inasuma

Panic grade time bois

We're kind of getting off topic, but I agree with you @tidaldreams. Today PSA is far less likely to put out bad PSA 10s. That sad, SGC is still not at all comparable to IGS.

PSA has this problem too though? Here's a PSA 10 rocket zard that went to auction recently with pretty poor looking edges on the back. The issue is that all of these companies are third party and run complex operations. I wouldn't draw the line at one company because they fucked up on a grade - they all do it, even today. PSA just happens to be the market leader. I'll believe it when there's a sale. AFAIK the highest sale on a PSA 10 was $380k from Goldin, in March. Anyway, I just don't see how SGC is some "rando" grading company when they've been around for decades at this point.

This is actually a pretty poor example. SGC has a long track record and is actually well respected in the graded card space. Plus, smpratte bought an SGC 10 pristine 1st edition base zard for $360k, a record setting price at the time. Compared to IGS, which is run out of some dude's house in LA. rofl EDIT: sidenote, that sgc 10 charizard is kinda beat up on the back. not surprised it sold so low. but these things happen, even with companies as prolific as psa.

obligatory pokemon fake post

I feel you. Also as someone in the expensive, sealed market. I find myself buying only a handful of games every month but the price is so much higher. Compared to the early days when I could get a dozen or more games in a month and spend half as much rip lol

I’ve gone to sealed actually. Opposite direction lol

Is there any other way to collect?

this is the saddest thing i've ever read.

i mean, for better or worse, at least wata has a clear and active pipeline to market lol also wata's label, while i hated it at first, has actually grown on me. meanwhile igs has... whatever the hell that label is

This is probably the more likely scenario. I feel like otherwise we're trying to prove a negative and make up stories to suit the narrative Wata is inherently evil or something. Wata makes plenty of money without needing to swap out games that account for less than a fraction of a percent of their monthly revenue.

Well that just isn’t right.

Depends on condition. We talking a mint copy? I could pay a hot penny for it. The problem though is there are no recent sales, raw or graded, so I probably wouldn’t want to overpay as then it becomes a risk to me. But again, it really depends on condition. Would need pics.

(ignoring the tone police going on for a minute lol) That's also a totally reasonable interpretation. My general stance is that, while Jared may genuinely want to get involved with the community, they are still operating at the behest of a business whose chief motive is to increase their premium auction fees as much as possible. While I love it when the community is hype, the important thing to remember is that markets driven by hype create a lot of losing scenarios for buyers. When markets reach all time highs it should be time to take a very heavy grain of salt with every statement on future value and the success of that market: no one is a fortune teller, after all. Especially the guy working for the auction house.

There's a 9.8 A++ Pokemon Emerald sitting cozy at $15.5k. lol

Well thankfully switch boxes aren’t sealed, so if it’s a big enough concern you could gently open up the console and yeet those batteries

They must have printed only like 1000 total copies for that game to be so expensive and only CIB... in 2017 lol

Also some batteries for consoles last much longer than others. For eg Nintendo DS and DSi consoles have great longevity 99.999% of the time. The boxes I have would be soiled by now had there been abnormal battery degradation. Compared to those crappy AA batteries in game boy color boxes that end up leaking far more often. Rip

RIP my sealed Nintendo DSs. Lol

Bought a sealed super Mario advance on gba for $35 back in late 2019, sold recently for $250. So whatever that differential is. EDIT: oh and a sealed wario land 4 I bought for $80 last year, sold it for $375 around the same time as that Mario advance. EDIT 2: oh and a mega man battle network 3: blue version that I bought for $90 mid-2020, has been selling for like $500 lately. So that’s dope. Not selling that one though

> wata has entered the chat

it’s probably an industry culture thing. Not very tech savvy executives looking for the bare minimum. Don’t know enough to ask or care lol

I would recommend having a designer choose the best font for each part of the label. Eg, you might need a different font style for smaller labels vs the larger font for the game name itself. Probably most important is readability and not being too cheesy (eg avoid comic sans, felt, papyrus, impact, etc). You’ll probably notice on wata and vga, they use plain, readable fonts with the exception of their logo, which is that pixel font. Also definitely not a good idea to use different fonts per customer, even if they ask for it. It would detract from your branding. One thing that’s nice about the example label you posted earlier was that it was clean and didn’t shout too loud (unlike a certain IGS label lol).

Somehow I misssed this before. There are no guarantees with any auction, especially with video games. Just throwing this out there, but I hope folks don’t take Jared’s word as gospel here and do their best to educate themselves before jumping into this auction (and Goldin) on singular market segments like Sports or on unprovable claims like “you will not be disappointed.” Also, remember Jared works for Goldin so it’s in his (and Goldins) best interests to hype us and the market up. At the end of the day, Goldin wins both in the short term and long term by getting as many market segments, both internal (VGS, classic game collectors in general) and external (eg, sports card and comic collectors and investors) to play along, even if it’s to the hobby’s or collector’s detriment. Not accusing Jared or Goldin of bad intentions, just trying to be a realist here. Educate yourselves so you don’t fall into a trap. I know you mean well Jared, but graded games have been extremely volatile over the last few years and it takes five brain cells for anyone to see that. The last thing we need is people losing in the market because of hype and unfounded speculation. Okay, rant over. lol