jonebone

That's what that * means? Holy smokes. Maybe someone fat fingered and extra 0. If someone is turning down an offer of $4900 to sell their Bubble Bobble in that grade, I really am at a loss for words.

Mega Man was like $26k in the first few hours it was live. When it was discussed on NA most people thought it was worth "at least $35k" anyway. Trying to guess an exact spot is kinda pointless, someone will just have to bid whatever it is worth to them if they wanted to win it. Sad story, I was the underbidder on that exact game when it was auctioned raw on eBay 3-4 years ago? @Jedisam2013 won it for like $6500 or $7k IIRC and I was #2. It got graded at 85+ then sold to Dain for a private amount. GoCollect bought it and regraded to Wata, there it is now.

Well, I must say Bubble Bobble 9.4 / A+ sitting at $4,900 is absolutely absurd. Someone is going to profit nicely from that sale.

Certified link discussion here for anyone interested.

At least the anti VGA stuff has cooled a bit over the last 6 months I'd say. Before that I'd agree that the some of the pro Wata crew were putting down VGA at every chance possible. That's silly, you should be collecting games and not grading companies. Each had pros cons and you decide what you prefer. As for Jaws you can call it whatever you want, its nothing that I would ever want, may as well be a player's choice copy. The problem lies that lots of us can be experts in a lot of stuff but no one can be an expert in everything. Yet a grading authority is supposed to be. Everyone has a swim lane that they know like the back of their hand, but you have to have a large respected network to certify all things under the sun. And that's kinda my point. Just because you can cerify something doesn't always mean you should. If they want to put their name on the line by searching down emails and old wives tales about who owned what and where, good for them. But that gets you into trouble. For all of the anti VGA things I seem to recall them authenticating an Atari homebrew as a prototype or something absurd. Once again... stretching outside their swim lane. @MrMark0673 touched on it here, theres two Wata clu clus that are identical, one called a test cart and one called a sample. What is it? Obviously a bit outside their main swim lane and authenticating stuff you arent 100.0% positive about will certainly not help your brand image. The whole concept behind a grading authority is consistency and that's already an inconsistent grade... There's three options on a game. Certify as authentic, reject as fake or reject as indeterminable. They clearly have decided that they are willing to stand behind a 3rd party LJN president sealing games as authentic without an H seam. I wouldn't put my name on the line for that but to each their own. I didnt agree with VGA Q grading and I don't agree with Wata sealed games graded as No Seal either. But that's the beauty of the internet, we all have our own opinions. If you dont agree with mine that's doesn't bother me at all. I'm just thankful that I have enough insight to decide what I want to collect on my own, without being exploited thru marketing to tell me what I should desire. Even as the market prices people out of certain things, savvy collectors can always find things worth buying.

Lots of activity here. Few points on a lot posted. I also have have no doubts that the Carolina Collection was graded fairly. I wrote a crossover article that Wata will eventually publish, or I'll post, and the grades made sense. Some were higher and some were lower but nothing was egregious or grossly inflated. The conflict of interest isn't our problem, but it might be theirs if lawsuits ever come up. America is a sue happy country anyways. Both sides have said their point. In cards, BGS has issues but PSA is in a scandal too. This summer the BlowoutCards forum found a scandal between a cosigner, PWCC and the grader, PSA selling trimmed and upgraded copies of the same exact card. Big gossip, got some articles but the stock is still going fine. Ultimately no matter how much Wata is discussed, they're still grading a ton of games and that wont change. In terms of VGA, yes they have issues too. Lots of those issues are self inflicted when you grow too big too fast and start authenticating too much too quickly. Q games made no sense and every grading company let's a fake by at some point unfortunately. I thought VGA was willing to buy back the fake, which is commonplace when a grading company screws up, but the owner wanted to prove a point and keep it. In terms of investment in Wata, I was also asked and they wanted a TON of money for a share. It wasnt a trivial amount and I also thought it was way too much to buy in. They seem to be doing well but 2 years ago this sealed market was really stagnant. They wouldn't have succeeded by just getting VGA people to hop over, they had to create a whole new market. Apparently they did.

Adventures of Lolo as far as one where I enjoyed playing each game in the series.

A couple more examples of conflict of interest: Conflict of interest from a legality perspective. Example, I cannot own Boeing stock and then negotiate a $500M military purchase on behalf of the US Govt. People go to jail for that. Conflict of interest from an ethics / optics (appearance) perspective. If I work for the lottery, my spouse, siblings, parents and other relative cannot win the lottery. Even though they are completely removed from the situation, the lottery shuts down any potential conflict of interest arguments (protests, lawsuits) well before they can even happen. So, once again, I don't see anything illegal happening here. What I do see is significant perceived conflict of interest. This is why Deniz / Ken / etc. aren't out there selling Wata games themselves. I don't think it would illegal for them to do so, but obviously owning the company, grading your own games and then selling them would be a huge conflict of interest and open them up to potential accusation lawsuits. What we do have here is people on the board either selling Wata games or buying and heavily promoting games. I know that the board is literally nothing more than a photo on a website, not a paid position and no behind the scenes advantages, but the general public doesn't know that and thus it creates an appearance of a conflict of interest. You also have HA only peddling Wata games, and refusing to sell VGA. Yet in cards, they are selling both PSA and BGS on their website. If HA was neutral on the matter and truly only being a marketplace, they'd sell it all. The argument once was "Well, VGA aren't tamper proof, we can't authenticate them". Then they sold a raw Stack Up, so that arguement is no longer valid. If they lack the knowledge or confidence to stand behind a VGA game then clearly they are incompetent to stand behind a raw game. Oh, and then Wata graded and certified a resealed Jaws! That blew my mind. I don't care if Miyamoto himself is operating the resealing machine, a reseal is a reseal. They called it a Ljn 3rd party reseal or something. So once again, to HA, it's perfectly fine to sell sealed "No Seal" Wata games, yet they cannot sell a VGA game. They clearly aren't just being an unbiased auction house, they are only being a storefront for Wata games at this point. It also creates anonymity for the seller, so you really don't know who owned the game that is appearing there.... Either way, could go on and on but people should get the point now.

Ha, it's a secret to me even. I can barely play Santa for my own kids!

Secret Santa has arrived!

Glad you made it over! Saw your post on NA asking about Secret Santa and was hoping you'd find your way over here.

Eh, with stock articles you're required to put a disclosure. You know, Joe Schmo writes some article on Yahoo saying how XYZ is the best company ever, they're undervalued, profits are increasing, yadda yadda yadda. Then they end the article, "Disclosure: Joe Schmo is long XYZ" or "Disclosure: Joe Schmo does not have any position in XYZ stock and does not plan to start one in the next 30 days". This is more like Joe owns company X and buys game Y who is affiliated with company X and then hypes up games sold on his own website. All of which isn't really explicitly disclosed, and only the people "in the know" can connect the dots. It's either accidentally omitted due to ignorance or intentionally omitted to obscure things. Either way, obvious conflict of interest but nothing illegal in my eyes. The fact that some people deny the conflict of interest only further exacerbates the issue. People aren't dumb.

Welcome aboard glad you made it!

Congrats, was my first set that I wanted to complete as well!

He still does, I talk to him occasionally on IG.

My experience with this sandwich is very unusual.... I rarely eat fast food for lunch, maybe once or twice a month if that. I strolled into Popeyes one day several months ago before the hype, and saw a chicken sandwich on the menu. I thought, what? When did they start selling these? I got it, enjoyed it and it was a fabulous sandwich. Then within a couple of days I see all of the ranting and raving on social media and think, wow, did I just randomly time that perfect? Hadn't been to a Popeyes in several months so I guess I did. I went back the next week when they were supposedly sold out everywhere and sure enough, they had signs on the door saying they didn't have the sandwich. Would I wait in crazy lines, no. Would I recommend the sandwich to anyone who likes a chicken sandwich? Hell yes.

I think some people in this thread need to Switch things up... /bad dad joke of the day

Yes it's cheating, but it doesn't necessarily take away from the enjoyment of the game. I'd rather cheat and have fun then not cheat, get frustrated and quit. Save states on the NES / SNES / Genesis classic are a god send!

@Romiked2689 is the one I've met most. He's actually been to both my current house and last house. Delivered a Playchoice-10 to me a couple of winters ago and popped my arcade cherry! Good dude. Otherwise, I met several IG / NA / VGS people at TMG this past June and I'll probably make it again next summer. In my experiences most of the people I've met have been pretty easy to talk to.

See my sig. Basically just CIB or Sealed Near Mint to Mint games from all "cardboard era" Nintendo consoles. That's my main focus these days. Adding to what I need or upgrading what I already own.

Unfortunately I actually do still keep up with rap and my wife constantly asks if I'll ever grow out of it. At 35 and balding, apparently not. I will say that over the last 10 years I've started listing to a lot more country. That's more easy listening and family oriented music (car rides, etc.) But still, on the evening commute from work (45 minutes each way), it's pretty much modern radio and XM. Then at the gym, it's whatever mix of 90s / 2000s rap is on the ipod shuffle. Also, Gucci has continually surprised me. I've always liked southern hip hop and he was a favorite of mine back in college. And he has continually produced a lot of stuff over the years and has aged well, which is extremely rare in the rap world.

So, I'm pretty good at limiting my kids electronics time (ages 3 / 5). TV does get watched everyday in spurts but they don't have dedicated handheld devices and they aren't screen addicts. We probably have some video game time 2 or 3 times a week in maybe 30 minute spurts but nothing excessive. My 5 year old is now asking for this Osmo toy for Xmas, which looks like some type of iPad / Tablet accessory... which would imply I have to get her the iPad / tablet itself. And if anyone is a parent to multiple children, there's no way in hell I can get one without getting one for the other. They constantly fight over toys as it is. Part of me wants to consider it (I know you can limit their time), but I also enjoy spending family time with the kids. I know as they get older they get more independent and want to do their own thing. My wife is also pretty adamantly against it, doesn't want them addicted to electronics. The irony of it all, I remember begging for a Nintendo as a kid and my mom wouldn't allow it. My friends had them and I played them there but I couldn't get one myself. I think I finally got her to cave around age 6, but I was definitely late compared to my peers. In retrospect I do believe I had too much screen time as a kid (not that they really understood it then), but I don't think I was that negatively affected. Other parents.... thoughts?

I saw this and had to pause, never have considered Contra or Super C a game that mixes genres. Sure it mixed the viewing perspective ("camera angle"), but it's still a shooter. Another oddball note worth mentioning, Link's Awakening on GB (probably the Switch version too). It's the action / adventure overworld genre we all know as Zelda, but there's also a very tiny mix of platforming underground, where you move side to side like Mario. That struck me as noteworthy in a long line of Zelda games that I've played over the years.

Probably mislabeled. That game should have 2 specific posters plus a reg card right?

Touche, and props for the Seinfeld reference!