Frost271

The few VHS collectors are going to pull a WATA / Heritage move and shill bid things up to sell at top dollar like the major video games guys did over the past few years. The losers here are going to be the same suckers who will think they could make a quick buck by collecting VHS. Same folks who bought into Dogecoin that will never learn. Theres always someone out there who jumps onto the fake hype train. Calling it here. Sealed cassettes and cds are next. Go get them while you can!!

There has been alot of marketing manipulation over the past few years, free money handed out from the government, and now that money is gone. Fact is, none of the pricing over the past few years was "realistic" outside of maybe the high-grade first prints. Market is correcting itself and many "investors" have lost money. Same thing happened with the crypto coin manipulation from a couple of years ago ala Dogecoin and Alt Coins. ALOT of newbies bought in and got screwed. We will likely see another cycle of this in the new year with CGC already spamming popular groups with their "first graded" games hitting Heritage.

I’m in the midst of cataloging / posting my entire NES collection on Instagram if anyone wants to check it out. Name is Frost27111.

Speaking of Pop reports. I’m in the midst of cataloging / posting my entire NES collection on Instagram if anyone wants to check it out. Name is Frost27111.

They are business men. Guy is picking up early edition items and blowing up the apps he is vested in Rally and Otis. If he you hear any of the podcasts, there is a group that is vested in all this stuff. Eveyone thought dentist was nuts for spending a million on 40 first prints in 2019. Those titles are probably each easily worth $500k-$1million+ considering some dingle berry spent $1.5 million on a Mario 64. The dentist has literally 100xd his investment. Guy is a genius. He is raging it up on a yacht while the rest of us cry over silly stuff in the forums . Everything is going to blow up more once someone releases some population reports. This ain't comic books. Alot of these video game titles are super rare and people just don't know. All you need is 2 people to fight for stuff. Supply and demand in sealed video games will continue driving prices up. Especially old school stuff.

Daaaammn. Congrats man. Thanks for letting the community know. Wow!!

This should be a fun topic. How do some of ya’ll sell your high value sealed games outside of the auction houses in private sales to avoid major fees? With the prices sky rocketing right now, I’m sure we will be seeing tons of “rare” Mario64s being traded. Any experienced sellers here in the forums can offer any advice / tips on safe dealings and not getting scammed / cheated?

I apparently rubbed you off the wrong way or something. You must be one of “those” guys from NintendoAge that came over that just wants to start something over nothing. A legit member came out and acknowledged it was his sale. I wouldn’t think twice if he said it went through or not but thats me and why I asked in this thread. I am personally excited about this sale since I have a large sealed collection and ready to cash in soon as well . Life changing stuff happening in our community!

How is this irrelevant to the original topic which was is this real or not? Did you not see the original post here? Other evidence or better worded.. claims.. posted here talk about general shilling and bs sales from people within HA. Curious if our community member got his or if there was a “non payment” or “backed out of the buy” kind of crap that was see on other auction sites. This type of sale is huge not only to validate that HA isn’t full of shit but we have an actually member here, who is legit, their item sold. He let us know which validates the actual bidding. Would like to know if this is indeed a valid sale that went through. Especially considering there are like 12 or so 90 and up VGA copies.

Back to the main topic… We confirm that the Mario got paid for?

I should of clarified, like GameCube / PS2 / Xbox and before era. I forget that people grade newer systems these days lol.

I would have to agree with ya. I’m also going to correct myself a tad as probably the same “best buy” in terms of price / rarity is the hangtab Bungeling Bay that was picked up. But to your point, “old guard” view point.

Back in the early days (2010ish), I made friends with a guy in Dallas, bought him out, and through chatting turns out he was close friends with Atwood and gave me his contact info. I had a direct line to Atwood and all his games. The guy vouched for me as Atwood was very particular who he sold to. He was willing and open to selling a ton of his extra rare copies of titles that he had cases of. I still have our email exchanges saved in a folder. I was a broke college kid who already maxxed out his credit cards, worked extra shifts, even pulled extra on school loans trying to compete for rare titles with the big boys. I look back at those Atwood emails today and it breaks my heart. I am blessed to make good money right now and wish I could go back in time and grab all the stuff i had access to lol. I look at the list today and it blows my mind (and what he was willing to sell them for ).

For a “main stream title” maybe but we are talking about investors and not collectors doing these buys. Prices these days are just bananas… best deal of the lot in terms of rarity and purchase price is probably Winter Games. There been 3 H-Seams in the past year on Heritage, which is ridiculous, however, that population is like 5-6 sealed. So these high end black boxes, marios, etc… are big players cashing in their collections on Heritage (or at least their second copies). I am referencing early collectors from well before pre-2010 who had the only Winter Games copies and held on to them. They started before any of us found NintendoAge and were snatching up store left over stock since they had "real" jobs and could (compared to the rest of us broke ass college students trying to collect). That title has typically been in the top ten needed for completion of a full NES set. These new "collectors" are blowing up the main stream titles right now. If they have the money, they are not stopping at that. The collecting bug will eventually spill over to wanted to get the coveted full sealed NES set and these obscure rare titles that no one cares about today should garner more demand. Comparatively speaking, there is even a shitty copy of a sealed NES Soccer on ebay right now that no ones picked up. There are like only 3 of those! Its like seeing a sealed Donkey Kong Math sitting on Ebay with no buys. Its crazy! I am pretty sure that Soccer was a shitty copy from 2011 that randomly popped up on Ebay and probably the last one ever "seen" available to buy until now on Ebay. Speaking more to rare titles popping up today that arn't being snatched immediately, there was Rad Racer day screenshots sealed on Ebay for at least a couple of weeks in April / May before dentist picked it up. How are these million dollar buyers of N64 Super Mario not getting these games?!?

not sure how to fix

The only thing close to an accurate population report database lives at VGA. WATAs database is 90% or so crosses with the exception of the named collections (i.e Carolina) that i guess were all raw and never graded previously? I hope they are at least labeling / tracking crossovers internally so they can have something accurate compared to VGA. VGA had no competition for 20 years. That database pop is solid. Between WATA and their collusion with Heritage, Heritage labels a game as “only two ever graded” where as the more accurate statement would probably be “the only two crossed from VGA thus far.” I’m frankly surprised those PSA or CGC folks didn't try to buy VGA out for the database. Hitting the market as a new company WITH that pop report available would easily kill WATA and anyone else in the market. Redo your slab cases to CGC and you win the market with database (population reports) and branding alone. Its crazy seeing WATA continuing to win this game.

I agree with the stinginess. Im not sure how VGA grades today, but back in the early days, you got a 90 for a minor scuff on the cello. Their standards were ridiculous and all revolved around minor scuffs on the plastic. I see A++ WATAs that would easily be 85+ VGA just off the scuffing. I have about 70 games with detailed VGA grading reports at 90 or higher and its all cello knocks no structure issues. i’ve picked up a few WATA games and they are definitely not close to how VGA grades. In my opinion, many many early 90s would easily cross to 9.8s A++. At least the very small sample I have seen thus far. Jonebone put together an excellent cross article a couple years back here from his samples. What I’ve seen thus far are that 9.4s are 85+s at best in VGA. 9.2s 85 at best. Note that i stopped getting things graded in 2015 so, again, not sure what VGA is doing these days in terms of knock downs in grading. Even when it came to cases, you rarely got 90+s and it was due to scuffing / rubbing of the games to each other in the box. The knockdowns were ridiculously annoying.

This is awesome Blarky. Biggest issue the community will have is that once (if ever) WATA releases any pop report, *hopefully* they are tracking whats been crossed. Otherwise there will be no real way to tell the true population of a WATA database. However, i would find your list / VGA most accurate. Simple reason. Time. They been doing this for 2 decades and the only grading company through that time period. No crossing or questions. True population numbers here.

I do believe uou and thats awesome / crazy. Monster that you held out. I do follow you on Instagram. Congrats on the sale. I truly hope you get paid!

This is 100% accurate. I have a similar report for Mario 3s. Now is a great time to sell out. Guarantee you, just like the Mario 3s, nothing but high grade Mario 64s for the next 2-3 years on Heritage Auctions. Mario 64 is very much common in high grade just like Mario 3s. There is a shit ton of them in collectors’ hands. People are going to flip all their Mario 64 VGA titles to WATA after what just happened. I personally don’t believe this million dollar sale. Thats just stupid. You could put up a ‘want’ ad in these forums or on Instagram and get a gem mint copy for a fraction of that. Anyone would have taken a crazy offer like $100k. Not anymore though.

You are an idiot. Just reading your comments over the last two days makes me feel like I read stupid. You new to the hobby? Most of the guys you been talking ‘idiot to’ have been around since before your balls dropped. Waaay before WATA was even imagined. VGA gave population reports at least up to 2016. Who let this guy in here?

Sitting on a beach sipping on margaritas with your family > “love of collecting” Always.

I agree with a previous comment. Its about the $$. Not releasing reports in fact help the older collectors, now, in general, as most long-timers know what is and isnt rare and a great time to cash in. Especially since grading takes a year right now unless you pay $500 which is still worth it to sell a high value market title. These new collectors are paying $50k plus for games that have a huge sealed population in mint condition (i.e Marios bros 3, Ninja Gaidens, etc…). You release the reports, those values will drop hard. So the WATA collectors’ games go down in value, less buyers and seller premiums for HA. Other side of the coin, set collectors will catch on to the rare titles outside of black boxes and popular titles so those values would go up. Market would correct itself essentially. If WATA were to do it right like CGS. They will solidify itself as the only grading company in the market. VGA screwed it up and had a decade head start. Whether you like them or not, WATA is doing it right. Big big money is being made.

Whats the difference between the two sealed boxes i linked? Wata labels one as “Nintendo Version.” They appear identical.

Oh wow. Thats a different box! The Wata labels show two different variants and NO purple borders on either sealed box. Past sales show same thing so I don't think its a miss-label. Was there a third print run? You or anyone know the story behind this? Which variant was first print? How long that print run was? I think your box with Capcom on it would be the first print run. Something like (wild guess here): First Print: Capcom Purple box; Capcom Labeled Carts Second Print: New box “Nintendo Version” (new box but Capcom labeled left over carts?) Third Print: New Box New Labeled carts w/o Capcom