Premium for higher grade games

You have a MM2 that is VGA 85, right? What is not mint about it? My 85s are mint.

We are the collectors, there are 800 registered users on this website and its the one and only site dedicated to sealed games only (Thank you Pascal and others!!!!). If your "collectors that you deal with" sell you games alot cheaper in better condition, why wouldnt they just sell on ebay if they can make THAT much more? Your argument is ridiculous and false. Please prove me wrong by posting your collection with pictures in the above forums, I am under the impression you just started collecting.

There may be 800 registered users, but by my count there are only a dozen or so people who regularly post. You may not understand this, but not everyone who collects sealed games visits forums or this forum in particular. In fact, a few of the folks I regularly trade with visited this forum once and never came back because they thought it was too focused on grading and buying and reselling on Ebay which a lot of old school collectors don't agree with.

Another thing you may not understand is that not everyone collects to make money. Like a lot of collectors, I make a very good living and I'm not really looking to sell stuff to the highest bidder. This is my hobby, if I need some extra money, I know how to make it without selling stuff on Ebay. I like trading and building my collection or finding stuff at a discount rather than spending ridiculous amounts of money on Ebay. If I find a good stock of harder to find items, I will help other collectors to get them at the same price I paid for mine. They often do the same for me. That's what being friends with fellow collectors is all about. I'm not rich by any means, but there are some collectors I deal with who are and they are always looking for bargains. I guess that's how they stay rich.

At some point I will post some photos, although with over 15,000 items in the collection, a lot of it is boxed and catalogued at this point and would require a little bit of effort to get out and photograph. The "1997" is the year I registered that user name, not my birthdate. If you do a Google newsgroup search, you will see that I was posting on video game collecting newsgroups since the infancy of the Internet. If anything, you guys are the newbies since I have never seen most of you before this site got going a year ago.

In closing, I'm not trying to be critical of what you're doing here, only pointing out that there are alternatives to Ebay and competing with one another and causing prices to continue to become artificially inflated. I think it would be nice if everyone here started looking out for one another and tried to help the others find those items they have been searching for rather than just looking to cash in. That's all I was saying.

I apologize for my previous comment.

I agree that we should look out for eachother but I dont think that will happen.

Games are not artificially inflated by any means. Just like any collectors item (G.I. Joe, stamps, star wars action figures) they get used and thrown out. The longer you wait the more they get opened, played with, and get rare. I have gotten two of my friends into sealed collecting and it has caught on fast.

Hope to see the collection, its good to hear there are collectors that arent in it for the money.

Can't even imagine what a collection of 15k would entail. Truly amazing.

bojay1997 wrote:
There may be 800 registered users, but by my count there are only a dozen or so people who regularly post. You may not understand this, but not everyone who collects sealed games visits forums or this forum in particular. In fact, a few of the folks I regularly trade with visited this forum once and never came back because they thought it was too focused on grading and buying and reselling on Ebay which a lot of old school collectors don't agree with.

Another thing you may not understand is that not everyone collects to make money. Like a lot of collectors, I make a very good living and I'm not really looking to sell stuff to the highest bidder. This is my hobby, if I need some extra money, I know how to make it without selling stuff on Ebay. I like trading and building my collection or finding stuff at a discount rather than spending ridiculous amounts of money on Ebay. If I find a good stock of harder to find items, I will help other collectors to get them at the same price I paid for mine. They often do the same for me. That's what being friends with fellow collectors is all about. I'm not rich by any means, but there are some collectors I deal with who are and they are always looking for bargains. I guess that's how they stay rich.

At some point I will post some photos, although with over 15,000 items in the collection, a lot of it is boxed and catalogued at this point and would require a little bit of effort to get out and photograph. The "1997" is the year I registered that user name, not my birthdate. If you do a Google newsgroup search, you will see that I was posting on video game collecting newsgroups since the infancy of the Internet. If anything, you guys are the newbies since I have never seen most of you before this site got going a year ago.

In closing, I'm not trying to be critical of what you're doing here, only pointing out that there are alternatives to Ebay and competing with one another and causing prices to continue to become artificially inflated. I think it would be nice if everyone here started looking out for one another and tried to help the others find those items they have been searching for rather than just looking to cash in. That's all I was saying.

You are absolutely right on most accounts. This forum is mostly full of two-faced scavengers. On the outside, they are friendly, they point the finger at resellers, but it's too hypocritical when you go and do the same thing. Games get bought not because of any sentimental value, but only because other collectors think they are good, and the fact that they actually want the game for collection purposes get's taken advantage of. I myself have regrettably fallen into such activity as well as a result of spending too much time on these forums, making impulse buys of games just because I thought it was a good deal, when really I have never played the game before, and I do really regret it now.

And you're right it absolutely does inflate game prices when half of the bidders are trying to buy the game and flip it for a little bit of profit, rather than keep it for their own collection. If resellers didn't bid on games I could definitely see prices going right down.

Ideally, collectors would try to help eachother out rather than rip eachother off. But the amount of greed I see from most users on these forums is just un-measurable, hate to say it. Only a few people on this forum are actually willing to lend a helping hand. If you were to announce on here a desire for a certain game, I'm sure 90% would find one and resell it to you at price + 50% rather than tell you where to get it yourself. I would love to know what community you are a part of.

On the other hand, you say you only do this as a hobby, and yet your collection exceeds 15,000+ items? Where do you even fit all those games?

rarebucky wrote:

Startyde wrote:

rarebucky wrote:Maybe if you tried out the service you'd have a different opinion. Their grades are VERY consistent.

That's the problem. Everyone and their mother gets 80-85. Might as well go back to just saying "Mint."

That's not true. You might think that because the ones people send to get graded are really only mint condition games, but I have a few 75s and they are very nice as well. The average sealed game you see on ebay would get you around a 70. People won't send in games to get graded that have severe flaws. 85 is dead mint.

Well why the hell have 95 and 100 when you never ever intend to give one out? Is it some ridiculous way of showing that they are super-picky? Why not rebalance the grading system and make 90=100, 85=95 and so forth? This stupid site reminds me of my worthless english and social science teachers, never giving more than 85 on an essay or paper, because "You can never be perfect at english", and not a damn thing you can do about it. Why? Because the entire grading system is subjective (unlike math or science), just like VGA's rating scale. There is no "perfect".

Yes, i already said it earlier. If grading should exist then it must be simplified greatly. Not 85, 95 and so on. 1-10 that's it. SImple numbers - 4,5,6,7. If you add 4.7 or 3.8 you add your own skepticism and subjectiveness! Which i think only makes mess and fools people. Grading should be a CLEAR, simple service. A service! Not a group of geeks with their own crap on their minds.

lol

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-SUPER-MARIO-SUNSHINE-GAME-CUBE-VGA-GRADED-90_W0QQitemZ200282730063QQihZ010QQcategoryZ139973QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Yes i saw it. Simply stupid

This grading business has to be the stupidest thing to happen to our hobby. It's artificially inflating prices on some of the most common sealed games. That's the funny part. My criteria for buying games are (their new and unopened I'm not too fussy as long as it's not crushed, or anything major to the plastic. Allot of people buy games that they loved as kids or young adults, and that's who's going to get screwed if this takes off (which I don't think it will) thank god there are some sensibly priced games on ebay.