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CBS MarketWatch: Collectibles Are "The Stupid Investment Of The Week"

Started by delekkerste,

302 posts in this topic

Bronty

Bronty

Posted
Posted

1)I mean, are we going to see chains of specialty shops selling antique/obsolete videogames?

2)An Overstreet Videogame Pricing Guide that sells enough copies to get published every year?

3)Videogame conventions where the emphasis is on buying old cartridges preserved in mint condition as opposed to playing games and looking at upcoming releases?

 

1) I see certain video game shops carrying old games. There's already a shop in my hometown that sells used games only and probably has 1000 (wildly overpriced) NES games and another 500 SNES games.

 

2) Who knows? If gemstone is reading this, I'm available to write a first draft grin.gif

 

3) The first "classic gaming expo" was held this year in Southern Cali.

 

Dan

 

 

 

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Bronty

Bronty

Posted
Posted
What " skateboard type shirt " did you buy? confused-smiley-013.gif

 

Bright red longsleeve tshirt by Analog brand with, get this, a skull with wings on the front in some kinda bright metallic silver ink. Yes, I actually spent money on this shocked.gif

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drbanner

drbanner

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Posted
I bet Tony Hawk is jealous. :\

 

Brian

 

Speaking of Tony Hawk.....does anyone here play? confused-smiley-013.gif

 

Tony would be offended by that question...don't you mean "Does anyone here skate?"?

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THE_BEYONDER

THE_BEYONDER

Posted
Posted
I bet Tony Hawk is jealous. :\

 

Brian

 

Speaking of Tony Hawk.....does anyone here play? confused-smiley-013.gif

 

Tony would be offended by that question...don't you mean "Does anyone here skate?"?

 

NO

.......I mean " play "; as in the game.

 

BTW.....I skated for over 10 years. sumo.gif

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Freiherr

Freiherr

Posted
Posted

The same friend that got me into comics is now the mad video game collector. His collection includes coin-ops and every consol from Atari 2600 on. He drags me on his quests from time to time and I see first hand a growing market. I do not understand it, which is odd considering we are the same age and played the same games.

 

The coin-op market is easier to see. We go to an auction that is held every 2 months where coin-op games from Pac Man to the newest creations fill most of a huge warehouse waiting to go up for bids (has to be 2-3 thousand every auction). The old classics like Pac Man are a favorite, but for some reason usually do not go for much more than any of the others. I also see many people bidding on the 90s fighting games like Street Fighter. There are some that are popular because you can easily change what game they are via a cartridge or CD (I forget which ones).

 

The consol games are a little more obscure, but I still see the market. We have a few stores in town that sell old cartridges for systems like Atari and NES. One has that robot that came with the original Nintendo sitting on the checkout counter. The guy put a “Not for sale” sign on it and says than he gets many people who want it (shocking to me considering I couldn't stand the thing as a kid). Everything my friend buys is to be played. He will pay a little extra for an unopened game, but only because he wants the box and its contents.

 

So I see the market, but I do not see it as a huge money maker. However, I don’t see “mint” games fetching that much more money. This seems to be a mentality almost restricted to comic collectors. Not that many others don’t cling to grading scales, but in my view not with the severity of the comic world. I have always attributed it to how funny books like to “self-destruct”. Video games do not have this problem.

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fantastic_four

fantastic_four

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Posted
Not that many others don’t cling to grading scales, but in my view not with the severity of the comic world. I have always attributed it to how funny books like to “self-destruct”.

 

The vast majority of comics collectors don't cling to a grading scale with "severity," but there are nuts like the average poster in these forums in every collectible hobby. The main difference between a really anal comics collector and, for example, a really anal coin collector is that the comics collector stores their own urine and feces in large jars, whereas the coin collectors keep theirs in little pill bottles. blush.gif

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Bronty

Bronty

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Posted
So I see the market, but I do not see it as a huge money maker. However, I don’t see “mint” games fetching that much more money. This seems to be a mentality almost restricted to comic collectors. Not that many others don’t cling to grading scales, but in my view not with the severity of the comic world. I have always attributed it to how funny books like to “self-destruct”. Video games do not have this problem.

 

Interesting comments. I am not too surprised that the old coin op games get good but not phenomenal money. They are just too huge and heavy for most people to want to store and/or ship them.

 

As far as grading goes, you're absolutely right in that there is not currently a huge premium for mint games. There are basically three condition and price points right now:

 

1) loose cartridge

2) complete game and contents (worth 2x)

3) sealed game (worth 4x to 50x depending on rarity)

 

I've seen more and more emphasis on grade over just the short time I've been collecting though. And, interestingly, this emphasis is coming from transplanted comic guys like myself, your friend, a couple of other collectors I know of, one of them being a very serious collector who tells me he was going to buy a cgc 9.6 Spiderman #1 and decided instead to buy a whack of sealed NES, which he has done in spades.

 

Dan

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Rip

Rip

Posted
Posted

Its like the SNES but it has more options and variations. Honestly I don't know all the differences cause I haven't played the SNES version, but from what I hear they scaled it down. Im sure there's a few websites that go into detail on it.

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Bonds25

Bonds25

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Posted

Which games sell for a lot of money? I've looked at Ebay frequently, and almost all the games I see are selling for $5 or less.

 

And if they are sealed, how do you know someone didn't just use a sealing machine to reseal the game?

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