Bronty

There is some correlation... the CIB prices act as the floor for sealed. THey do not, however, have much impact on anything but the floor.

Fine, you were more interested in saying what you believed to be true (that cards were a better analogy) than really talking about it anyways. All good.

You see it as a better parallel because you understand it better. Neither parallel truly works. And for the record what five year old girls are into has zero impact on later collector markets. Look around - how many collectors on this site are girls? What girl focussed significant collectibles of the 80s/90s have happened? None that sell for any kind of real money. It seems to be 98-99% male driven past a certain dollar amount. its about what 12 year old boys are into, not five year old girls, that later becomes collected (by 40 year old men). I'm not surprised that being born in 84 you and your friends weren't into comics. Sales of new comics were completely in the tank (all time lows) when you were 10-12 years old. Your age range and up being lost readers was exactly the point of what I was getting at earlier..

And the Se at heritage will go for a very low multiple over cib. Multiple of cib is just not a reliable way to even guess at value of sealed

Yeah I think that’s a bit too simplified tbh. The sellers are varied. The buyers are varied too but are more often comic guys. When they aren’t comic guys they are usually part of the heritage crowd for something else.

Look, there’s no need to invent this. I know from conversations with Deniz that it was because Deniz and his dad had some contacts in comics. Believe it or not, not every comic collector is rich.

The way I would put it perhaps is that my generation in particular that straddled the transition in popularity from one to the other is into both. I’ve collected both for many years myself. I think this POV works for kids growing up in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s. (Note all the video game ads in comic books in the 80s and 90s). Not so sure it works great past or before those points. Comic guys even five or ten years older than me have zero interest in games from what I’ve seen, for example.

A lot of people in comics know that sales of new books plummeted around 93 and have really never recovered meaningfully despite old books doing well and despite marvel properties doing incredibly well in movies etc. Very few people are running out and starting to collect brand new avengers comics because they watched the avengers movie. The people who currently collect old comics obviously fret as a result about whether the generations coming up can possibly have the numbers, the interest and resources as a group to sustain current prices because collectors have always come from past readers historically. So comics people worry about demographics - there’s some natural analysis around the next big thing is. Games and mtg basically replaced new comics (old comics are a separate discussion) when new comics went in the crapper around 1993. So the other thing linking games and comics is their relationship in that demographic narrative. Kids don’t read. They’re on screens.

You’re thinking about or perhaps just reacting to this too deeply since, as you said, you can’t relate. Simply put from what I’ve seen Deniz had some contacts inside comics and marketed to comics people as a result. That led to comics people getting involved in the hobby, who naturally use the field they are most familiar with as a point of reference. That’s it. Or at least, most of it.

Digital press online rarity database. You could do a query for all US game gear games and it should spit out what you’re looking for

Should be able to get that from DP no?

Yeah. It was double FMV. Might have been more like 06

I remember about 15 years ago someone had an ebay auction selling all three games at once llike this, with a similar picture. It went for a kuh-razy 1200 at the time. Congrats on the nice trio.

Eh, the dust will come off the wrap. I don't see any creasing, I think those are scratches in the wrap. At vga probably an 80+ and at wata probably a 8.5-9.0 B? Guessing, obviously.

Since you have the receipt I'd say don't bother. Nice to be able to tie the receipt price to the price tag. Doesn't add value really, but kinda neat and the price tag is small anyways. The good news is its legit and has value. The bad news is that its not the highest graded specimen given the scuffing and damaged corner, but still. Great find.

send it in.

You cheap mofo just buy it already

Those stickers usually have some stress on them or crinkling in the gap between the top and front of the box. They aren’t automatically mint like you might think. Besides, if that’s what’s there, what else are they supposed to grade? I understand your point but IMO they made the right call - treat as normal. Customer has eyes. The alternatives (no seal grade at all or an entirely new scale just due these few games ) are worse answers to the question of how to deal with sticker seals IMO.

I agree, time for a rest. That said if pawn stars calls, you probably have to take that call no?

Was the interview by Frank Cifaldi maybe? He just about had a bird when I showed him and he found out it had gotten as far as cover art

Cool, glad to hear it. I think ethical dealing is important, but it’s all in how you define it. We are all big boys and no one has the time to babysit anyone else. I think as long as you are getting what you paid for, and as long as there is no deception, it’s fair game. I do understand the questions people have had but at the same time it gets old for me personally because many of the same issues persist in other hobbies with no shady insider dealings or accusations coming to light the past twenty years yet gamers who aren’t familiar with it think it’s brand new info and want to start an investing action or something. The fact is, it’s widely known that HA and or parties related thereto own at least a chunk of CGC (comics graders), NGC (coins) and whatever else I’m forgetting. Ideally you’d like all those parties to be separate but they aren’t and HA is the 800 of gorilla for whom funding grading companies (as they did for the first several years of cgc) to ensure the product is essentially a commodity and therefore auction friendly is worthwhile. this is all pure speculation on my part but I think if you’re HA you don’t give a poop about grading fees and you certainly don’t want to do anything to screw up the trust the public has in the grading co. What you want are the auction fees (again pure speculation, but are you making more getting paid 1k to grade a 50k game or from the 20%++ cut you will get out out of the auctions results? The one exists only to feed the other or at least that’s my speculation, and you don’t bite the hand that feeds. Nor have they for 20 years now

Thanks for the list up above. I don’t think this is well known so you might find it interesting to know that Don Doko Don 2 was very nearly released by Natsume in the US as Wacky-Man. This was going to be the cover artwork (excuse the poor photo) . It would have been one of the nicer looking boxes IMO

The sticker is the seal

Always consider the extreme examples. The guy buying a cib stadium events for 50k? Damn straight he wants to know what condition the cart and manual are in.

Call it whatever you want to but there are more buyers with more money chasing the same supply.