's when they changed their crust in 2017 with the new seasoning. It went from cardboard to worth eating surprisingly. Never took a position and that stock has gone bonkers, but market share is back for the taking. Will monitor for some more entries but I'm pretty excited about their 2021. Hoping I can get a couple more entries but for now I took a small position. Here's to 2021!

You can be both too. I like set collecting as ungraded CIBs. Then I also like a nice Mint graded CIB in general. The collector in me would keep the graded CIB and probably buy back a fill in ungraded CIB for the set. There's pros and cons of each. I didn't like CIB grading at first as the whole point of CIB was for the game to be playable (in my eyes). Yet I also realize I haven't played the vast majority of my collection and likely never will. So if I have something super Mint, then I may as well grade it. I also always thought the most beautiful part of a CIB was seeing it photographed with all the contents on fully complete items. The graded CIB trivializes the importance of it, but in theory the matrix should eventually show all pre graded contents. If the general buyer pool doesn't care that is fine, but I would care as a collector and I would specifically market those contents if actively trying to sell it. In my eyes, I'm confident that the CIB graded market has awhile to go towards maturity. I bet we'll see some changes at some point in the not too distant future and it will become more transparent over time.

Moving on up!

But you felt more comfortable gambling on a stock you've followed closely for awhile than another one, right? Glad my adventure brought you some good luck as you would call it.

$22 today, go figure. I held through the lows of $3, been a long ride. It's crazy because I do feel the stock is overvalued right now, but I also know hype knows no bounds. I figured it could maybe make mid $20s on hype alone but who even knows anymore...

Gamestop back to almost $19 again. Gonna ride it out and see what next year brings, nice to spread it out over multiple tax years if I fully exit the position. May sell half again and hold rest, time will tell.

@RpgCollector yes that's it, thanks! Amazing a title like that would have multiple variations!

Hmm, that's a different box variant than the one I had years back. Mine was more horizontal than vertical (in terms of longest dimension on outer box), and I believe it was labeled as a Wal-Mart exclusive.

I'm not a fan but we all struggle with space. When you get tight you do what it takes to make things work sometimes. All that matter if whether or not it irks you personally.

Its an acquired taste. When I started collecting in 2008 I had no idea how people collected sealed games in plastic. Took me till around 2010 to come around. Took me a bit to accept the Wata case orientation but it doesn't bother me anymore.