retro video game collection

[bizcakeahoy]

Just curious, as I am married and my wife has been on me about getting rid of it, how is the retro gaming market right now? I have:

NES, complete working system, with games

SNES, complete working, with a lot of games, including Demon's Crest (who would've known this would be my most valuable game)

Sega Genesis, complete working, with games and accessories

TurboGrafx-16, complete working great condition, 4 games

plus a gamecube and a nintendo 64, both complete and working with games. both have damaged controllers.

Thanks for any help.

[haloofthesun]

Are you asking how well these sell and for how much?

You shouldn't have a problem selling any of it. Retro games and consoles have kind of inflated in value, too, so if you do manage to sell all of it, you'd make a pretty good amount. You'd be surprised at how much some games go for.

Retro game collecting is pretty popular these days, unfortunately for us collectors

[bizcakeahoy]

actually it's a complicated subject. I've held on to all my childhood systems for the last 20 years, moving them with me from california to new jersey and back. I haven't really done much with them (aside from my SNES which has always been my favorite), and I just decided maybe it's time to let someone give these things a more fulfilling life.

So my real question is probably what is the state of the market? Is it on the way up? Should I hold on to them for another year, or is the market gonna dip again and I should sell sell sell. Not that any of you are retro gaming stock brokers or anything.

[byron]

The market is, at the moment, hotter than the hinges on the gates to Hell and it's not going anywhere but up for the foreseeable future.

[davifus]

Any chance you'll let us plunge into the collection before stupid resellers get their stupid grubby hand on them?

[badATchaos]

Starting point: videogames.pricecharting.com/

[dashv]

First decide if you really want to get rid of them.

Nothing worse than sellers regret and you might even grow to resent your wife for it. :/

My N64, Super Famicom, and SNES were given to me by folks whose wives demanded that the games go or they would go. One dude was practically in tears saying repeatedly he just wanted it to go to a good home. I honestly felt bad for the guy. Offered him money. He wouldn't take it (He gave me my entire N64 collection with the exception of Lego Racers).

My wife and I happily gave the systems a new home.

Answering your actual question. Prices are trending upwards on all fronts:

Craigslist, Ebay, Yard sales.

If you don't mind limiting your sales radius to local folks, dealing with folks trying to lowball the crap out of you. Awkward in person meetups, etc. Craigslist is okay.

If you want top dollar go the ebay route.

Some tips there:

Selling individually can net you more profit per item. But it can also leave you with a lot of random stuff that no ones really looking for. For example you will never sell your copy of Mario/Duck Hunt by itself.

I'd recommend selling in strategically assembled bundles.

Offer Demons Crest for the currently going buy it now price and toss in Mario/Duck Hunt. You will get the sale over the dude opening and auction on just Demons Crest that won't end for 5 days.

Also be ready for folks to tell you they never got the item, they got the wrong item, item wasn't as described, threatening negative feedback for silly reasons etc. I buy and sell on Ebay all the time but Ebay protects the hell out of the Buyer almost to a fault. And sometimes the buyers take total advantage of sellers.

Lastly there is the marketplace section of the forums here.

Folks here in the forums are looking for a fair deal. You could probably sell a lot of your stuff by opening a for sale thread in the Marketplace section of these forums and you can check out feedback for folks here as well. Everyone I've bought and sold with here dealt with me fairly and was pretty easy to work with via paypal.

Will you get top dollar? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the game. (What do you want for Demons Crest?).

But you will establish a reputation within our community which brings me back to my first point.

Are you getting out of gaming altogether and need the money? Maybe ebays the better option.

Do you want to join our community and establish a reputation within it?

The VGCollect marketplace would be a darn good place to sew those seeds.

[davifus]

First decide if you really want to get rid of them.

Nothing worse than sellers regret and you might even grow to resent your wife for it. :/

My N64, Super Famicom, and SNES were given to me by folks whose wives demanded that the games go or they would go. One dude was practically in tears saying repeatedly he just wanted it to go to a good home. I honestly felt bad for the guy.

My wife and I happily gave the systems a new home.

Answering your actual question. Prices are trending upwards on all fronts:

Craigslist, Ebay, Yard sales.

If you don't mind limiting your sales radius to local folks, dealing with folks trying to lowball the crap out of you. Awkward in person meetups, etc. Craigslist is okay.

If you want top dollar go the ebay route.

Some tips there:

Selling individually can net you more profit per item. But it can also leave you with a lot of random stuff that no ones really looking for. For example you will never sell your copy of Mario/Duck Hunt by itself.

I'd recommend selling in strategically assembled bundles.

Offer Demons Crest for the currently going buy it now price and toss in Mario/Duck Hunt. You will get the sale over the dude opening and auction on just Demons Crest that won't end for 5 days.

Also be ready for folks to tell you they never got the item, they got the wrong item, item wasn't as described, threatening negative feedback for silly reasons etc. I buy and sell on Ebay all the time but Ebay protects the hell out of the Buyer almost to a fault. And sometimes the buyers take total advantage of sellers.

Lastly there is the marketplace section of the forums here.

Folks here in the forums are looking for a fair deal. You could probably sell a lot of your stuff by opening a for sale thread in the Marketplace section of these forums and you can check out feedback for folks here as well. Everyone I've bought and sold with here dealt with me fairly and was pretty easy to work with via paypal.

Will you get top dollar? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the game. (What do you want for Demons Crest?).

But you will establish a reputation within our community which brings me back to my first point.

Are you getting out of gaming altogether and need the money? Maybe ebays the better option.

Do you want to join our community and establish a reputation within it?

The VGCollect marketplace would be a darn good place to sew those seeds.

Well said

10/10

dashv for President

[mastafafik]

Just curious, as I am married and my wife has been on me about getting rid of it, how is the retro gaming market right now?

Bad wife...

[bobster]

Dashv hit it on the head pretty well. Everyone is definitely right about the market being hot, especially for NES and SNES goods. I'm not sure how long the trend will last though. I keep seeing more and more collectors burning out.

[blipcs76]

In my opinion, NES prices are pretty close to peaking and I'd expect prices to start to fall over the next 2-3 years.  Some games, other than the really rare ones have already kind of flattened out over the past year.

SNES, Genesis and TG16 are still growing, but probably won't peak for at least 4-5 years, since the collectors tend to be younger than NES collectors.

[turf]

Have a yard sale. 

By the way, what's your address and what time does the sale start?   

I'm kidding. 

If you want top dollar, go to ebay.  Just be ready to give them 13% plus 3% to paypal. 

If you want to unload it quick, put it on craigslist.  Just meet in a public place.

If you want to be a man, get your balls back out of your lady's purse and play some damn video games.   

[dashv]

Have a yard sale. 

By the way, what's your address and what time does the sale start?   

I'm kidding. 

If you want top dollar, go to ebay.  Just be ready to give them 13% plus 3% to paypal. 

If you want to unload it quick, put it on craigslist.  Just meet in a public place.

If you want to be a man, get your balls back out of your lady's purse and play some damn video games.   

Readers digest condensed version of my post.

Great call on the 13% ebay cut. I totally forgot to mention that.

[byron]

In my opinion, NES prices are pretty close to peaking and I'd expect prices to start to fall over the next 2-3 years.

I envy your optimism.

[bikingjahuty]

In my opinion, NES prices are pretty close to peaking and I'd expect prices to start to fall over the next 2-3 years.

I envy your optimism.

I completely agree with him. Without turning this thread into a discussion about the retro gaming bubble, or more specifically the classic nintendo bubble, this happened with the 2600 back in the mid 2000s, and has happened with many other collectable hobbies. Baseball cards, comics, and toys are just are few collecting markets that have followed the same trajectory as video game collecting and will crash the same.