A_Feisty_Pickle

33 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Well I'm honestly not sure how that is supposed to work as we need to declare an estimated value. If the game is actually a legit seal, surely I can't value it at the lowest tier, yet if it's a reseal fake, then I shouldn't be trying to value it at 10K monies either.

Just commenting as a bystander here, unless they've changed it there's no additional fees for grading if you value your game < $1000. I see this as a "if we lose your game or it gets ran over we'll give you this much money" insurance (although I have heard Wata is not quick to payout claims). I haven't claimed any of my games to be > $1000 when grading them including one I sold for 5 figures. 

Again unless the process has changed, you can submit your game for whatever value you want, they will grade it, if they think it's worth way over $1k they will email you asking for additional money (I think 2% of appraised value). If they deem it resealed I assume by this point they will send it back to you rather than requesting additional money.

13 hours ago, FenrirZero said:

This reminds me that I have to decide how I am going to sell my remaining PS1 imports. I am hoping to phase out both Sony and Square Enix from my collection before 2023.

Off topic but if you post them here be sure to tag me. I'm mainly focusing imports right now.

To contribute to the actual conversation, I have pretty much stopped visiting my local game stores by this point. Inventory hardly ever changes, and when I do end up finding something interesting it's not uncommon for them to say the price has changed since it was stickered and then tell me the "real" cost. Usually I end up passing even if it's still a decent deal just because I hate the bait and switch. I only have chains near me now (Vintage Stock and Game Exchange) which you can still find decent deals but.... Like I said inventory is stagnant and it's just not fun to visit anymore.

Thrillhouse Games is a 2 hour drive for me so I rarely make the drive, but it is fun to visit. I follow them on Facebook and they are always getting cool stuff in. Not sure where they're getting their inventory. 

I am pretty sure Wata doesn't grade PS3 so you don't need to worry about VGA prices being worth less (although I guess Wata could start grading them between now and when you sell). 

As a PS3 collector though I think there are < 20 games worth grading for the console. 

My Turbo order from January 2021 finally arrived this week! Now just waiting on my Turbo from April 2021 and then I will have all my games back (and will probably be the last of my cool things to send off). 

I'm just here to do my periodic complaining. My Turbo order from January 2021 is now at 279 business days, or 6.2x the estimated turn around time when I submitted.

PM'ed!

Last year I found ~$50k worth of games from a game store and ended up paying < $1500 for all of it. Some of it I sold for way less than value (found out value afterwards), sold 1 thing for way more than I thought I would, and kept a few of the lower value items just cause. In the end I made around $20k after tax, plus kept a couple cool items for the shelf. Majority of it went towards stock but I did blow a little bit on a couple new computers.  No ragrets. 

23 hours ago, MiamiSlice said:

Sigh 

That happened with my standard edition Danganronpa Decadence from Best Buy : ') I'm hoping it gets restocked and avoid buying off ebay.

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

If that makes you nervous, I'd wonder, what would be the best way to crack open the seal on a high dollar target like that for Gameboy if you're going to do it?

I am not an expert but I would assume through the flap would be best. 

That box cutter maneuver makes me nervous. 

Coming up on a year since I purchased. Annnny day now.

Also sucks I can buy Scott Pilgrim on Ebay for a fraction of what I initially paid, and I still don't have it lol. 

I preordered Danganronpa Decadence normal and special editions from Best Buy as soon as they were available for purchase. My special edition shipped without issue but my normal edition was on back order. Got an email saying they cancelled it. Unfortunate since I have all non Vita versions of Danganronpa and it's already selling for $80+ on Ebay. Hopefully there will be another print. 

6 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

It's not whether they can operate off the money coming in, it's whether they need to fulfill contracts from the investors that funded the company initially. What you're asking them to do is literally impossible, if they stop generating revenue for the investors, they can get shut down either by the FTC or the SEC and sent into bankruptcy. I don't know that much about investment law but I'm sure one of those two entities would have something to say about it.

You also didn't clearly read what I initially quoted and my response. Both myself and that person submitted our games under Speedrun, the lowest / slowest possible submission tier we could have chosen because our games are sealed. Wata promised to have them done in 45 business days and we both experienced completed grading in under 20 business days so they're servicing their customers and their backlog in the times they promised to do them. Will I have my games back within 45 business days? No, and it's not because of lack of service, it's because Wata is experiencing supply shortages, just like the rest of the world right now. They're short on acrylic cases so my games will sit in post grading for the next 3-4 months because I'm that far down the line to receive the cases.

If you don't understand how this works, that's fine but don't just write random nonsense that you think the company should do when it is literally an impossibility. I don't defend Wata like some people do but I'll defend any business that's being shit on for not providing a service they clearly are providing in the time frame in which I paid them to provide it.

I submitted some PS2 games Turbo tier January 10. At the time estimated return time was 45 business days, so 9 weeks. Buffer it with a week shipping there and back... 11 weeks estimate on getting it back, which would put it at first week of April. April came and went and my order finally entered post grading... in August. Now it is December, 4 months later, and it still hasn't moved. I'm assuming they're run out of cases again as I haven't seen anyone posting newly graded DVD sized games past few weeks.

The issue is they're not stopping grading on Speed Run and Warp Zone tiers, so they're also getting stuck in post grading. Alright now cases have come in... Who is going to get slabbed first? The Speed Run and Warp Zones of course. Unless they order an entire shipping container of cases I assume mine is going to sit to the side, hopefully remaining in the condition I submitted it in and not get lost. 

It seems like it's always the DVD sized cases they run out of. They either should cut off submissions for those types of games OR raise the price significantly on higher tiers to where people have to think twice before submitting. 

Danganronpa Trilogy is available on NIS' website if anyone is in need of a copy. It's been pretty expensive since the original run. (It's also coming to Switch later this year if you'd rather get it there). 

9 hours ago, AnimalHouse said:

My god there's more!?!?! Holy Toledo! I've died and gone to South America. *figuratively speaking* Did he say how he c0me across this treasure? What else did he come across? The flag emoji looks like Venezuela.

After I spotted the Sonic2 listing, I randomly came across a sold Super Nintendo Kiosk and sold Cyberpunk 2077 PlayStation 4 bulk copies of 120x, 150x, 250x, 500x2.

From just being an observer I think he's got some kind of store. Lots of signs, kiosks, sealed games he posts in those groups. I just assume he's been in the business for a long time and has acquired it over the years. 

I don't see Miguel post as much either and I don't know if he's from Venezuela, but he did post this pic on my sale post of my 9.8 A++ Sonic 2. Could possibly be him.

11 hours ago, AnimalHouse said:

Disclaimer: Sadly not mine but I felt like sharing this discovery. Found listing here. I wonder what other treasures are hiding in Venezuela...

I wouldn't be surprised if this is Ismaelows Guevara from the Sealed Games Club Facebook group. He's got a ton of good stuff. He's been posting some Sonic 2's over there recently although I wouldn't call them great condition. 

I don't have anything to add to the discussion, but complaining makes me feel a little better. My Turbo order that was supposed to take 9 weeks has passed 9 months now. It doesn't help that they're PS2 games and there are probably a million DVD sized games with priority over mine. I am starting to lose hope I'll get them back this year. 

13 hours ago, AnimalHouse said:

This is simply my opinion but I would never send in my games via Select service level. At the very least go Turbo. I know its good for volume size / price ratio but the wait time uugghhh to slow for me. I did Turbo once when it was estimated 45 BD and it took 89 BD to finish. Megan who was working CS at the time, was nice enough to upgrade my order service level to SpeedRun. Not sure how long it would have taken had it remained Turbo all the way.

89 BD would be nice. My Turbo order from early January is still in post grading. So ~165 BD right now and climbing. 

10 hours ago, WarMech said:

I'm not going to lie, sending some of my sealed games out for grading for a future auction is still tempting at this point when I see some of these results, but that whole $10K minimum value you're required to send to HA really stops me in my tracks.

The thought of making enough to stay at home with little to no interactions with society outside my house until covid is over and done with...if that ever happens....is nice, but it doesn't kill off the paranoia I have that my stuff won't end well.

They gave me an estimate on a game and then I sold it privately the next day for 350% of their estimate. You can still make money outside of Heritage. 

I don't do much VHS collecting, but I did find a nice free lot on Facebook a few years back. Besides horror I have a lot of obscure anime VHS. 

One of my better finds was a Nintendo M8 demo unit. They had it for sale at a local game store that always overprices everything. It was sitting behind the register so I asked about it. They said it was "kind of" working and they weren't sure if the store owner wanted to sell it yet until they could get it fixed up, however they called the owner and he said he'd sell it for $300. Snagged it, brought it home, opened it up and gave it a good dusting. No issues afterward! Biggest surprise is when the employee I was talking with mentioned it had been sitting in the back room for a few months. I guess they never took the time to look it up and get the real value of it. Ultimately I ended up selling it which is kind of a bummer, but it paid for half of our honeymoon and I got to go to Japan for the first time, so I would say worth it. 

Already sold off the 9.8 A++ Sonic, keeping the other two for now. Hopefully I don't look back here in a year and regret selling!

11 minutes ago, mlbfan10 said:

They are all Turbo. At the time estimate was 60 business days but I should have paid for Speed Run looking back.

Yeah unfortunately unless you pay for Warp Zone estimates are way off. My Turbo order from Jan 10 went into Post Grading about 2 weeks ago. My last order I received was in Post Grading for 6 weeks, so I'm hoping I get my Jan 10 order back by Sept 10 (So 8 months turn around).

23 minutes ago, mlbfan10 said:

Been waiting on 3 orders. All 3 have have in grading since middle of March.

What tier? If Speed Run I'd expect you to have it back by now. If Turbo you probably have another 3 months.