Jump to content

nick

Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    63

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Feedback

    100%

 Content Type 

Posts posted by nick

    Wata NES pop report now available

    in Sealed & Graded Collecting

    Posted

    Pop reports tl;dr:

    "Mine is shinier than the one the Jones' have down the street, mine is better! ✨"

    -or-

    "Oh fuck, mine is not shinier than the one the Jones' have down the street, therefore mine is not quite as adequate as the one they have"

    Pretty idiotic human behavior but here we are in 2021 video game collecting

    • Like 1

    Hong Kong Mah Jong

    in Price Check

    Posted · Edited by nick

    On 10/4/2021 at 1:37 AM, RetroGE said:

    HK Mahjong is notable because the rules are different than standard Mahjong.  And at my age, I’d much rather play it than Stadium Events 😬. A guy I know in Germany has a loose copy I believe he picked up in the last 5 years or so.  I’ve seen maybe 2 other copies online over the years (never for sale) but I’m not actively looking so maybe I’ve missed some.  If I had to take the over under on $3k I’d say over but I agree demand is relative on this one so maybe if you luck into the right place/time you could get a deal on it.  

    B0C5E3D7-F462-4E7D-8C7D-0E77794D19A9.jpeg

    1C15D575-BB9B-40FB-997B-B34E454E5496.jpeg

    Very nice! As an owner of a loose cart, what would be your predictions of the monetary value of a loose cart, and what would be your predictions on the monetary of a CIB copy, in this current 2021 market that we are in? Also, how many loose carts total have you seen in your lifetime, and how many CIB or boxed copies total have you seen in your lifetime?

    Hong Kong Mah Jong

    in Price Check

    Posted · Edited by nick

    I don't know the last time one sold, I seem to remember one that was available in a Facebook group a few years back, maybe like 2016 or so, I believe it had the box with it (my memory is fuzzy but for some reason I think it didn't have a manual?) and I saw it get posted a few times over maybe like a ~month period before I stopped seeing it so I guess that's when it sold.

    My guess about "fair market" value is ~$3K for a used CIB copy (which used CIB is what I'd want). The Hong Kong games are dope but I don't think there's a huge market of people that collect them, Mah Jong is basically a stupid title where it isn't notable for any reason whatsoever other than the extreme rarity of it being an officially licensed Nintendo game, and people seem to be moving money away from CIB and into new/sealed or "investment" type games increasingly lately. I don't really see Mah Jong as a smart title to pick up for the investment value compared to other titles, and full set collecting is less popular than it's ever been. So despite that absolute insane level of rarity of it I don't think that the monetary value of it has also gone up that much in the overall game collecting market the way other games and items have. So that's why I am speculating $3K for its "fair market" value (like if it were hypothetically auctioned off) instead of like $10K or $20K or something like that. But this is just my judgement maybe I'm completely wrong IDK. Just speculating. 😏🙂. For an item like this though where literally only 1 copy would sell in maybe 5 years, if one were to change hands, it would really come down to what the seller lists it for and what a buyer decides to pay for it, so a hypothetical new sale price of it could really be anything.

    How many known copies are there of it? Isn't there only like 5 or so known copies that come with the box? How many loose carts?

    • Like 2

    For those of you that do a lot of buying and selling, is there a site or tool that manages and posts inventory to multiple sites?

    in Buy/Sell/Trade

    Posted · Edited by nick

    On 9/17/2020 at 1:28 PM, phart010 said:

     

    Amazon is without doubt the largest online market place, but I feel that people will only pay a premium for retro games if they can actually see the item,  which happens to be something Amazon does not do well. Amazon is best for selling new items

    Yeah agreed. Amazon and eBay are very VERY different beasts. There was a time where they were both sort-of-kind-of competing with each other. They still do compete in many ways, but they've both sort of found their own identities now too which is cool. The difference is:

    • eBay is for antiques and collectibles. individual photos of each item are necessary.
    • Amazon is for moving product/inventory. hopefully a fuck ton of product and in large quantities and sold QUICKLY. stock photos are fine.

    As time continues eBay will keep going down the path of being a marketplace for collectors and the collector markets, and Amazon will keep going down a path of offering products to be used for their utility purpose. For example, it would not make sense to sell a VGA or Wata graded video game on Amazon, because that's not what the purpose of Amazon is.  For collectibles, it has to be eBay, and it's also more time consuming to sell antiques/collectibles, because each one sort of requires some level of individual attention to list and sell it properly (e.g. taking individual pics, writing a quick description, etc), and you can generally only get small quantities at a time (usually only 1) of collectible items that you'd list on eBay. For Amazon, you only have to list it once, and if you have a source where you can get 1000s of quantity of it, then once the listing is set up, then they just sort of sell on auto-pilot and it creates a machine that shoves $$$ into your bank account.

    It's much MUCH easier to make a fuck ton of money on Amazon.

    For those of you that do a lot of buying and selling, is there a site or tool that manages and posts inventory to multiple sites?

    in Buy/Sell/Trade

    Posted · Edited by nick

    I built one myself (it isn't publicly available, and isn't in a state where it would be publicly-usable currently) but it took fucking forever and eBay's API is shit and full of weird nuances and special cases (e.g. "for THIS listing you must specify the UPC", "for THIS listing you must specify the MPN", "for THIS listing you need to say if it's used or new but 'Like New' isn't allowed to be picked for seemingly no reason whatsoever", etc), and the only other place I had my inventory listed was an online store that I never publicly launched. I kept saying I was gonna integrate Amazon and a store point-of-sale system but never got that far. I don't care anymore. I'm just gonna list places manually from now on I think. It's not worth the time to me to try and fuck with eBay's stupid sucky overly-pointlessly-complicated API.

    There's also no good/easy way (that I've found) to update inventory sold on eBay in your local app, like the only way to do it (I've found) is to manually keep periodically sending requests to eBay to check the current quantities and if any have been sold or not. You'd THINK there would be a way to send some sort of simple HTTP request with some simple JSON data from eBay to an endpoint associated with your app that they have registered in their system, but NO of course it isn't that simple, because nothing is that simple with eBay.

    eBay's API documents are a cluttered confusing mess. Basically eBay is totalitarian and THEY want to be the place where you manage all your inventory and quantity and stuff. eBay wants to be the center of your inventory management system. eBay does NOT want any other 3rd party app to be the center of an inventory management system. So they make it super pain in the ass to do things unless you submit and let them be the center of your inventory management system (which is not a viable option for any good/smart business owner).

    Heritage Auctions Thread

    in Sealed & Graded Collecting

    Posted

    37 minutes ago, Dain said:

    I sent him a message to this thread, so maybe he'll drop by.

    Hi Dain!!!!! It's good to see you. Seriously it is. I'm sorry for the times where I was a shithead to you. Thank you again for your amazing NintendoAge which was our playground for a long time.

    • Like 5

    Heritage Auctions Thread

    in Sealed & Graded Collecting

    Posted · Edited by nick

    4 hours ago, fcgamer said:

    Definitely got a nwc, it was labeless and he had a fake label affixed to it

    Well, we told the community about it and what we did with it, what more could possibly be asked for? After Mike Langenfeld sold it, he removed the repro label, so that it couldn't possibly be passed off or confused as being an authentic label by some future owner. The repro label using double-sided removable tape that we literally got at Staples was for improving the intrinsic value for Mike Langenfeld's collection ONLY. We literally just put in my authentic NWC Gold (with a label) into the color copier at Staples and hit "Copy" and then he found the tape in some random aisle and like 10 minutes later we were out of Staples. It's not like we were making any attempts to copy the exact paper or anything like that - the purpose wasn't to make a fake label. Then we came back to my house and he cut it out all carefully and affixed the repro label to his real authentic label-less NWC Gold. I have videos that I documented of us putting on the repro label and Mike cutting it out all carefully - which I made so I could share with the community and there would be no confusions which I assumed people would appreciate - boy did that work out well /s - if anyone wants to see these videos I can share. I also documented Mike and I driving up to New Hampshire to buy it, photos of the handoff between Thom and I at the GameStop in Claremont NH where we did the transaction, and some videos after of MIke's reaction holding it and how he felt being the new owner of a NWC Gold and stuff. I documented all this thoroughly. Our goal for telling the community all this was so that there could be no possible confusions about that our intentions was for improving the display-ability and appearance and that nobody could possibly think we were attempting to make a fake label, and so that the community would know that the lineage of that specific cart does NOT have an authentic label, but that the rest of it IS authentic. Mike is the one that suggested we put on the repro label. It was his call since it was his NWC Gold - I was cool either way.

    I can say that after I handed the Thom guy $17,000 and held a NWC Gold in my hands without the label and just the ugly glue residue, it felt like really shitty. I remember thinking to myself as soon as I held it "$17K... for this...? Is this even worth it? I guess it's good?". It didn't have that "FUCK YEAH!" feeling AT ALL that a NWC Gold should make a game collector feel when they hold it in their hands. But after it had the repro label back on it, when I held it, I remember feeling it "FUCK YEAH" - it made it feel awesome again. At that point I agreed with Mike that it was definitely the right call to do that - using double-sided removable tape which could be removed at any time.

    The way the community reacted to Mike is a big reason why Mike decided to leave the collecting scene. He also sent the NWC Gold away to VGA (with the repro label OFF - he said he was going to affix the repro label back on to the OUTSIDE of the VGA case after grading) to be graded, but they refused it because the VGA people read the thread where some armchair idiots were demonstrating their idiocy and speculating that the entire thing was faked from a NWC Grey and a Zelda because it was associated with me. So not only were people accusing Mike of all sorts of mean nasty words, but also VGA wouldn't grade it - the NWC Gold felt tainted at that point - even though it wasn't. Mike also basically couldn't get any "atta boys" and "nice collection man!" from people after that - which as minor of a thing as that MIGHT seem at first, is a big reason why we are involved in a community in the first place.

    When Mike decided to sell out, we arranged that I was going to buy it back from him. He listed it on NintendoAge and kept lowering the price from $17K and eventually down to $12K, so I was gonna buy it from him for $12K. I needed like a month to come up with the $, and Mike said OK, and in that month period that I was in money-raise mode Mike had sold it to some random person that I don't know who they are that said they would pay the $12K on NintendoAge and they paid Mike right away. So I was kind of pissed about that - but also at that point, Mike was just so over the entire scene, and wanted to be done. But honestly - at the time - that NWC Gold felt tainted - even though there was NOTHING wrong about it - I remember thinking like how bad that might have looked for ME if I did buy it back from him. On one hand, I'm sort of sad I didn't buy it and be able to own 2 NWC Golds (which I would have decided who the next owner of it would be - since I have no need to own 2 and I'm not a motherfucking investor hoarder), but I also didn't have to deal with trying to convince everyone it really was real when I would be the one benefiting from it being authentic. Now, some random person has it that I have no idea who they are, and guess what, I'm still saying it's 100% a real actual NWC Gold because it is.

    • Like 3
    • Thanks 1
    • Sad 1

    Gameboy advance rarity

    in General Collecting Discussion

    Posted

    On 6/25/2021 at 11:55 AM, phart010 said:

    @Naked Warrior

    How common are these?

    image.thumb.jpg.39d12e610ffdcbc6a36a43e5d135b63f.jpg

    It is uncommon for sure. When I was looking for it, I didn't see any available of this rare box art design variation for a while, and then I saw one and I bought it for like $25. However like a few months after that I was looking and there were 3 of it available all for cheap. It's a type of item that can sometimes be a pain to find if there's a draught of it, or can be easy to pick up. I think the supply (albeit low) is much larger than the demand of people that want it, and it is still a pretty cheap item, but yeah it can still be a pain to find sometimes.

    Nick

    Gameboy advance rarity

    in General Collecting Discussion

    Posted · Edited by nick

    On 6/17/2021 at 8:37 PM, Naked Warrior said:

    And @Sir Centroid is the winner (well, close enough anyway)!  I have been actively seeking out boxed GBA games since late 2016 and I have never seen a boxed copy of Ultimate Beach Soccer on eBay or in real life...

    For some context, I think I'm about 20 boxed games short of a full GBA set (but most of these are just commons that I refuse to pay $15 for...) There are 3 (kind of 4) that I'm having a hard time finding...

    Yeah, I'm sure there are rarer variants - like that Dexter's Lab/Power Puff thing, but that isn't a game, it is just a box with two cartridges and two manuals in it...there are like 4 or 5 of those "double pack" things and they are all pretty rare.  There are also Big Box variants that were sold at Costco I think - (there are pics of them on the site here - @RpgCollector has a couple of them), and games with toys/collectables that are rare...but as for your "run-of-the-mill", standard issue GBA games, the winners are...
    Little League Baseball 2002 - I've seen one for sale once...it was sealed and it was $400...wish I would have bought it now...
    Ultimate Beach Soccer - Mentioned above...I have the only North American manual I've ever seen, and like I said, never even seen the box...one did pop up on eBay a year or two ago, and it sold in about 4 seconds...
    And the #1 Rarest game: Nicktoons 4-pack (Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie/Hey Arnold!: The Movie/Wild Thornberrys Movie/Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius) - Finding just a cart of this is actually pretty tough...interestingly this eBay auction had one thrown in, and I almost bought it just to get the cart...

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/154486141855?hash=item23f817739f%3Ag%3AgXQAAOSwt21gwBS~&nma=true&si=aIbWKF99McchAr9r%2BTDfZ3SuAyw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

    Some of the other games listed by other posters are either pretty rare (Several of the GBA Videos- especially Nicktoons Vol 3, Word Safari, Ice Nine, Bee Game (there used to be a guy on eBay named dextersjerky who only sold homemade jerky and sealed copies of The Bee Game...for $300 - I bet he lives an amazing life...that's where I got mine...but I have seen that for sale CIB maybe twice otherwise...) or just expensive (Demikids, Ninja Five-0, Pocky&Rocky) - I actually have multiple copies of all those, some sealed...but of course to buy them you're forking over $600-$1200 nowadays.

    Here are a few more exceedingly rare ones:

    Army Men: Turf Wars - Only ever seen 1 for sale, it was in terrible condition, bought it anyway
    Tweety & The Magic Gems - Never seen it for sale on eBay or Amazon...got my copy from a local gamestore somehow (and pieced together a second copy from lot of boxes only where I also got the box for...
    Sega Rally Championship - I've actually seen this for sale 3 or 4 times now, it is borderline common at this point 🙂 
    Ozzy & Drix - Go ahead and find one...seriously try to find one.
    Top Gear GT Championship - I think I've seen this for sale twice now...the first time the guy had 3 of them...now I have 3 of them.
    MLB Slugfest 2004 - This is kind of turning into the "expensive" category as you can get them off eBay right now (and for only $280)...but I think I went my first 2 years without seeing one for sale.
    Spirits & Spells, Tiny Toon Adventures Scary Dreams, David Beckham Soccer, Soccer Kid...I could name probably 30 games that you'd have a tough time finding over a 6 month period even if you were searching every day like it was your job.  There are probably another 50 that are really tough, but not "ultra-rare".

    Hey man, good list! I'm currently 15 complete-in-box games away from the full North American GBA set. If anyone wants to know the last 15 I need, send me a private message and I would be happy to share that info with you that way.

    I would also add these ones which are pretty uncommon to find as well:

    • 2-In-1 Fun Pack: Madagascar / Shrek 2 (not "Operation Penguin")
    • 4 Great Games! Paperboy / Rampage / Marble Madness / Klax
    • 6 Great Games! Pong / Asteroids / Yars' Revenge & Millipede / Super Breakout / Lunar Lander
    • 6 Great Games! Risk / Battleship / Clue & Connect Four / Perfection / Trouble
    • Cubix: Robots For Everyone
    • Driven (Without Toy Car - Standard Release)
    • Driven (With Toy Car - Variation) (Yes, both Drivens are a pain in the butt to find)
    • Freekstyle
    • Gekido Advance
    • Magical Quest 3
    • Sabre Wulf (REALLY cool title too)
    • Soccer Kid
    • The Mummy
    • Tom & Jerry Tales

    I'm sure I could make a more comprehensive list of uncommon/pain-in-the-butt GBA titles, but these ones come to mind for now.

    Also, I have nice condition CIB copies of these 2 available currently:

    • Tweety & The Magic Gems
    • Ozzy & Drix

    Both are pains in the butt to find as you indicated. However, at the moment, I am interested in trading only for other GBA titles I still need (not selling). Send a DM if interested. Thank you!!

    Nick

×
×
  • Create New...