blarky

If you want to keep the plastic hanger, here is what I know regarding the grading companies and how they deal with it: Wata = folds the plastic hangers down 90 degs CGC = folds the plastic hangers down 90 degs EXCEPT for Sega Genesis. They have a custom well/holder for that system ONLY, which allows the hanger to stand upright. VGA= folds the plastic hanger down 90 degrees UNLESS you ask for and pay extra for the special hangtab rail case (basically a notch cut in the top rail), which allows the hanger to stand upright:

Easy way to tell from a distance with VGA: "Pink Link" avatar background = Sealed "Blue Link" avatar background = Qualified I'm sure there are exceptions, but in general this seems to be the case.

Best guess as to what "*Factory sealed, Box opened at factory prior to sealing": I'm assuming here that WATA has detected some type of spine or flap wear, indicating that the box has been opened. But the seal is determined to be factory. How can this be? If we assume humans were boxing these games up, perhaps what happened was that the contents were incorrectly loaded (and the flap closed), but later realized this and they had to re-open the flap to finish packing properly. There's been a few sealed NES black box games noted in the past with spine wear, but with otherwise legit factory seals. Perhaps a similar story here.

Hi, is there an official reason why Goldin employs this bidding rule? It seems like this can only hurt the sellers, and not help in any way. I think during the last GA video game auction, there were reports of items selling for cheaply due to bidders not being able to bid at the end because of this rule. There's probably something I'm missing here, so just wondering what the reasoning is behind this, thanks!

Item #29033 on 10/31/21 was a Double Dragon 3, not a Dragon Warrior III *edit* Only reason I looked was because I thought holy crap, how did I miss that one? lol, happens to the best of us

Ah ok, thanks, that makes sense. Probably pulled from a new Deluxe Set then. The early Deluxe sets had the sticker sealed gyros and DH's... later ones excluded the sticker seals.

Yes

Here is the WATA black box data, sorted by Total # of sealed games per title, smallest to largest. Also split out are the variants for each title (sticker sealed, hangtab, round/oval SOQ). For simplicity's sake, I added matte and gloss stickers together, non-revA and revA for all Round SOQ, and R and TM for all Oval SOQ. Super Mario Bros is by far the largest pop total. But most of them (128/157) are Oval (white) seal versions. Only 29/157 are Round SOQ or earlier. There are 29 sticker sealed games here total, but due to social media postings, we know a good number of these were VGA crossovers (I'd wager at least half them, at the moment). Minor notes: DK Jr and Soccer only had 1 entry, so it didn't say the variant. The Soccer was posted on social media and we know it's a sticker seal. I don't know the DK Jr but assuming it's a Hangtab. Tennis also shows a duplicate variant row for "Rev-A, Round SOQ", not sure if that's a mistake or not. Gyromite also shows a regular "Hangtab" entry, which is confusing. From what we know, this game is only possible to be sealed with a sticker seal. So having just a stand-alone "Hangtab" entry indicates a sealed Gryomite that isn't a sticker seal... probably a mistake though *edit* not a mistake, these were NS but new HT, probably from a later deluxe set. Title Sticker sealed Hangtab Round SOQ (all) Oval SOQ (all) Total Donkey Kong Jr. 0 1 0 0 1 Soccer 1 0 0 0 1 Donkey Kong Jr. Math 1 1 0 0 2 Donkey Kong 0 2 1 0 3 Slalom 0 1 1 1 3 Urban Champion 1 2 1 0 4 Clu Clu Land 2 2 0 0 4 Volleyball 0 5 0 0 5 Wrecking Crew 0 1 3 0 5 Balloon Fight 1 3 1 0 5 Popeye 0 0 6 0 6 Ice Climber 2 2 2 0 6 Pro Wrestling 0 1 6 0 7 Tennis 1 1 5 0 7 Donkey Kong 3 0 6 2 0 8 Mach Rider 0 4 4 0 8 Gumshoe 1 7 0 0 8 Mario Bros. 1 2 6 0 9 Wild Gunman 1 8 1 0 10 Gyromite 8 2 0 0 10 Duck Hunt 0 2 9 0 11 Baseball 1 5 5 0 11 10-Yard Fight 0 2 10 0 12 Kung Fu 0 3 10 13 26 Excitebike 1 2 17 6 26 Golf 2 1 12 12 27 Hogan's Alley 2 3 21 2 28 Pinball 2 3 31 3 39 Super Mario Bros. 1 18 10 128 157

If and when the VGA pop reports are released, don't get your hopes up for accurate variant information. In the early days, the labels really only chronicled "white" seals (ie. oval seal), vs "black/silver/gold" (for the older circular seals). They then later added "cardboard hangtab" as an extra variant for some of the black box games. There are a few other bits of variant info they added in later years ("non revA" for example). The labels are also notorious for having incorrect info (incorrectly labeling black seal as a white seal for example). I'm honestly not sure if they even differentiated between left and right bros for SMB3. Don't get me wrong, the data will be extremely valuable still. It's just that you'll need to understand some of it was "early / wild west days", so you'll have to live with somewhat rocky variant info.

It's the same one in the wata list, 7.0. Seal grade was 'A' Ah, so it's not a crossover from yours then, so yes.

It's a sticker sealed copy too. I only know because it was posted on instagram. There isn't a little "+" sign drop down to display the sub-category, so it's not obvious otherwise (I guess since it was the only graded copy)

I've thought about this a lot too, and I can only come to one conclusion: up until now, there's been enough submissions to VGA to meet their grading capacity. And if their "queue" is basically full, they haven't felt the need to upgrade the user submission experience.......ever! There's been at least one MAJOR customer to VGA for last decade, who probably by himself contributes a big part of their order queue. And then add in other old timers who already know the quirky submission process... there's been plenty of business without having to sweat about improving the website. This may change soon though, as they state on their website that they "...have made significant progress in the last month, processing approximately 20% of our remining backlog of Express and Economy tier submissions. Additionally, we anticipate that our current physical expansion will be completed by next week, nearly doubling our existing casing and grading areas to allow for higher volumes and more employees." So this means that they now have the capacity to grade more games faster, and this possibly incentives them to upgrade the website and user submission experience. We've been teased about this and population reports for years now. Their latest blurb on the website reads, "We are also nearing the final stages of designing and testing our new website to improve every facet of the customer experience. Initially our new site will offer more information, an improved on-line store, and population reports. Subsequent website additions will include an improved customer service interface and a streamlined submission process. " We will see what happens. This all sounds great, but with all due respect to VGA, it's been over 10 years and they still haven't delivered upon ANY site improvements. I know I recall hints of population reports and website improvements MANY YEARS ago, and they were not delivered. So excuse me will I hold my breath That said, I'd be one of the first to celebrate a new website/user experience/pop reports if it ever happens.

@Ricky Winterborn Sorry I guess I was trying to understand if you meant SM64 95 or 95+. Theres only one SM64 95+ that's known (at least according to the grading pop that was being passed around). And the person that owns it would never cross it to WATA lol.

I agree, but it (probably) really depends on what type of game you're talking about. Anything modern or with a plastic/jewel case ... yes I would guess it at least has a fighting chance to go from WATA 9.8 A++ to VGA 95. NES/SNES/N64 (cardboard boxes)... totally different story. My thumb in the air guesses: NES -> basically 0% chance. SNES -> possible but extremely unlikely N64 -> slightly better than SNES odds

Can you please source, or give more details of these 95+ SM64's crossings?

This will be very interesting to watch: VGA 95 Super Mario 64 vs WATA 9.8 A++ Super Mario 64 , going head to head in the same auction. https://goldinauctions.com/1996_N64_Nintendo_64__USA___Super_Mario_64__Sealed-LOT109334.aspx https://goldinauctions.com/1996_N64_Nintendo_64__USA___Super_Mario_64__Sealed-LOT107330.aspx I personally feel a VGA 95 is nicer than a WATA 9.8 A++. But maybe the market prefers the WATA 9.8 A++? It will be fascinating to see how it unfolds.

Agree, the logic doesn't quite make sense. I'm assuming he knew the one on HA was 2nd print, and that it's just some error in the article / misquote / misrepresentation here. Maybe instead of "first print", what was really meant was something like "first sale" or "former sale" , referring to the former HA sale.

Article is wrong or misquoted in 2 areas: "...A sealed version of the first print, with the box graded out by WATA as a 9.0 recently sold for..." "...And given what the first print in a higher condition went for, we thought the market..." The recent HA sale was a second print (circle R), not first print.

The sealed black box hinge sticker pop list is extremely low, yes. Some do not even have 1 graded example of as of the pop request dates. My theory on that is DH was a more appealing game to open and play since it had the light gun, while setting up Gyromite took a lot more work. i.e people were more willing to try DH and less willing to try Gyromite. Which might help explain why there were more sticker sealed Gyromites that have been found left over vs DH. One other oddity unrelated. The 85(2) copies of Gumshoe Black Nintendo Seal shouldn't exist since all variants of Gumshoe had the Cardboard Hangtab. But I think the explanation is simple. I believe these were 2 copies graded very early in the VGA days from Brian's toys. I remember seeing the pictures of them, and thought I saved them, but I just can't find them (if anyone has them, please send!). Anyway, I don't think the designation of "Cardboard Hangtab" hadn't yet been implemented by VGA at that time.

No, just 2 sticker sealed copies. The 85+ was the Dan copy that crossed to Wata.

In Maertens29 latest youtube video comments, Annie pointed out that the 2016 data for SMB Cardboard Hangtab had a duplicate instance of 85(1) I never noticed that, and agree that doesn't make sense. So I went back and checked my emails to see how I screwed up. Turns out, I copied and pasted exactly what they sent me, which has the duplicate entry. This is the exact text that was sent on June 20, 2016 from VGA: 1985, Nintendo, NES, Black Nintendo Seal, Super Mario Bros., Cardboard Hangtab, NTSC: Q90(1), Q90+(1), 85+(2), 85(1), Q85+(1), 85(1), 80+(3), 80(3), Q80(1), 75(2). So it could be a copy/paste error on their end, or maybe there is something there. In any case, it's just 1 copy +/-. As far as errors on my end, I'm off the hook this time

Respectfully, you have no idea if it's short term or long term capital gains. Only the seller knows if he's owned it for < 1 year (short term), or > 1 year (long term).

Perhaps a little yes. But moreso I think it just reflects just how underwhelming the condition is for many of the sealed black box games that have turned up. For whatever reason, they are usually beat up, scuffed plastic, dinged corners, etc. Especially for shrinkwrap, the black color of the box really highlights ANY shrinkwrap scuffing. Any other color would hide that a lot better.

Yep, it sure was! Thanks for the reminder. It was Arnold smoking a cigar (see below). I also used the Dragon Quest Cyclops, which was the only one I could recall when I signed up here.

Thanks! There's a world of difference between Q and sealed though. The major problem is that I think VGA also purported that Q games are also supposed to be "new but opened".... but please correct me if I'm wrong there. The one or two Q games I've had clearly had lot of spine wear on the box, and some overall wear in general, indicating it had been opened many times, which doesn't really feel "new" to me. To me, that really hurt that overall argument. Also, I really don't know how VGA is/was able to verify the inserts/manuals/contents of the games for completeness/authenticity/chronology/cohesiveness. i.e. does that manual really go with that game, or is there a variation difference? In the early days, there's no way VGA had that kind of knowledge to do this reliably. In general I really think Q was an afterthought at VGA so they could take in more business. Finally, VGA really made discerning "sealed" from Q games very difficult. If you look at the label, you have to squint to see the "qualified" text. A better way I finally realized is that the sealed games have the "pink" background, and the Q games have the "baby blue" background on the VGA label. In all honesty, I think wata has done a tremendously better job catering to the CIB market. I would bet that many Q graded games, if crossed to wata, would receive "IMP" status for incorrect married parts. Wata simply has much better data to decide the wholeness of CIB and if all the parts match up properly.