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3rdStrongestMole

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    Game Boy Pocket Silver

    in Collector's Questions

    Posted

    On 10/18/2023 at 7:34 AM, RH said:

    I had one too but as a teenager, and as a kid who took care of his stuff, I treated it well.  I also didn't use it much for long because once the GBC came out, I upgraded then too. I don't know how long that time span was but I didn't use this unit for more than a couple of years.

    But even with my care and keeping my device in an old GB hard shell case on my shelf, I seem to recall that metallic paint was super-easy to scuff.  It's a minor detail for Nintendo to have cared about since it doesn't affect gameplay, but I feel that pseudo-anodized metallic look from the 90s might have been cool but wore off with almost any amount of normal game use.  That said, I can see why finding a mint unit could be tough to find.

    The one I saw was at a local shop,  and was overpriced compared to that Ebay copy,  at least.  The condition was probably comparable, though I never took it out of the box to examine it. I guess if I could talk the guy down to 150 it could be worth it. Just loved the look of it in the clear box, tbh.

    • Agree 1

    Game Boy Pocket Silver

    in Collector's Questions

    Posted · Edited by 3rdStrongestMole

    Can anyone tell me about this Game Boy release? Cant find comps on ebay for pricing. Also, what is up with the 'O' in Nintendo? I am trying to decide if I want to buy it, and know very little about Game Boy.

    Thanks in advance.

    Screenshot_20230916-101615_Facebook.jpg

    My basement flooded.

    in General Collecting Discussion

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

    Mods, if this isn't the right category, please move my post.

    Sometimes I think I'm not allowed to be happy in life. I got married on August 5th to the love of my life. We went on a honeymoon to Jamaica and got back Saturday. Amazing happy times. I posted on my personal Facebook about how I was looking forward to the future.

    Today I went down to my basement and realized it had flooded. There was toxic waste water everywhere. The basement is fully finished and there is an enclosed bathroom in the center of it. The toilet had overflowed with shit and water. My basement has basically four quadrants from there. Two which are the gaming side, with "hardwood" (probably laminate or something idk) flooring, one with a gym/workout style flooring which has my toy collection, and then the unfinished quadrant. There was water in all areas. As I walked across the hardwood floor, I could hear and feel the water underneath. 

    Luckily, the water was mostly under the hardwood floor and the soft gym style flooring. Also luckily, 99% of my items are not on the floor. However, some collection items were, as I hadn't made a place for them yet, and many other things got destroyed.

    Complete in box Vic-20 now has water damage. Box is toxic waste, system may be salvageable. 
    Box for Super Nintendo with Link to the Past cartridge included is water damaged and is now toxic waste.
    Some Super Mario and TMNT toys that I planned to keep in the box are damaged. I may be able to clean and salvage the toys inside, it just depends.
    NES floormat my wife got me as a gift.
    Original power pad I stored on the floor directly below the TV most likely destroyed. 
    Rugs that were in the bathroom and also towels we threw down before realizing that we shouldn't have. 

    Many shelving units have water damage at the bottom. So even though the items on the shelves are damaged, they will have to be completely packed and moved so that the shelf can be destroyed and replaced. Not only would it get moldy, but it's also toxic, since it was shit water.

    However, before the shelves can be replaced, all of the flooring needs ripped out and replaced. 

    Also, all of the interior walls made of drywall have soaked water. That means that they need to be cut up to 2 feet high and those parts replaced. Along with baseboards. Which also means that everything attached to those walls needs to come down so that the work can be done. Exterior wall damage remains to be seen. Any wall that needs replaced will actually need to have the entire section of shelving removed because of the way I've hung them. Which means that the entire section of games or whatever will need to come down. 

    So basically, my basement flooded, and some items from my collection were damaged. Those will have to be cleaned or thrown away. The items that didn't get damaged will have to be packed and relocated so that the floors and walls can get fixed. Then eventually I'll have to re-set everything back up, and hope it doesn't happen again.

    By the way, the plumber determined that the clog occurred from wet wipes being flushed. Myself and my wife do not flush them. Our two children know not to flush them and claim that they have not. But it appears that someone did at some time. It doesn't make sense to me and I find myself considering silly conspiracy theories, like someone was out to get me. 

    The loss of destroyed items hurts. But what is really upsetting is knowing the amount of work I now have to do. It takes so long to pack and even longer to re-setup when the time comes. Additionally the only place I have to move stuff is our spare room, two flights up. I don't feel like I have the mental, physical, or emotional ability to deal with any of this. I don't want to do it. I don't want to pack and move all this stuff. 

    I do have photos of the damage and I might share some later but considering the main photos I have right now contain human waste, I'm opting to avoid sharing those at this time. I will take photos of the damaged items and share them here though.

    I've already filed an insurance claim, and I really hope there is no cap to their coverage because I believe this will be a $10k+ cost. We spent a lot on the honeymoon and wedding and if insurance doesn't cover all the damages, or denied my claim for some reason, I will be screwed. I'm not asking for anything from anyone, nor do I want anything. I really just wanted to type this all out as a way to vent and cope with it. Obviously any collecting and gaming I planned to do soon is on hold while I deal with this. It's all so unfortunate.

    Anyway, thanks for listening VGS. 

     

    This is a nightmare of mine. I can't even imagine how terrible it must've been finding this. That SNES w/ LttP hits extra close to home.

    I actually stress about my collection being ruined every time I'm away from home for too long. I hope this all gets resolved for you as smoothly and as quickly as possible.

    Keep us updated

    • Like 1

    My game room progress.

    in Show Off

    Posted

    Just now, Kguillemette said:

    Compress_20230814_131359_9107.jpg.390daa5f951b21675202a5e2e6d24ffb.jpg

    Cross posted from another thread, but most of my guides are on display here. The wire mess is nice and hidden now as well.

    Where'd you get the magazine rack? I'm trying to track one down for my game room, too.

    Wata Pop Report (June 2023)

    in Sealed & Graded Collecting

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Gloves said:

    I said value offhandedly meaning the same basic thing, but in this specific case you've gone the "detracts from" route which sounds good to me; was really just an example regardless. Not that there are many particular examples. I feel the same way that an ML trained to weed out flaws and provide an objective grade is certainly more valid than any human element within the process (ignoring the human providing the training), so all good there. 

    Another concern were I in your boots would be whether people would actually value such a service. Likely anyone with a signed copy of a game would simply not submit such a game to your service, knowing that it would detract from the grade. You'd really need to be the de facto grading option for people to be universally sending such things in. 

    I honestly don't even know how current grading companies approach signatures. I've asked WATA in numerous emails, and I've had signatures on my games authenticated by JSA, and WATA support basically shrugs and tells me they don't know how it will impact the grade.

    I think a programmed grading service would be cool. God knows those high grades would be even more valuable and exist with more objectivity than any other avenue right now.

    I guess it'd be like my BGS vs PSA example. I'd send the cream of the crop to the objective grading service, and go with WATA or the like for all my question marks.

    Wata Pop Report (June 2023)

    in Sealed & Graded Collecting

    Posted

    On 7/30/2023 at 12:37 PM, inasuma said:

    Hey all. Figured I'd share some interesting data on the new pops.

    This is where I've compiled all the data. For each console, you need to scroll down to the bottom-most content to see June data. Sorry it's annoying, I'm not an spreadsheet expert. lol

    • Between December 2022 and March 2023, roughly 3000 new games were added to the pop. Then between March and June this year, over 5000 games were added (not including Switch, PS3, and DS).
    • Sharp increase in new 10s over the last few months.
      • For comparison, there were only an additional 10 examples of 10 A++ assigned between Dec. 2022 and March 2023 (from 34 up to 44).
      • There's now been a 2x increase (from 44 to 103), excluding new platforms, between March and June.
      • More 10s have now been added than the entirety of previous 10s in given in Wata's history.
    • There's now 349 total 10s on the pop if you include Switch, DS, and PS3.
    • A++s saw a sharp increase too.
      • Between December 2022 and March 2023, only 212 A++s were added.
      • Now between March and June, an additional 1062 were added - a 5x increase.
    • Of the new platforms added, Switch has an enormous population of 9.8 A+ and higher grades. Not surprising - it's the current generation and dealers were/are submitting sealed factory cases of new games.

    Anything interesting you see? Please share. I always enjoy seeing trends in this data.

    I feel like, unfortunately,  consumers are partially to blame for this. We all say we want a grading company that grades fairly, but then patronize the ones that are more likely to give higher grades for personal gain. I guess this is just being a normal human being, like, it's hard to expect anyone to behave differently,  but these companies know that higher grades mean higher sales (for everyone) regardless of accuracy. 

    Same thing in card grading.  If I have a card that I believe is gem mint 10, I might sub grade with BGS. However,  it's much safer for me to submit to PSA and get a 10 (9 at worst) knowing the card value will be retained better than getting a 9 or even 9.5 at BGS.

    And I guess this is where we run into the worst problem with grading.  It's bad to have steep grading variance within one company, and having that same variance between different companies just muddies the water even more. 

    They shouldn't be changing their grading criteria,  but they obviously are, and haven't made that public. I grade through WATA so all my sealed games look the same, but damn, this makes me want to swap everything back to VGA. They still seem to be the most consistent with not changing their grading parameters.

    • Agree 1
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