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HERITAGE ADDS VINTAGE GRADED VIDEO GAMES TO ITS SIGNATURE AND WEEKLY AUCITONS
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177 posts in this topic

On ‎12‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 10:43 AM, Sardo Numspar said:

I'm a big supporter and believer in WATA and their product.  I was waiting for a company like WATA to emerge because I never felt confident in the VGA product. Here are a few examples of my WATA certified games:

 

 

 

IMG_0831.JPG

 

Man, I love the art on that Dragon Warrior.  I have a NES game (can't recall the title at the moment) that has a box image that conjures high fantasy and adventure.  But when you play it, it's more like a puzzle game with a silly looking knight.  But I could look at it on the shelf for a long time and enjoy it.

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12 minutes ago, Westy Steve said:

This statement is so ironic because you, yourself, are making assumptions that he's threatened by the fact that he collects graded gaming packages.  I can't speak for him, but I love buying gaming packages.  I've even bought empty gaming boxes because the art is so cool.  I've bought comics I don't seriously intend to read either.  Neither makes me feel threatened or ashamed, personally.  Wish I had more funds to buy more.

I see that the sarcastic inversion of called-out irony and hypocrisy escaped your clutches..

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1 hour ago, Westy Steve said:

Man, I love the art on that Dragon Warrior.  I have a NES game (can't recall the title at the moment) that has a box image that conjures high fantasy and adventure.  But when you play it, it's more like a puzzle game with a silly looking knight.  But I could look at it on the shelf for a long time and enjoy it.

  Little story for you then that not many people know.

The manual art for Dragon Warrior is by a US artist and was originally going to be the US box art.

The powers that be in Japan decided to use Japanese art instead and repurposed what was going to be the american box art onto the manual cover.

There were a number of preliminaries done for the box art (that became the manual art) that I have in my collection.    Maybe I can share with you at some point.   For the time being my stuff is all over the place in several locations (having just moved cross country).

The DW 1&2 boxes use japanese art, and the DW 3&4 boxes use American art.

Edited by Bronty
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1 hour ago, Westy Steve said:

But when you play it, it's more like a puzzle game with a silly looking knight.  But I could look at it on the shelf for a long time and enjoy it.

any hints as to what the box looked like?  You have me curious

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19 hours ago, Sardo Numspar said:

Thanks Dan! My faves as well. Goal next year is to track down a few more Capcom cardboard HT’s.

A few more!   Tall order!  Good luck!! :)

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On 12/5/2018 at 4:44 AM, TwoPiece said:

Ugh. The art of a video game is what it conveys when you actually use the video game in the system... I can't support this form of "grading".

You're just grading a freaking box. This is so dumb. No offense...

Then why are you even in this thread? And really, it's hilariously stupid for a dude who collects comic books encapsulated to comment negatively on anyone collecting video games encapsulated.

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On 12/6/2018 at 6:37 AM, TwoPiece said:

I have sealed products of both black-label Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Final Fantasy VII. I bought them at a K-Mart when they thought they were going out of business and had a clearance sale. I knew that sealed copies were valuable.

I would never get them graded because I stand-by my previous statements that it's ridiculously stupid. I may as well start grading unopened iPhones in-box.

The black label release of Castlevania Symphony of the Night was long sold out before sealed copies had any substantial value over their original MSRP. You also weren't finding a sealed black label copy of that game in clearance anywhere ever as the window between its NA release date and when it was released as a green label greatest hits was about 8 months, which is one of the reasons why it is so expensive today. Also in 97/98 the secondary market for video games, especially current generation games for that time period, was largely non-existent. Nobody was buying copies of Symphony of FF7 at the time to flip them. That wasn't a thing.  

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On 12/5/2018 at 1:50 PM, kHAoS said:

I think the collector market for videogames is starting to mature and people are starting to identify the rare and coveted items. Videogames is on the same trajectory similar to Star Wars figs and Transformers before it. Popular franchises like Zelda, Mega-Man, and Mario related games in mint or sealed condition from earlier systems will always be in demand. Less popular systems like the Sega Saturn or Sega Dreamcast had quality titles and those games were produced in lower numbers, so there is a ton of growth potential if you can track down those games in mint condition. Certain sealed items can fetch a ton due to the fact that most games retailed for $40-$60 back in the 80's and 90's, so the chances of some kid stashing a new game in a closet is virtually nil. I'd wager most surviving copies of sealed games were deadstock from a store that went under.

Great post. If there is any one hobby that could explode and challenge comics it would be the videogame hobby. Lots of similarities. Both have many visual great stories and characters.

I always thought of Nintendo as the Marvel of videogames,especially 1980s Nintendo similar to 1960s Marvels.

Like Marvel did in the 1960s Nintendo did in the 1980s by changing the game. A lot of people forget most video games were DOA by 1983. They couldn't give many games away,than along came Nintendo in 1985 and changed the game like Marvel did in 1961 with Fantastic Four.

I see the Zelda,Metroid and Mega Man early games following a similar path as Hulk #181,ASM#300 and NM #98. They could explode in value. Also don't be surprised if Hollywood finally figures out how to do video games movies good which would add more juice to the value.

A good future in video game collecting. As always the keys and quality over quantity.

.Legend of Zelda NES Prices         Metroid NES Prices          Mega Man NES Prices

 

Edited by ComicConnoisseur
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Good points.   Re movies.. there is a Mario moving coming by the Illumination people (secret life of pets, minions etc).   That subject matter and that studio should make for an explosive combo 

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On 12/25/2018 at 9:51 PM, darkstar said:

The black label release of Castlevania Symphony of the Night was long sold out before sealed copies had any substantial value over their original MSRP. You also weren't finding a sealed black label copy of that game in clearance anywhere ever as the window between its NA release date and when it was released as a green label greatest hits was about 8 months, which is one of the reasons why it is so expensive today. Also in 97/98 the secondary market for video games, especially current generation games for that time period, was largely non-existent. Nobody was buying copies of Symphony of FF7 at the time to flip them. That wasn't a thing.  

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Best way to put it is that saving unopened games by consumers at retail in 97 was about the same as saving unread comics in 62.   Marginal rates of occurrence

Edited by Bronty
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2 hours ago, darkstar said:

Actually everything I wrote there is correct, but feel free to actually make an effort to explain what I got wrong. 

The fact that I bought sealed black-label copies is what you got wrong. I don't really care about the manufacturing and distribution details. In 2005, they were there, and I bought 'em.

I just bought some rare Star Wars DVDs recently. Even with all of the information we could ask for at the tip of our fingers, someone screwed up and racked the (sealed) theatrical releases for dirt-cheap as "Edited Version", at a store that buys things like comics and vinyl.

Did someone return these sealed games years after buying them? Did the store buy them as "used games"? Idk. All I know is I took advantage of a great situation.

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You just proved him correct.   If you bought in 05 there was a market for them by then and you just got lucky.   In 1997 nobody was buying at retail and saving them sealed.    A few stayed sealed when stores closed out and that in (closed store) inventory but individuals saving expensive games and not playing with them in 1997?   Didn’t happen.   Except for the rarest of cases.   Not you.

Edited by Bronty
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Hey Bronty,

Have you ever tried to figure out how rare those sealed or even CIB games are?  I'd be interested in finding out how many sealed games of typical titles of popular platforms exist.  Even the percentages are eye opening.  I estimate about 15% of a typical she's title is CIB and only 3% are sealed.  But my estimates are very rough.  

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8 minutes ago, Westy Steve said:

Hey Bronty,

Have you ever tried to figure out how rare those sealed or even CIB games are?  I'd be interested in finding out how many sealed games of typical titles of popular platforms exist.  Even the percentages are eye opening.  I estimate about 15% of a typical she's title is CIB and only 3% are sealed.  But my estimates are very rough.  

I think it’s so title specific that a rule of thumb would have little meaning (my 2c ).     If we take NES titles as a starting point for conversation, the print runs go down over time from 1985-1994  but the % that remained sealed goes up over time .    What you end up with is that early copies are rare sealed but common cib and late titles are rare sealed or cib but are over represented as sealed compared to the %s on early titles.

In summary when it comes to sealed  the desirable sealed stuff is what was released early on and then really late with a lot of stuff in the middle being common.

for CIB it’s mainly about the late stuff, but the very first versions of early titles can be very tricky cib also.   But only the very earliest versions and only specific titles.   The late stuff is mostly scarce cib across the board (a few exceptions there too of course, to make it interesting).

Edited by Bronty
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2 hours ago, TwoPiece said:

The fact that I bought sealed black-label copies is what you got wrong. I don't really care about the manufacturing and distribution details. In 2005, they were there, and I bought 'em.

I just bought some rare Star Wars DVDs recently. Even with all of the information we could ask for at the tip of our fingers, someone screwed up and racked the (sealed) theatrical releases for dirt-cheap as "Edited Version", at a store that buys things like comics and vinyl.

Did someone return these sealed games years after buying them? Did the store buy them as "used games"? Idk. All I know is I took advantage of a great situation.

Yikes! Because your first post was unclear I thought you meant you bought these games, around the time they were initially released, from your local K-Mart when your individual K-Mart was in danger of going under prior to the year 2000, not when the company faced nationwide closings, which was many years later. This makes your story even more implausible if not entirely untrue.

As I already stated, Castlevania Symphony of the Night was out of production as a black label game only months after its initial release; its window between being produced as a black label version and a green label Greatest Hits version was very small, one of the smallest on record. Could you have found a sealed black label copy in 2005 in the wild? Sure, but not in a retail store like K-Mart - that SKU would have long been zeroed out and K-Mart wasn't a retail chain buying unsold electronic backstock from other retailers. In short, that game would in no way have been available at a K-Mart clearance sale in 2005. That game stopped being produced as a black label game in 1998.   

The same thing is true for Final Fantasy 7. That game had a far larger window between black label and green label printings but again you aren't find a sealed black label copy of one of the biggest games of all time for sale at a K-Mart store clearance in 2005. The black label inventory would have all been offloaded well before then, with only green label versions being available for sale at the time.

Your example of Star Wars DVDs as evidence of your story being true is entirely off base. Finding sealed Star Wars DVDs, uncommon as they may be, at a store that buys used comics and vinyl is nowhere close to the same as finding out-of-production, factory sealed copies of a video game 7 or 8 years after its initial release and total sellout at a retail store. 

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1 hour ago, darkstar said:

Yikes! Because your first post was unclear I thought you meant you bought these games, around the time they were initially released, from your local K-Mart when your individual K-Mart was in danger of going under prior to the year 2000, not when the company faced nationwide closings, which was many years later. This makes your story even more implausible if not entirely untrue.

As I already stated, Castlevania Symphony of the Night was out of production as a black label game only months after its initial release; its window between being produced as a black label version and a green label Greatest Hits version was very small, one of the smallest on record. Could you have found a sealed black label copy in 2005 in the wild? Sure, but not in a retail store like K-Mart - that SKU would have long been zeroed out and K-Mart wasn't a retail chain buying unsold electronic backstock from other retailers. In short, that game would in no way have been available at a K-Mart clearance sale in 2005. That game stopped being produced as a black label game in 1998.   

The same thing is true for Final Fantasy 7. That game had a far larger window between black label and green label printings but again you aren't find a sealed black label copy of one of the biggest games of all time for sale at a K-Mart store clearance in 2005. The black label inventory would have all been offloaded well before then, with only green label versions being available for sale at the time.

Your example of Star Wars DVDs as evidence of your story being true is entirely off base. Finding sealed Star Wars DVDs, uncommon as they may be, at a store that buys used comics and vinyl is nowhere close to the same as finding out-of-production, factory sealed copies of a video game 7 or 8 years after its initial release and total sellout at a retail store. 

Except that it isn't.

The local K-Mart here bought "used games". They slapped their own UPCs on them, so the manufacturer SKU is completely irrelevant.

You can talk your way around this all you'd like - what happened did happen. It's history. At this point there's nothing to discuss. I don't know how or why it happened - but it did. All of your logic and conjecture surrounding the situation doesn't make a lick of difference.

The Star Wars DVDs provide evidence for this exact situation. They have been out of production for 10 years. Finding those DVDs sealed, for similar dirt-cheap prices as SotN and FFVII, is a damn similar find. Maybe even more impressive considering the difference in technology between those 13 years.

Edited by TwoPiece
Edit: "Precedent" is the wrong word.
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Spoiler

Incredible what you can make from a bit of leftover scrap iron in a builders yard, especially an advanced aerial propulsion system.

The point at which an okay episode turned to complete bollocks.

 

Edited by Ken Aldred
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3 hours ago, TwoPiece said:

Except that it isn't.

The local K-Mart here bought "used games". They slapped their own UPCs on them, so the manufacturer SKU is completely irrelevant.

You can talk your way around this all you'd like - what happened did happen. It's history. At this point there's nothing to discuss. I don't know how or why it happened - but it did. All of your logic and conjecture surrounding the situation doesn't make a lick of difference.

The Star Wars DVDs provide evidence for this exact situation. They have been out of production for 10 years. Finding those DVDs sealed, for similar dirt-cheap prices as SotN and FFVII, is a damn similar find. Maybe even more impressive considering the difference in technology between those 13 years.

Yeah, no that didn't happen. K-Mart having random copies of old games made available for sale during liquidation? Absolutely. But something like FF7 or Symphony of the Night? No. K-Mart buying used games and creating their own UPCs? No, that wasn't a thing. Those stores aren't franchised, they don't have individual store owners that could freely implement such a thing, that would be a corporate mandate that went company-wide. Unless you have some sort of evidence showing otherwise? 

And you are missing the point as to why your comparison fails. The issue isn't that you found uncommon games or movies years after their release still sealed. The issue is the difference in where you found them and stating that the situations were exact. Long sold-out and out-of-print games being made available for sale at a store's liquidation 7 years after not being available for sale at retail stores? No, that is nowhere close to the same thing as finding sealed DVDs at a used media store.  

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