Dumars2001

7 hours ago, Ricky Winterborn said:

I feel such a sense of gratitude towards my collection. It has the potential to convert into something life changing for my family.  I would like to give the much younger version of me a hug for having the wisdom of knowing to protect these games then for their value in the future.

I love reading these kind of stories. I am very happy for you and your family.

6 hours ago, Aatos said:

My personal view on this: still nope!

First of all, it’s only an investment in the sense that buying dogecoin is an investment. No sensible financial institution would probably call it that or recommend it (since actually it’s just a game of hot potato). It’s just speculative.

Second, collecting miniscule subset of  videogames (aka ”popular sealed first print”) might be that (”investment” aka hot potato). Collecting videogames in itself certainly isn’t. There are still thousands of cheap games and even buying the more expensive ones (what constitutes expensive in itself is relative) doesn’t automatically qualify them being an ”investment” (game of hot potato).

Third, very personal opinion here but I don’t think buying 1/nth share on SMB1 in a acrylic box held somewhere counts as collecting videogames either. (Can you imagine in the future some dude coming to you like ”dude, you gotta see my awesome video game collection, it’s crazy!” then leading you to his filing cabinet and pulling out a dusty binder full of these ”shares” neatly organized inside ).

You make a lot of good points and I respect your opinions and thoughts on if video game collecting has evolved into an investment hobby or not these days with the influx of "new" (big & speculative) money rapidly coming into the hobby with each passing day. I guess, I actually fall somewhere in the middle with video game collecting still being a little niche hobby or becoming more of an investing hobby, like cards, comics, coins, etc.

I am seeing more video game videos and articles talking about collecting video games as an investment more than ever and I truly believe a lot of people are buying with an investment approach these days, when buying their games. Just my 2 cents. 

Below are 2 videos (many of these type of videos are popping up now on YouTube, talking about the investment aspect of collecting video games) of a well known card collector (he also has another very popular YouTube channel with almost 12,000 subscribers https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmDo-abIkL9ZtgqyqF68mBA and he just made this new channel to focus on video game collecting) and I have to say that I agree with most of his points in the video. 

I know the influx of new collectors started coming into the hobby around 2018, maybe a little earlier (and forever changed the landscape of this once little niche hobby) and prices started to go up on games across the board, but things have gotten to a stratospheric level in prices just this past year (with no end in sight) and the scary thing is, it isn't stopping anytime soon and we could all be talking about a $5,000,000 dollar video game sale in the near future.

I can't even believe we now have a $2,000,000 dollar game! If you scour Ebay to buy something these days (sealed, nice CIB games, etc), you almost can't unless you are rich, because the prices for this stuff is through the roof now but no matter what the price is, someone is buying it up for an astronomical price.

The older collectors will always remember the "old" prices for the games being sold today at today's prices, but we are NEVER going back to those days and just have to accept the hobby for what it is now. Collecting is now an investment!

Some people (older collectors) have made out like a bandit in today's market and some have not. Like any investment/hobby, you win some and you lose some. Congrats to anyone that bought sealed games in the past or have a premium collection you built up back in the day for any platform, because everything has skyrocketed in price and seems to go up in value with each passing day and with the influx of new collectors coming into the hobby on a daily basis.

Every day, I see different games (usually sealed, nice CIB or rare from all systems, especially NES, SNES, Gameboy, N64, Genesis) selling for thousands of dollars and it is scary to me, because I feel it is "normal" now.

I still can't believe where we are in this hobby and how fast it has exploded. The video game hobby seems like an out of control freight train steaming ahead with no end in sight.

12 hours ago, Mijael said:

I was able to get this . Not in high grade but sealed

Congrats! That is still a very nice pick up, no matter the condition it is in. Sealed Nes Super Mario Bros are always in demand these days.

Wow! Some serious love for a (sports game) WATA graded 9.2 Sega Genesis FIFA International Soccer game. Sold for $15,100.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/144120640253?hash=item218e4272fd%3Ag%3AdlEAAOSw3-lg9xmN&nma=true&si=mdOX%2BnMVPOWLIXF1d8vkNA2fV34%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

2 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

A man after my own heart.

Ars Technica has a really good article about the SM64 sale with some great quotes from our very own @Bronty as well as some other big wigs in the collecting community. If you compare videogames to cards, the populations may actually be substantially lower. Taken directly from the article: "population reports show only 318 known Fleer Michael Jordan rookie cards rated at a perfect 10 by grading service PSA. When it comes to Pokémon cards, only 122 first-edition Charizard cards have received that same perfect rating."

https://arstechnica.com/features/2021/07/collectors-are-as-confused-as-you-are-about-that-1-56m-super-mario-64-sale/

I highly recommend everyone reading it.

That was a great read and it provided more insight to the current situation in the hobby. Thanks so much for posting it.

Bronty is literally the Michael Jordan (The Godfather/Legend) of sealed collecting and his thoughts carry a lot of weight/merit as to what is currently going on in the video game market today.

On 7/14/2021 at 9:29 PM, Gulag Joe said:

HOT TAKE: multiple games will sell for over a million dollars in the next big heritage auction.

HOTTER TAKE: At least one will be a sports game.

I was just thinking about this again. How about a high grade Nes Konami first print hang tab (Non Rev A) Track & Field? I remember this being an extremely popular and fun game to play with my friends, when I was a kid. Also, let's not sleep on Ring King and black box Pro Wrestling either.  

You almost never see any of these 3 titles pop up sealed.

6 hours ago, fcgamer said:

I wouldn't be particularly troubled, it'll likely show up at some point. Of the hundreds or thousands of parcels I've ordered from abroad whilst living in Taiwan, only one was lost, ever, and it's likely it was held up in customs (on the sender's side) due to Covid-19 and would have eventually been sent back to the sender, though with all of the rioting and stuff going on in South Africa, it honestly could be gone for good

i had a parcel that my parents sent me, it was either for Christmas or for my birthday. It was shown to be delivered on the USPS side, the Chunghwa Post side showed that it was in customs up north. My mother and I both spoke with people at the respective post offices, well the guys at Chunghwa were right, the USPS was wrong.

If I've learned anything while living here, it's that if there's an issue, it's ALWAYS going to be on the USPS side, period. Generally, at worst, it will cause delays but eventually things should sort themselves out.

Thanks fcgamer for sharing your experiences. Hopefully it does still come through, just perplexed as why it isn't moving out of US Customs for so long, but like you said, patience is the key. Much appreciation to my Taiwan Brother! 

3 hours ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

So this is just Taken but with a pet?

According to the reviews, I don't think so. I guess, it is a very unique movie and some of the reviewers are saying one of, if not the best Nic Cage performances ever and the best movie of 2021 so far. 

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pig_2021

His new movie Pig is getting rave reviews. 

1 hour ago, epiczail said:

I have a hugeeee lot that I let get away a couple years ago. A friend of a friend of a friend bought a storage unit absolutely packed full of GB, GBC, GBA, & DS games/consoles. Loose, CIB, Sealed. This was one pic of the heavy hitters. All sealed lol. https://imgur.com/a/0HbVsEv

Wow! That game lot is literally thousands of dollars these days! Hindsight is always 20/20.

This is must watch TV here. A shout out to GetTheGregGames! 

31 minutes ago, Maertens29 said:

I don't often think about many, but one has always stuck out for me.

In like 2015 or something I was the underbidder on a VGA 90 Sonic Adventure LE for Dreamcast.  It sold for like $660.  Just an impossible game to find sealed.

Is this the man, the myth, the legend, GetTheGregGames?! I love your videos bro! I watched when you did the Heritage Auction Signature Live Stream! You had me in stitches with your play by play of the auction, thoughts (words of wisdom) and of course Barry!

I even made a new topic about you in the Everything Else section of the forum! Keep them great videos coming out and thanks so much for doing the live streams.

10 minutes ago, jonebone said:

No regrets, be thankful for what you do have at this point.  The game that always haunted me the most was selling a stupid Mint CIB Sqoon back in 2010 / 2011 for $300.  I got a "Very Good" one back years later but I know the condition on that game is irreplacable.

From dollar perspective I've sold a Super Mario World 85+ and Mario 64 95 (traded for 90+ plus cash / trade), but no one could have seen prices of today this fast.  I don't really regret those because I'm sure I spent the money on building the collection and probably got something sealed decent back.  

But yes, be thankful for what you have.  Sealed is pretty much priced out of popular titles (Mario / Zelda / etc.) for normal collectors and it's all the wealthy or businesses right now hopping in.  Most people will have to settle for Mint CIB on those.  Thankfully you can still "collect" plenty of great titles if you enjoy collecting, but the premium franchises are all but out of reach.

Very well said! I am still very grateful of the games that I held on to, but I do know that I sold the games I listed above to buy vintage Starwars & Gijoe, so I didn't inject the money back into video games.

You sure have stayed consistent about your sqoon regret. I know that has been your biggest regret for years. I really admire your thinking and not changing your views about collecting, even though, we all know that you have an unreal sealed collection. That tells me about what a high character guy you are. Kudos to you for that! I really love reading your posts and analysis of just about every topic on here and back on NA.

The title says it all for sealed collectors out there.

Now, with the way the sealed market has exploded, I am sure that many of you are kicking yourself for selling something or not buying something when you had the chance.

I have quite a few regrets but my number one regret now, is selling my raw sealed copy of a minty Sega Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog (original launch copy). I remember selling it for $450 and being ecstatic over that sale.

Some honorable mentions: (I sold all of these way back before the boom)

A VGA 85+ Nes Mighty Final Fight

A VGA 85 black seal Nes Ghostbusters

A Vga 85 Ubi Soft Nes Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Very nice raw copies of Nes Wolverine, Turtles 2, Turtles 3, Skate or Die, Double Dragon 2

VGA 90's of Nes Batman, Bad Dudes, Total Recall, Yo Noid

Anyways, I don't fret too much about this, but I sure wish that I had these ones back and a few more, but nobody new what was going to happen.

The games that I wish I would have bought:  I remember having many chances to buy a VGA 85 or a nice raw copy of Nes Contra, Zelda 2 and Metroid for around a $1,000 for a long time, but for some reason, I always put it off.

20 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

I like that sleeper pick of the Dream Team, I also think the tecmo bowls have potential. Imo, the first 7 figure sports game is gonna be Jordan vs Bird for NES in high grade.

Oh yeah, I forgot all about Jordan vs Bird. That is also a great choice.

Thanks again Blarky for sharing this with the community and the effort that went into it, to obtain the treasure trove of information on these coveted graded sealed blackbox games. Like we both said, their could be more or less now, because of the WATA crossovers and more raw copies getting graded by VGA. But I decided to use your database and count how many sealed (Sorry, no Q grades) VGA blackbox games there were as of 2016 to 2019. Of course, I just counted the exact amount of sealed games for each game and not get into all the other variables. 

In my opinion, the total amount of sealed blackbox games across the board is shockingly low at 490 total VGA graded blackbox games. With all the new people/companies jumping into the video game market, if you own any of these, you got pure gold. The supply of this amount will not be able to satisfy the influx of new money/collectors coming into the hobby. Just my humble thinking.

5 minutes ago, LifeGame said:

unfortunately not in great shape

Wow! Awesome that you have a sealed one. Now get it graded and send it over to Heritage Auctions!

6 minutes ago, Scrobins said:

My day to day work for the USPS doesn’t touch on these sorts of issues so my ability to weigh in is somewhat limited. However, and this isn’t news to anyone, but it has affected us more than people realize, the pandemic and the ensuing employee unavailability has made processing difficult across the board. I recently had my own issue with a package stuck in customs in Chicago after it arrived for Sweden. It was definitely there, just forgotten. Sometimes it’s just hectic and people move the most recent packages that come in, meaning something that was forgotten before will not be prioritized again and again. What worked for me was opening an investigation, which was closed without telling me anything, then calling the hotline and asking for an update. The person I spoke with said it was weird the investigation was closed without any notes, reopened it for me, and that seemed to dislodge it.

Thank you for sharing your insight and experiences.

Ok, I think that I will go ahead and open an investigation or contact the seller to open one. It is strange, that I am much more worried than the seller (I have contacted the seller already and he is also looking into it, but he doesn't seem stressed about this at all, just judging from our back and fourth email communication), but we all deal with things differently and have different levels of anxiety. 

Thanks again for taking your time to try to help and offer your suggestions. I really do appreciate it.

13 hours ago, Gulag Joe said:

HOT TAKE: multiple games will sell for over a million dollars in the next big heritage auction.

HOTTER TAKE: At least one will be a sports game.

I think high grade Tecmo Bowls will continue to go up in price.

My sleeper pick for a potential big time sports game sale is a high grade Sega Genesis Team USA (from 1992, "The Dream Team"), especially now that WATA and PSA are run by the same company. You have a rare game that is hard to find sealed representing the greatest team ever assembled in sports history and the fact, the game comes with some Team USA cards, so it appeals to game and card collectors.

22 hours ago, blarky said:

I'm not sure how useful this information is today, but in the spirit of sharing, here is some population report data from VGA I collected in 3 separate eras (2013, 2016, and 2019).

Basically, I sought to track the VGA population reports for all 30 NES Black Box games, plus two of the silver boxes (Kid Icarus and Metroid... apologies to rad Rad Racer!).  

Click here:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1opkt0rSqaabC-fLPv5ScDDu7ryJpwKgiZlf9vCnhxP4/edit#gid=1892999251

Click on the tabs at the bottom of this spreadsheet [2013], [2016], and [2019] to see the snapshots for those years.  Obviously, you'd want the 2019 for the latest, but it's kinda neat to see the changes over the earlier periods.  You might want to set the zoom to 75%.

For those unaware, in the past VGA allowed you to request 3 game population reports per day via email (business days only).  However, each variation counted as a separate game.  i.e. SMB Cardboard hangtab was a variant, white seal was a variant, etc.  And even sometimes the year of release mattered too.  For example, white seal SMB had separate 1988 and a 1989 years, which is why that one seems to be broken up as 2 sets of data.  In fact, looking at this now, I don't appear to have gotten the 1989 SMB white seal data for 2013, only 1988 data.  It's all part of how they had it stored in their database, which I admit I don't really understand.  Putting all that together it meant that a single black box game pop report could burn all 3 of your requests per day, and that might not be even enough to cover a single title!  This process took a while, and I thank VGA for putting up with me during these times lol.  They were pretty responsive most of the time, but sometimes my email got lost in the mix and I didn't get a response for a while, so I had to re-send the request.  Over the course of a few months, I could slowly fill out the complete table.  

The years for 2013 and 2016 are generally complete, but unfortunately, I was only able to finish roughly half of the 2019 data.  Late that year, I started getting the response from VGA that their database was being updated, and that retrieving population reports would not be possible anymore.  As many others have noted, this continues to be their response to this very day.  So this is where the project sort of ended.  If pigs fly and VGA ever gets to finishing their new website, perhaps this and all their other population reports all be available for anyone to see.... but I'm not holding my breath!  

VGA's terminology for the 4 "major" variants of the black boxes:
- Cardboard Hangtab/Hinge sticker      --> these are the sticker sealed games with cardboard hangtab
- Cardboard Hangtab                             --> start of the shrinkwrapped era games, also with cardboard hangtab
- Black/Silver Nintendo Seal                  --> non-cardboard hangtab games, but still have the circular seal of quality
- White Nintendo Seal                            --> oval / white seal of quality

Note: don't ask me why but sometimes VGA called it "Black" Nintendo seal, and sometimes it was "Silver" Nintendo seal.  Key point though is that it's the older / circular seal of quality.  (Kid Icarus and Metroid are "Gold" Nintendo Seal instead of either "Black" or "Silver")

 

Caveat emptors/disclaimers/notes/etc:

- Data is for entertainment purposes only.  I do not guarantee the accuracy of it.  

- This was a manual process, there could be mistakes in the tables, either by myself inputting them wrong, or just getting bad data to begin with.  I actually remember getting one pop report that suddenly had fewer results in the later years than in the earlier one, which didn't make sense.  I pointed it out and then they realized it was their mistake and provided me with the correct data.

- Obviously even the latest data here is rather old by this point.  And some of these games have been crossed over to wata (there have been many public posts of black/silver box wata crossovers).  But the main ideas here were to get a general sense of what was graded over the years, and also to point out how few certain titles had been graded over time since VGA started.  Some variants even as of the last reports still had no graded examples of.  Also, a well known collector has at least one sealed six pack case of each of these games, but it's unknown what variant(s) they are.  While most of those would be pristine examples, even throwing those in, you're still looking at very few sealed black boxes to go around.

-  I left the Q grades in.  To a sealed collector, those really don't mean anything though.  So basically, you could ignore those

Anyway, enjoy!  Hope someone finds these entertaining.  It was fun putting them together, but I don't know if I'd want to do it all over again

Wow! That is an awesome list that you compiled. Interesting to roughly see the population of these sealed blackbox games as of 2019. I would imagine there are even fewer of these Sealed black box games slabbed in VGA cases now, because they have been crossed over to WATA.

This shows that there really aren't too many of these games sealed for almost all titles, but of course some are way more rarer than other titles, but in the grand scheme of things, I think there is much more demand than supply for every single blackbox title out there. 

Thanks so much for the awesome list and taking the time to compile it.

Does anyone know a worst case scenario here? I paid by credit card and not through PayPal or Ebay, so if I never receive it, and the vendor wouldn't refund, could I do a credit card chargeback for something like this?

5 minutes ago, twiztor said:

from my experience,  the phone agents never have any more information than you can get by using their website. in the past 6 months, i have opened multiple missing package claims and never received a single update, response, or solution. beyond frustrating, especially after being on hold for an hour plus.

you may try contacting the actual post office where the last scan took place. i've had slightly more success there, but once customs get involved it's unlikely you'll be able to get a solid answer.

thanks. yeah, maybe I could try to figure out the actual number to the post office that it is being held at in New York (assuming it is out of Customs). just so frustrating and then not knowing if it is or isn't in Customs!

On 7/14/2021 at 12:36 AM, Scrobins said:

USPS lawyer here, if after a month has passed (just a recommended timeline) and it hasn’t moved, go onto the website and open an investigation into the tracking number. If no progress is made after a couple of weeks look up the customer service phone number and call them to follow up.

I know it’s frustrating and I’m not in a hurry to defend my agency, but I had an incoming package to the States get stuck in customs and this is what I did to successfully dislodge it.

hi, great to know that we have a USPS lawyer on this forum. The difference here, is that the package in question is leaving the Untied States, so why would customs hold it for so long? from your experiences, have you heard of a case similar to mine? like I said, it was valued at $3000 USD, could this be the problem? but like I said, I have bought a ton of things from the states for an amount more than $3000 and never had an issue, especially when using USPS. I have had to pay big customs taxes for expensive items I purchased when using Fedex, DHL, etc, but never had one single problem with USPS and I have literally had hundreds of packages sent to me from the states over the years. Thanks again for your suggestions and taking your time to chime in here. I greatly appreciate it.

ok guys, first of all, thank you all so much for taking your time to post here and let me know about your past experiences and suggestions.

Here is the latest information that I was able to gather by calling the USPS hot line (from here in Taiwan). in the past 2 days, I have made a total of 4 calls to the hotline.

Call #1: The lady checks the tracking number and tells me that it is being held in customs and she is seeing something that says Taiwan is the reason it is being held up, because it is valued at over $1,000 USD and I need to obtain some kind of license for them to release it. Mind you, I am in Taiwan and this package is being held in a New York Customs facility!! So, I am like what?! How can this be? but she says that is the information she has, so I politely thank her and tell my Taiwanese wife about what was said, so she calls Taiwan Customs and they tell her that is impossible, that they have never heard of something like that happening and I would only possibly run into an issue of this nature, when/if it arrived into Taiwan and its customs.

(so I decide to call USPS again) Every time you have to go through a long process/time to finally reach a live person to talk with.

Call #2: I call and this time the agent tells me that the package has cleared customs and that sometimes workers forget to scan it, or it could still be waiting to be moved to its next destination, or it could possibly just show up in Taiwan in a few days. Now, I am thinking Ok, that is great news to hear that it is at least out of customs. Just to be sure, I asked her about it clearing customs a few times, and she told me 100% that it is out of customs.

(After reading stuff about this issue online/forums, I decided that I neeed to call again for my own peace of mind)

Call #3:  I call again and don't tell the lady/agent that I had previously called and go through the whole process again with her. Now I kid you not, she once again says that it is being held in customs. I ask are you sure and she says, 100% yes, it is showing that it is being held in customs still! 

(I always ask each agent questions, like why is it being held? when might it be released?  How long? etc, but every time they tell me that they are a different agency (USPS) than US Customs and that I would need to call them to ask, so I get the International Customs phone number for the International Mail department at JFK airport and call them. They promptly tell me that they don't have any information and that I need to contact USPS! Just getting misinformation and the run-arounds!)

So, I wake up early this morning and think, what the heck, I m going t call USPS again, because all the misinformation is really bugging me.

Call #4 (Just a few minutes ago) I call, wait forever and once again a lady picks up. This time I tell the lady, that  that I have already called them (I only said 2 times though) and informed her that I have been told that my package was in customs and have been told that it is out of customs. Well, she takes a look, even puts me on hold for awhile and finally comes back and tells me that she doesn't know if the package is in or out of Customs! Sigh...... I will say that every agent was extremely polite and patient, but I am more confused/dumbfounded than ever now and don't know what to do.

It is so frustrating not knowing. I did contact the vendor and he is looking into it also. The item that I bought was a vintage Starwars toy priced at $3,000 USD. I don't know if the value makes any difference, but I do know that the full value was declared and that I have bought things for more then $3,000 in the past without an issue. any more suggestions on this matter would be greatly appreciated. 

I am very sorry for the word salad and once again thank you guys for your help/suggestions.