AlfPogs

I appreciated the humble sincerity of the dentist for constantly pointing out how everyone is just jealous of him. It takes a lot of courage to speak the truth like that. What a guy. Definitely not the kind of person who leans on his wealth to hide the fact that he has no personality or nothing else of interest to bring to the world. Nope. Just a really down to earth guy with a passion for video games. It feels great to know that the video game collecting hobby is in such great hands moving forward. And I'm also glad that the movie never once for a single moment veered into wata propaganda territory. I liked how it presented both wata and vga in a fair and nuanced manner instead of propping up one while diminishing the other. It definitely never felt like Deniz Kahn didn't make some sort of behind the scenes deal that he would only be in it if it presented him and his company in a certain light and that he had to approve the cut before it was released. No. Not at all. Also could have used less of that Robby guy who posted in the thread earlier. There's no place in video game investing for guys like him. What's his collection worth? $20-$30k topps? It's not even graded and he doesn't even have to keep it locked away in a vault. Definitely nothing to be jealous of. Not like my hero the dentist. I mean. He didn't even pay top dollar for it at Heritage Auctions. He went to places like flea markets and garage sales and got deals. Can you imagine? Yuck! If you're not paying a 20% buyers' premium on top of current market prices then you're doing it wrong! Movie woulda been so much better if it had focused on Deniz Kahn and the dentist. They are the true stewards of video game collecting moving forward. I could listen to either speak all day long. I hope some big time Hollywood producers were watching. Maybe they'll give them their own series; 'Deniz and The Dentist,' where they just talk about how much their games are worth and how many 5,6,7 figure offers they've turned down for individual games. Maybe there could be a segment called 'you're just jealous' where the dentist shows off a game from his investment portfolio and talks about how much he could sell it for on Heritage Auctions if he wanted to... but he's not going to because then no one would be jealous and what's the point of living if people can't be jealous of you? It would be sponsored by Heritage Auctions and wata, of course.

It's in great shape... but I'm in the midwest and my friend is tabling at a con in a couple weeks and he's gonna put it on his table for me. So I'm just hoping it sells there and that's that. The box itself does have the 001 serial number. Thanks for the replies.

So I'm in the early process of doing some collection consolidation and was curious about my PS2 console box. Hoping there might be a PS2 expert or three who can help me. I know there's different console boxes for the PS2 and am curious as to how this affects value. Mine is from first wave of release. I know because I've had it since my friend who was a Funcoland employee backdoored it to me at launch. The box is in great condition and super complete as far as inserts. All the styrofoam. The plastic baggies for the console, controller, etc. The plastic baggies still have the twist ties in them. The paperwork is included as well. The only thing missing is the original console that came with it (got stolen when my apartment got broken into. Still mad about it). I do have a replacement console in there. Anyway. I'm just curious if there's a way of telling / proving that it's an early box... or if that even matters. I'm going to be selling it locally in person. So, I want to gauge a good price. Thanks.

1995ish. Pretty much by accident. I wasn't loving the N64 / PS1 era. Was at funcoland and noticed how cheap NES games were. I still had my NES and all of my games with boxes and manuals (I was one of those). It just started out as a way to play the games I had wanted to play but never could. Then the collector gene started to kick in. I liked the look of black box games - at the time I called them 'originals' - so I decided to try and get all of them. I started asking kids at school if they still had their games. I bought a few entire collections for $5 total. Not $5 a game. $5 total. I would say that I didn't become a full on collector until I was sixteen in 1998 because I could drive now. I started going hunting. I had a rule back then. Never paid more than $5 a game. Only exception was for games I thought were rare. I know I paid $40 for my Stack-up and felt really dirty doing it at the time. This is also why I never got a copy of Contra until 2016. Even back then it was I think a $20 game at Funcoland and when I bought collections or pieces of collections off of kids it was the one game that they would always pull back and say "I'm gonna keep Contra." Things picked up when two friends started working at funcoland. I had the membership card that got me 10% off used game purchases. Plus they would let me use their employee discount for another 10% off. They loved me because I was literally the only person who bought NES games. If not for me, they would just sit there. I would walk in with a twenty-dollar bill and walk out with more than twenty games. It was amazing. I was just stacking games. There was also about a six month span when I was a senior where I delivered pizzas. The extra cash from tips was a boon to my collecting. I would say that during that six months was when my collection went from respectable to whoa. This was when I shelled out the $40 for Stack-Up and acquired my complete, boxed Deluxe Set and other pricier items. I slowed down a lot once I got to college since I was broke. I would still look occasionally, but by this time I had about 500 games so I rarely found anything I needed. By this point Funcoland was gamestop and my friends no longer worked at the one in my hometown. By now it was also policy to throw away all boxes and manuals, but since there was a weirdo collector who stopped in every now and then they would just put all that stuff in a bag and give it to me every time I walked in. Those were some good days. I got a lot of free boxes and manuals. Once I finished college I moved across the country and was even more broke. As a result, I did not buy a game or really even think about game collecting for over ten years. Luckily, my parents never moved out of the house I grew up in and I left my collection boxed up in the basement. At one point around 2008ish I considered selling, but a friend talked me down. He was like "do you know how cool that collection is? Don't sell it." Picked it back up in 2016 once I was in a better financial situation. I was blown away by the price jumps, but was willing to accept them since I had gotten so many games for so little. I felt like even if I was paying current prices for the last 200ish games I needed I was still coming out ahead. I even finally got my copy of contra. As of today I still need 5 licensed games (including Stadium Events which I'll likely never get), but am in no hurry. I dabble in other systems, but only going after specific games. I would never try to go for another full set. Not with current and likely future prices. Some regrets / observations from being an early collector. 1. The lack of knowledge back then really hurt me. I had no idea games like Little Samson were so rare. Otherwise I woulda coughed up the dough to get them on Ebay. The only resource i knew of was the mike etler list. It came in handy, but there was no forum at least that I knew of where I could go and have someone tell me "hey. got get (insert super rare games here)." I definitely would have bought all of them during the pizza days. 2. I passed up on a copy of Bubble Bobble 2 in college because it was $50. Sigh. I really wish I had scraped together the dough for that. 3. I also passed on a boxed (likely complete) Jetsons because it was like $20 and that seemed like too much for me in 1999ish. But mainly it was the lack of knowledge. I also wish that I had had more money so I coulda hoarded some heavy hitters and bought some games for other consoles. There was a part of me that thought games might be worth more money someday, but aside from the pizza days I just didn't have the extra cash to bet on it. I was in junior high, high school and college during those days. Sorry this post got so long. But I hope it's a somewhat enjoyable read to see how someone collected in the mid-late 90's and early 2000's before the explosion. EDIT: I feel bad that I wrote this all from my perspective as if I was doing this alone. I was actually collecting with my friend and then neighbor who is on these boards as well as instagram as @8bitsupremacy . Our NES collecting journeys have run both parallel and separately at the same time.

Awesome. Thank you.

Really? Nobody knows? All it takes is a simple 'yes' or 'no.'

Just curious. I poked around their site a bit and didn't see anything. But I am not a member. So, not sure if it's something that would show up if I were to join. Thanks.

When I first saw this thread topic my eyes weren't totally focused and I read it as "New NES Religion." The thing is. I wasn't totally surprised. It seemed like the kind of post I might see someday.

3,000 years of beautiful history from Moses to Sandy Koufax YOU'RE GD RIGHT I'M LIVING IN THE PAST!!! You're not totally wrong. I don't envy anyone attempting to go for a complete NES set and starting now. But the part of your statement I disagreed with mostly is saying it's a waste of time and space. If you enjoy it, it's not a waste of time. If you like the way it looks displayed, it's not a waste of space. Hell, if you can afford it, it's not a waste of money either. Different strokes and all...

I disagree wholeheartedly with this statement. I got the majority of the NES set in the 90's for less than a dollar a game and I had a blast going to funcolands and other places hunting them. For some people the hunt is the best part. Just because it's not for you doesn't mean it's not for everyone. And a complete NES set looks amazing on display. Not a waste of space at all.

Don't sleep on places like walgreens, rite aid, etc. for food. I've been picking up a few extra things here and there every time I go to the store over the past five weeks just in case, so I'm comfortably prepared. But I woke up today feeling like I should grab some extra vitamins so I went to Walgreens and there was tons of food. It's weird seeing empty shelves for toilet paper on one side of the aisle and full shelves of food on the other side of that same aisle.

Man. You guys are all WAY off. The next spike is 100% without a doubt iam8bit retro re-releases. That stuff is Retro pack in surprises? I don't know what that is, but I gotta have it!!! I gotta have all of it. Then there's the question of do I open it to find out if I was lucky enough to get a variant? Or do I keep it sealed? OMG I can't keep it sealed I just have to know!!!

This cover got me hook, line and sinker. The game portrayed on this cover looks AMAZING. The actual game, not so much.

Trying to keep it at 1-2 per system. 1. Montezuma's Revenge - IBM - When my dad bought our family's first computer, he got this game with it. I was young and didn't know what the heck was going on, but I did know that I liked it. 2. Arcade games - No specific game. I just know that before we got our NES I would beg my parents for quarters to play whatever arcade game I could get my hands on wherever we were. 3. Super Mario Bros. - NES - My older sister got an NES for Christmas in 1987 and it wasn't long before it was more mine than hers. I was hooked. 4. Double Dragon - NES - First game I bought with 'my own money.' Used change and everything. - There are lots of NES games I could include here. But in the interest of making it a timeline that goes all the way into the present, I will move on. - 5. Kid Chameleon - Sega Genesis - Forget Sonic. This is the real Genesis icon right here. Can we please get a modern KC remake already??? EDIT ADD 5.5 - Mortal Kombat / Eternal Champions / Street Fighter II - Genesis - How dare I forget the holy Genesis fighting game triumvirate? 6. Night Trap - Sega CD - God this game sucked. By I somehow talked my parents into buying it for me. A friend and I played through it using a guide. 7. Final Fantasy 7 - PS1 - The game that changed everything for me. Before this it was mostly platformers, beat 'em ups and sports games. Playing this game changed my views on what a video game could and can be. 8. Resident Evil - PS1 - Hello, Survival Horror... where have you been all my life? 9. Shadow of the Colossus - PS2 - I mean... 10. Bioshock - PS3 - (Chef's kiss) 11. Fallout 3 - PS3 - First game I ever platinumed. (Honorable Mention in the spot: Skyrim, Oblivion and New Vegas) 12. The Last of Us - PS3/4 - Probably the best video game story. 13. Destiny - PS4 - First time I fully embraced online gaming. 14. Horizon Zero Dawn - PS4 - Just an awesome game.

Thanks. Maybe some other time with the opinions. I just got here and want to settle in first. I do play games. I love games far more than I love movies or TV. I would say that if I'm in front of a screen and it's not work-related, 19 times out of 20 I'm playing a game. Although I love and collect retro games, I have definitely 'grown up' (for lack of a better term) with gaming. I love modern games. I just finished The Outer Worlds last night. In general, there isn't a specific type of game I focus on. I go into moods or phases or whatever. Sometimes I want to dive deep into an rpg, sometimes I just want to run around shooting aliens. I also work on the fringe of the video games industry. I work in games marketing. Trailers and such. Video games are definitely a passion of mine.