Dumars2001

The 2nd part (water down) of Heritage Auctions is ending in about 3 hours. Any guesses what will do well?

I predict the Nes Super Maro Bros 9.0 A white seal goes for the highest amount, but I think the Double Dragon 2 & 3, Bionic Commando, Double Dribble, Snes Zombies ate my Neighbors, and of course the N64 Zelda go for a decent amount.

4 hours ago, RETRO said:

I'm not at all questioning whether what you say is emotionally true for you. I'm sure it is; I don't doubt that. But it's also empirically false.

I knew a somewhat boorish guy back when I was in college—this was almost 30 years ago—and one time, while drunk, he mused to me, "You know, Seth, the average girl just isn't that attractive." I was sober but it still caught me off-guard. "Actually," I said to him finally, "I'm pretty sure the average girl is average-looking. Like, by definition."

Sealed and graded games exist in every conceivable combination. Low-grade sealed, low-grade CIB, mid-grade sealed, mid-grade CIB, high-grade sealed, high-grade CIB, good box/bad seal, bad box/good deal, and on and on and on. There's a reason VGA's scale starts at 10 and WATA's at 0.5—because while higher grades are more common than lower grades, both those grading houses are regularly putting 4.0s and 5.0s and 40s and 50s out into the world. They may come to market a little less frequently but (a) they're still in collections all over, and (b) the same can't be said for 6.5s and 7.5s or 60s and 70s, as those are all over the 24 markets that sell sealed retro games even if they're less common in a blue-blood meat market like Heritage except in CIB. (Mind you, I'm talking about cardboard retro games; I don't know why anyone would purchase sealed mass-produced games in decay-resistant plastic casing—there's no real condition premium except at the literally academic end of the NM/M subsphere—but collectors of those games really can't have a conversation that makes much sense with those of us hunting fragile cardboard, anyway. Someone who says they only collect 9.8/A++ NES games is a joker 99 times out of 100, not a devotee.)

Now here you are, telling me that the average collector is only interested in "pristine" (9.6/9.8 or Gold Tier) games, which are vanishingly rare relative to the entire population of sealed and graded games and even silly rare for the early post-cardboard consoles.

So that maxim is a literal impossibility, or else we would have to say that 95% of the market is irrelevant to the people who... make up the market. It's a mathematical nonsense. It also would mean that no one in the market has anyone to sell to long-term, because if you have a 7.5/A+, who the hell are you selling to if every potential buyer wants only pristine games?

What I've been saying from the jump here is that high-end collectors have lost all sense of perspective. Less boorishly by far, they're nevertheless by analogy like the college kid insisting the average girl isn't attractive, except in this case they're saying that a pretty amazingly attractive girl isn't of any interest to anyone because she isn't (to strain the analogy) a perfect 10. That's, like, a textbook sign that one has lost perspective and is vainly universalizing one's own idiosyncrasies.

I don't collect for the reason you do, and I've got plenty of very nice games. I collect because I consider video games art, and they're art whether they're in pristine condition or not. But because I want to display them as art, I need them to be visually attractive enough for that purpose and I need them to be games I connect with emotionally (in the same way I wouldn't want a painting in my home that neither I nor my wife connect with emotionally). There are VGA 75+ Silver Tier games—not all of them, but some—that are visually arresting and attractive enough to quite happily be displayed as art, and I have even (on rare occasion) seen an 8.0/A+ that met this requirement. I've also seen dogsh*t 9.0/A games and 9.4/A+ games with enough dog hair in them I'd never put them on display. None of those games are pristine in some abstract sense that could only be ascertained with a magnifying glass, nor do I need them to be to decide what I think of them.

My point: the hobby is going to expand in the coming years. More people like me (in the broadest sense) are coming, and they are likely to crowd out (by numbers) folks who are (a) looking only for "pristine" games at some level of abstract perfection virtually no one cares about and even fewer can afford, and (b) insistent that the quality of a game (as a matter of game development) doesn't matter, even though the only readily justifiable reason to want a game slabbed in your house is because you consider it a quality work of art. If you're out there buying "pristine" copies of Wally Bear and the NO! Gang more power to you, but I kind of doubt it. And if you're buying games and then hiding them away, that's totally cool too, but you're not really a collector in any sense the term has traditionally been understood unless a decent part of your collection is in your line-of-sight somewhere in your home.

IOW, no two collectors are alike. Some will buy raw and send off for grading, some only buy pre-graded. Some buy CIB only, some sealed only. Some will buy PAL or JP games and some will only buy NTSC. Some value box more than seal and some seal more than box. Some want rarity and some "historical significance" (whatever that means). Some collect across consoles and some don't. Some look for tie-ins and licenses and some don't. Some have a price limit and some don't, some prefer auctions to straight buys, some prefer VGA to WATA or WATA to VGA, some collect across consoles but only in one game genre, some won't buy below a 9.0/A and some won't buy below a 9.6/A+. And on and on. Conversations about why and how people collect are stupid because the reasons and modes for collecting are as varied as why one might be attracted to someone or why one might choose one hobby over another. 

We're in the final days of a very small cabal of men with a very particular view of collecting being 90% of the conversation. Either that cabal becomes a tiny and irrelevant fraction of the collecting sphere or the sealed and graded market collapses altogether. Why? Because this particular cabal doesn't have the values or vision or catholic aesthetics that would allow for a market of this kind to grow beyond the 200 or so people who are in it now. Mind you, I'm not saying the collectors coming down the road will collect the way I do, either; they won't. But they certainly won't succumb to gaming-sphere bromides the equivalent of, "The average girl isn't very attractive."

Great post and very articulate writing! I laughed out loud reading the average girl analogy:).

This also gave me a pretty good chuckle that you wrote below in one of your previous posts:

"I don't know why so many people think their ideal buyer is a Saudi prince who's read about Super Mario Bros. in PEOPLE or a reseller hoping to create a supply chain from their man cave to the corporate offices of a Chinese billionaire."

On a side note, I personally collect a little bit of everything from box only to low/high end graded games.

2 hours ago, jonebone said:

My take: Extremely soft across the board.  Good for collectors but I assume cosigners are quite disappointed after the July bar was set.

I thought the summer auction was just too loaded but the market didn't care and absorbed it all quickly with ease. This is another long and loaded one, right after Goldin and right after CL.  It appears that the market can only absorb so much and people are getting more selective.

But HA is not only doing their quarterly Signatures, they've expanded their lineup to be more frequent (almost bi-monthly), but splitting them out between showcase auctions (such as NES thru N64 or "Modern" = Xbox/PS2 forward) and Signatures inbetween.  I like that approach more, more frequent but smaller auctions.  This is just too much all at once, especially with more copy cat auction houses coming on and having their auctions.

My personal picks

Most surprising: Tomb Raider 9.4 A+ PS1 $102K, really expected a cooldown on that title like Marios / Zeldas / RPGs / Etc.
Honorable Mentions: 9.8 A++ NBA Jam Genesis $31.2K, 9.8 A++ DKC Made in Japan $52.8K

Biggest letdown from Expectations: RE1 Longbox 9.6 A+ $264K (Expected $500k+ easy)

Good "deals":
Metal Storm NES 9.6 A $3,960
Mario World SNES 9.4 A $144K

If you remember my comments on the last auction, I said that $1.56M Mario 64 9.8 A++ over $360k Super Mario World 9.4 A+ was an absolute travesty.  Mario World in 9.4 or higher box sealed is going to be rarer than 9.6 or higher Mario 64s.  And as suspected, the Mario 64 9.6 A++ barely holds $100k and Mario World 9.4 A still holds $140k.  The Mario World has a much more stable floor indeed.

As always, you nailed it with your assessment and thoughts!

Overall, I still think that the sealed market is pretty healthy and that people/collectors (myself included) kept thinking records were going to be broken with each passing auction and kind of "got used to/expected" prices to continue to shoot higher and higher. That being said, there were still numerous 5 and 6 figure sales (unheard of just a couple of years ago), so the sky definitely isn't falling, but it appears that the Mario 64 is going to be the new Atari 2600 Spiderman, but on a much larger financial scale.

I think the biggest winners (very happy cosigners) were:

Nes Super Mario Bros 2 first print 9.8 A+ seal selling for $324,000

Nes Mike Tyson's Punchout later print 9.8 A++ selling for $312,000

Biggest loser of the night, is obviously the Mario 64 9.6 A++ selling for $102,000 (I bet the cosigner of that game was in shock with the final amount)

I also couldn't believe the $80,000 dollar difference between these two Zelda 2's over a 0.2 in the grade?!

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link - Wata 9.8 A+ Sealed [Rev-A, Round SOQ, Early Production], NES Nintendo 1988 USA.... 

9 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Let's be clear though, this is a 9.6 A+, and you're comparing to a 9.8 A++. I'd personally say that Wata can't be trusted to know the difference between the two, however to say that the value of the 9.8 A++ is lesser because an ostensibly lower condition copy is being sold for less is not apples to apples.

The 9.6 that sold tonight was also an A++ seal.

Well the higher Sonic 9.6 underselling the 9.4 that sold for $438,000 just a little over month ago by $126,000 is pretty brutal! 

1 minute ago, AdamW said:

Welp, that was awkward for Otis:

Pokemon prices were, uh...bizarre? Sandshrew Red 9.8/A++ for $150k seems super soft, but Rattata Blue 9.8/A++ for over $100k seems high if anything. Both Yellows seemed soft, Crystal and Emerald didn't do great, but FireRed went bananas...then LeafGreen kinda tanked. Would've helped if HA hadn't fucked up the prints though (the LeafGreen was also first print, it was not mid-production).

An absolute unreal drop in price for Super Mario 64 is all that I can say. Shawn from Reserved Investments called it!! To basically lose $1,400,000 dollars in the span of 3 months, is absolutely unbelievable! I would be suicidal, lol! 

Wow, the N64 Mario 9.8 A++ that Sold for $1,560,000 3 short months ago and today A N64 Mario 9.6 A++ Sold for $102,000.

0.2 made a $1,458,000 dollar difference. If you are the buyer of that 9.8, you probably are not feeling too good right now.

Talk about taking a bath!!

I feel that the all the Nes Super Mario Bros underwhelmed. I can't believe that I am even saying that with their ending prices at $492.000, $150,000, $84,000 (I thought they would go for around $800K for the hangtag black seal , $400K for the black seal and 150K for the white seal). I also think that the Snes Super Mario World underwhelmed at $144,000.

And to think, it was only 2 years ago, when the hobby had its first $100,000 game. Collectors got spoiled/numb with all the record breaking sales in the last Signature Auction, Goldin Auctions, private sales, that today's ending prices feel much lower, but yet, they are still selling for incredible prices, if you look at it in the proper perspective.

Expectations were just too high for this auction. The low prices at the recent CertifiedLink auction should have been a premonition of what was possibly going to happen today.

I agree with Exploded Hamster that things went haywire too quickly and this auction is showing the market is definitely correcting itself for the most part today. 

The up-coming Sonic first print will be very telling in where things stand right now for me. If it sells for less than the 9.4, you can definitely say that prices are down across the board for the most part.

21 minutes ago, ExplodedHamster said:

About what I expected here. Some titles, which went too high too fast, are correcting, but other stuff that was going along at normal pace is continuing to grow at normal pace. Mario 2 was due for an explosion, but man that was quite a sale. Tysons went nuts, too. 

I think you'll see stuff where high grade later games outpace lower grade earlier prints, which is the opposite of how collectors have viewed things. It seems to be the general trend across collectibles. 

You did call it!!

I just can't believe that the SM2 9.8 beat the SM2 9.2 by a whopping $280,800 dollars! Unreal amount for a 0.6 upgrade!

(9.8 ends at $324,000 and the 9.2 ends at $43,200)

Almost every big title game graded 9.8 are going high!

Wow! Mike Tyson rules!!

So far, it seems like the market is correcting itself. Don't get me wrong, we still have 5 and 6 figures, but everything seems lower than what was expected.

13 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

Keep an eye on graded NBA Jam, Tecmo Bowl, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Jordan vs. Bird sales, and of course graded Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball for snes if one ever does make it to market. A raw Griffey showed up on ebay a month or so ago and only went for $1,000ish but it did have some corner wear. I'd have graded it a 8.5 A. Regardless, the potential for that game is huge and they're very difficult to find.

I agree with you 100%. You're seeing it happen right now with all the games that you mention above and many other sports titles (Kobe, Madden, Lakers vs Celtics, WWF titles, Tonk Hawk, RBI Baseball, etc.).

I am still saying that a nice copy of a sealed Sega Genesis USA Basketball (the greatest team EVER assembled in sports history) coming to the market, would bring in a ton of money. Another big one would be a high grade SNES Michael Jordan Chaos in the Windy City.

It will be very interesting to see where that Nes first print Track & Field ends tonight on Heritage. (It is at a whopping $25,200 right now)

1 minute ago, OptOut said:

Thanks dude! I recently just bought the last game to complete my Japanese boxed N64 fullset too!

Once the last game comes in from Japan, I'll do a big post here on VGS to celebrate! 

Awesome! Can't wait to see it! 

5 hours ago, OptOut said:

I must be one of the few people who truly HASN'T been effected by price rises in the retro gaming/collecting hobby.

I basically completed the bulk of my PAL N64 set and picked up the US exclusives I needed a couple years back before the recent price hikes, and almost everything else I'm collecting these days is either Taiwan/Japanese versions that haven't really gone up, or stuff that is just plain cheap anyway, like OG XBOX and 360 games...

 

I do feel for people who live in the US or specifically want US releases of various games, but man I'm glad I never needed to even think about that! I DO however find it odd that the US versions have become the DEFACTO versions of games that anybody seems to care about though?

I can understand why AMERICAN collectors and Canadian collectors might think this way, but for international collectors I don't really understand why some of these types may specifically fetishize the US versions. It's definitely not something I have ever thought about as more authentic or genuine than the PAL games I grew up with in UK, or the NTSC-J and Taiwan versions of games I collect nowerdays. If I see the ESRB label on a game, it looks FOREIGN to me, from my perspective at least.

I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing non-USA released games also start going way up in price. I am sure that they have went up already, but nothing compared to the NTSC boom, but I can see collectors going after a lot of the Japanese versions of Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, etc. It will be interesting to watch that market. Congrats on your awesome PAL N64 collection!

12 hours ago, ExplodedHamster said:

For those who have been making the “market manipulation” comments or insinuating fake sales, here is the buyer for the massive Sonic 1 sale, Shyne. He is the biggest card collector in the world and beyond loaded.

What’s happened is a number of these guys have jumped in behind the scenes. I personally know of a few who have asked not to be identified. 

Glad one has finally come public.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CVlsCxUMmr1/?utm_medium=copy_link

Thanks for sharing that information. Good to know that another one of these high end sales is legit.

Should have known it would be a "Whale" sports card collector who won/paid for that 9.4 Sonic first print, considering that it was being sold on Goldin Auctions, who just happens to be the the biggest sports card auctioneers in the industry. (Goldin has sold more than $500 million worth of sports collectibles this year, a record for the company, and has emerged as the leading auction house in an exploding market.)

No wonder why that Kobe, Double Dribble and other sports titles went for so high. Everybody better get your sports titles now(sports card collectors are coming aboard the video game hobby, just like comic collectors a couple of years ago) before it is too late, lol! We are already seeing sports titles go way up. 

41 minutes ago, FenrirZero said:

To be honest, and not to pick on any members (active or otherwise), but the reality you brought up is tied to the reason why I gave up on a lot of collecting-based goals. Including Dragon Quest. And why I am giving up on my Star Wars "focus" goals in hopes of boosting my business start-up goal before that turns 10 years old. 

That is one of the examples on why I am giving up on that 'focus' fueled goal! At best it has me avoid the non-standard cardback stuff, and the exclusive multi-packs. But in the end, the excuses people are given for any reason have me wonder what could happen if I missed another chance to get something that fits my focus. Especially when 2022 has me hoping that I will have the incentive to kickstart my business goals before that turns 10 in 2023. 

 

I feel your pain! It really seems like everything is going up in price. Just try to collect what makes you happy and what you can afford:). That is my approach these days. It is just unreal what has happened to just about every hobby.

Get ready for "The Show, aka Heritage Auction's Signature" to begin in a few hours!

Things are going up in price across all spectrums of collectibles (especially sealed & graded) these days. Take a look at some of the ending prices of graded VHS sealed movies in LCG's latest auction that ended a couple days ago. One example is a graded VHS Return of the Jedi video selling for $14,656! Crazy crazy times in the world of collecting for just about anything, especially pop culture.

https://auction.lcgauctions.com/Lots/Gallery

The Genie is out of the video game collecting bottle. I honestly am starting to think that we are just in the beginning stages of these exuberant prices being fetched these days on the name brand titles (Mario, Pokemon, Zelda, etc), comic related titles, (Spiderman, Marvel, etc.) sport titles, (Jordan vs Bird, TecmoBowl, etc) and the crowd that loves popular fighting/RPG games. The big Heritage Auction that ends in 2 days is going to be a feeding frenzy of cash being spent. Of course there will still be instances like the Atari 2600 Spiderman but most of these games, especially sealed are just not easy to find.

We have comic collectors, card collectors, action figure collectors and so much new blood coming into the hobby now from every possible direction.

When I first started collecting, there were zero grading companies, now there are 5 or 6.

The nostalgia for videogames is what has grabbed all these new collectors into the hobby. Everyone in the world has played video games and most people have very fond memories growing up playing games with their friends, getting a game for their birthday/Christmas, etc. Most of these people didn't even know that people collected video games but now that it has become a main stream hobby, loads of people are jumping in. The numbers/prices don't lie. I used to be more skeptical about it all (prices skyrocketing) but I see stuff selling for thousands every day now on Ebay and FB groups, various auction houses, private sales, etc)

It seems the hobby is really split in 2 halves now for whatever reason and I am afraid that is just how it is going to be going forward. I don't ever see prices coming down for the vast majority of this stuff but I can still see stuff going much higher in price/value. I would love for every type of collector to get along/respect other collectors, but it obviously isn't going to happen anytime soon. I see alot of the same stuff (bickering between collectors)on the sports card and action figure forums that I am also a member on, so I am used to it but it still is sad to see. Just my humble opinion. Happy collecting to all of you!

1 hour ago, Mijael said:

CGC new hire for game grading finalizer 

CGC news

I know this guy from youtube , he has a great collection

The perfect choice! Congrats to him and CGC!

3 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I was actually thinking about posting a thread talking about a possible downtrend in prices on eBay. I've been routinely getting games for quite a bit less than Pricecharting listings lately. I'm collecting for less popular platforms (32x, Sega CD, SMS) so there may be some bias there, but the price trend is definitely stable to downward. I've even been able to snag a few sealed NES games recently which had been out of the question for most of the past year.

Yeah, I also think that some prices have been slowly coming down lately but the "Big Name Titles" continue to go for premium/high prices.

I think the reason prices on CertifiedLink went lower than expected was because some collectors are getting ready to go all in on Heritage.

Next weekends Heritage Signature Auction should give a solid indication as to where things are in the market with sealed/CIB's for the big name titles. My hot take is that some records will be broken!

29 minutes ago, WalterWhiteJr. said:

It says best offer. Also, there’s no way of knowing it it actually sold. 

True. A WATA 9.4 did sell on Hertiage for i think $144,000 though. Yeah, you are right though.

A WATA 8.0 (C+ Seal) N64 Super Smash Bros sold for $30,000 on Ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/255164263856?hash=item3b68f9adb0:g:b9MAAOSwOJ1hW~Js

3 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

I sent a vga 80 over to wata and it came back 8.5 A+

Yeah, the grades can really differentiate when cross grading from VGA to WATA (and I would imagine vice-versa), but JoneBone's crossover guide is the most accurate reference available.

I have cross graded 75's that came back 8.5 or a 9.0,  VGA 80's that came back 9.2 or 9.0, 85's that came back 9.2, 9.4 and once a 9.6, so it really is a crap shoot with any crossover that you attempt between VGA and WATA.

I honestly think that you probably could/would receive a higher grade, if you cracked the game out of the VGA case by yourself and then sent it to WATA raw to be graded by them..