People Selling Their Collections

[gf78]

Agh....I know!  I've passed over so many games and re-bought so many others because the condition wasn't up to snuff for me.  Final Fantasy VII?  Has to be black label, mint condition, first print with the error on the back or nothing!  If normal folks could only understand the pain of OCD freaks like me...

Exactly I can't stand 'greatest hits', 'platinum' and the like. Has to be original release. Games like Final Fantasy VII are so annoying; those multi disk cases are so fragile and so difficult to find replacement parts for. I'm on my third attempt to get a copy of Koudelka as the copies always seem to have broken disk holders. The last copy I got was perfect but it got damaged on route as the seller never put bubble wrap in between the holders; I just bought another copy and the seller has agreed to put bubble wrap in so I'm praying it survives the journey.

Ebay drives me mad. I love a seller who takes good pics of both sides of a case, the inside of the case, both sides of the manual and the disk. That's my kind of seller as I can study condition. However most people use stock photos or just take pictures of the case or the disk. So frustrating 

I have a set of pics I always take.  Front, back and inside.  I have a lot of trouble trying to get the disc bottom to come out, trying to show any defects like scratches.  I never can get a good pic of that.   

[atrumlupus]

I usually downsize about once a year. Since I buy a lot at flea markets, local FB groups, and other resale shops. I usually end up with a lot of filler that needs to be pruned through. Since the only system I want a complete set for is Dreamcast, there is a lot of stuff I get in lots that is just jank. I get good trade bait too but I still end up with a lot of crappy licensed games and sports games. Since I don't want all that filler for other systems I just sell it off about once or twice a year.

Also a lot of PS1 filler is bought purely to rehab game cases for PS1/Dreamcast games I like more. It's not orginal but it is as close as Im gonna get with some games.

As for reprints like Players's Choice, Greatest Hits, Platinum, etc. I don't personally mind as long as it is CIB. I just want a good play copy that looks nice on the shelf. Like my FFVII is a greatest hits copy. I don't personally mind. It works and plays and is CIB. I won't even replace it with a black label on the cheap because a black label FFVII is so sought after I can just trade out the black Label version for another game I am looking for and I'll get a better trade with the black label version.

[kashell]

So I'm just curious as to other people's input on this. How do you feel when you see someone selling their collection? Have you sold a large chunk of your collection before? Why did you do it? Do you regret it?

When I see someone selling their collection, I'm interested in their reasoning. If the reason is because "life happens" then, my feelings range from sympathetic to hopeful. It shows a level of responsibility that other people don't have. Of course, I feel for them because they have to stop or put on hold something that they enjoy doing so much. Of course, if their reason is because they want to get rich quick or something lame, I get slightly annoyed.

I've never sold a large chunk of my collection before, but I have sold anywhere from 1 to 15 games at a time by foolishly taking them to Game Stop or a mom n' pop game store. The only thing I regret about doing that is not taking the time to see if another collector or a friend would have enjoyed them. The game could have gone to a better home. Instead, it ended up being traded for "credit" at some store, most of which were ran by a bunch of wage slaves that lacked any sort of passion for gaming.

[sworddude]

Agh....I know!  I've passed over so many games and re-bought so many others because the condition wasn't up to snuff for me.  Final Fantasy VII?  Has to be black label, mint condition, first print with the error on the back or nothing!  If normal folks could only understand the pain of OCD freaks like me...

Exactly I can't stand 'greatest hits', 'platinum' and the like. Has to be original release. Games like Final Fantasy VII are so annoying; those multi disk cases are so fragile and so difficult to find replacement parts for. I'm on my third attempt to get a copy of Koudelka as the copies always seem to have broken disk holders. The last copy I got was perfect but it got damaged on route as the seller never put bubble wrap in between the holders; I just bought another copy and the seller has agreed to put bubble wrap in so I'm praying it survives the journey.

Aren't ps1 cases pretty easily replaced? I mean seriously I'm also from pal regions and I can just remove the inserts and place them in a perfect box of a bad game. Even the multidiscs ones are easily replaced.

Also as condition goes for non cardboard released games I usually satisfy for excellent upwards condition with minimal light scratches on the discs.

Mint condition especially for ps1 is nearly impossible and it basicly means that you can pretty much never play the games since some small scratches will come eventually if you play the game allot or by accident. If you want something to be close to 100% mint only factory sealed will do. Personally nothing is mint in my book learn to accept it. I find that people use the word mint way to easy on thing that are clearly not mint at all.

One annoying thing I find for ps1 games is that the sides sometimes for some reason are not perfectly straight when holding it in the light. Like people touched the back inlay and creased it a little those are annoying things.

White scuffs on ps2 artwork along with it being way to dented is also a true pain.

The box is one thing that has to be near perfect for me in the very least no white scuffs and pretty much not dented.

Discs can be excellent upwards, mint is not possible when you use them. ps3 upwards discs are way stronger than the older discs and pretty much not scratch.

[kmacdw]

Agh....I know!  I've passed over so many games and re-bought so many others because the condition wasn't up to snuff for me.  Final Fantasy VII?  Has to be black label, mint condition, first print with the error on the back or nothing!  If normal folks could only understand the pain of OCD freaks like me...

Exactly I can't stand 'greatest hits', 'platinum' and the like. Has to be original release. Games like Final Fantasy VII are so annoying; those multi disk cases are so fragile and so difficult to find replacement parts for. I'm on my third attempt to get a copy of Koudelka as the copies always seem to have broken disk holders. The last copy I got was perfect but it got damaged on route as the seller never put bubble wrap in between the holders; I just bought another copy and the seller has agreed to put bubble wrap in so I'm praying it survives the journey.

Aren't ps1 cases pretty easily replaced? I mean seriously I'm also from pal regions and I can just remove the inserts and place them in a perfect box of a bad game. Even the multidiscs ones are easily replaced.

Single PS1 boxes aren't hard to replace but I find multi-disk boxes are. We only have one retro store here and it's not great for condition; and anyways the only multidisc games they tend to stock are FF titles which are never cheap. And in terms of shopping online, I never find many multidisc cases that are in good condition and the ones I do come across are attached to expensive titles. Ha enlighten me if you can on any PAL 4 disk game that's common and cheap; I'll be indebted to you as it'll save me heartache in the future.

[sworddude]

Agh....I know!  I've passed over so many games and re-bought so many others because the condition wasn't up to snuff for me.  Final Fantasy VII?  Has to be black label, mint condition, first print with the error on the back or nothing!  If normal folks could only understand the pain of OCD freaks like me...

Exactly I can't stand 'greatest hits', 'platinum' and the like. Has to be original release. Games like Final Fantasy VII are so annoying; those multi disk cases are so fragile and so difficult to find replacement parts for. I'm on my third attempt to get a copy of Koudelka as the copies always seem to have broken disk holders. The last copy I got was perfect but it got damaged on route as the seller never put bubble wrap in between the holders; I just bought another copy and the seller has agreed to put bubble wrap in so I'm praying it survives the journey.

Aren't ps1 cases pretty easily replaced? I mean seriously I'm also from pal regions and I can just remove the inserts and place them in a perfect box of a bad game. Even the multidiscs ones are easily replaced.

Single PS1 boxes aren't hard to replace but I find multi-disk boxes are. We only have one retro store here and it's not great for condition; and anyways the only multidisc games they tend to stock are FF titles which are never cheap. And in terms of shopping online, I never find many multidisc cases that are in good condition and the ones I do come across are attached to expensive titles. Ha enlighten me if you can on any PAL 4 disk game that's common and cheap; I'll be indebted to you as it'll save me heartache in the future.

that's true I usually buy my games in lots so spare cases cost me nothing at all. I see your point when buying a single game just for the purpose of replacing can be expensive. Wanted to do that as well in my beginning collecting years but realised It's to expensive and tried to get perfect boxes along the way when buying lots. Never started doing it just picking spare part in excellent shape from the bad titles since people will not pay more for bad games even if in better boxes.

Some versions of Destruction derby, tomb raider and riven are example games with multi disc cases wich aren't to expensive in my country. Also sometimes

Also when you come across metal gear solid in a set also a chance to get a nice condition multi box, You can just sell the game in the slightly worse condition box since valuewise it will barely make a difference.. You could do the same thing with koudelka.

Also keep in mind that you can remove and replace the back and front inlay so only the middle inlay needs to fit 2 discs.

Also if you don't mind a ps1 box without a original ps1 sticker you could go to a thrift store and grab yourselves a 4 disc cd music set for around 50 cents. Not to rare and It's the exact same box that ps1 games use aside for the sticker

[desocietas]

Ha enlighten me if you can on any PAL 4 disk game that's common and cheap; I'll be indebted to you as it'll save me heartache in the future.

Hm, not sure how PAL cases are. But for NA cases, for the most part it's a multi-disk jewel case, and I go to a thrift store to find good condition CD cases that help replace broken parts. I've been able to find CD cases of operas and other things that are cheap and probably not anything anyone would miss.

If only the part with the disc holder is cracked, those are easy to remove and replace without replacing the whole case.

[sworddude]

Ha enlighten me if you can on any PAL 4 disk game that's common and cheap; I'll be indebted to you as it'll save me heartache in the future.

Hm, not sure how PAL cases are. But for NA cases, for the most part it's a multi-disk jewel case, and I go to a thrift store to find good condition CD cases that help replace broken parts. I've been able to find CD cases of operas and other things that are cheap and probably not anything anyone would miss.

If only the part with the disc holder is cracked, those are easy to remove and replace without replacing the whole case.

Same goes for us with one small difference.

We have a sony ps1 sticker in one corner. Allot of early pal ps1 games including multicase versions did not have this sticker. Pretty much every ps1 game has this sticker. It looks nice but finding a genuine replacement isn't that easy by just buying one game or cd case.

[Warmsignal]

It's a shame when you see someone selling a collection, but if they've lost interest or need to sell it due to personal reasons then it's understandable.

Something that I do find weird though, and I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced it, is that some people I subscribe to on Youtube sell and restart collections all the time. Like, they'll have one collection, sell it, start another one, then sell that one and restart a collection of the console they first sold, then sell that one and restart buying the other one again. Some of the people do the process over and over, and I don't get it. Fair enough, they've got their reasons and it's nothing to do with me, but some times I feel like people are forcing themselves to enjoy collecting, when perhaps they just need a break from it all for a while.

Yes, I've seen that before, and particularly with one channel I've followed for years. The guy will sell off a bulk of his games - a year later he's like "why did I do that?" and re-buys them at a higher price, then sells off some other games - a year later he's like... "why did I do that?" and re-buys those ones again. Then those games he re-bought the year before he sells off again and... you get the idea. Drives me nuts. If you like the game just keep it!

There is one YTer that thinned his collection down with a three criteria guide that I liked a lot, and it was something like... 1 - Am I ever going to play this again? 2 - Did I enjoy this game at all? 3 - Does the game mean anything to me outside of just the gameplay (for example nostalgia, sentimentality, collection goal)?

If you can answer yes to any of those, keep it. If you can't, then chuck it.

[kamikazekeeg]

I've never had a huge collection of games, but a few times over the past 8 or so years, I've spent a lot of time trying to find whatever I could cheap and pick up some other old stuff for fun, but ended up getting rid of them.  I've just pruned my collection a good bit recently outside of some stuff I really want as I'm trying to focus solely on my Zelda collection now.  That's more than enough right for me now since a lot of it is done and I'm mostly just needing to get boxed versions of things.  None of it was super rare, so if I ever get to the point that I can comfortably expand my collecting habits, I'll be able to do so.

[maximo310]

A few months back, I realized that I had some bad Wii/ps2 shovelware ( stuff i found for $1 mostly) that I wanted to get rid of. So I donated most of it to Goodwill, used the spare Wii cases for housing my rarer disk only Wii games, and got a bit more space from offloading about 100 items or so.

[atarileaf]

I may be one of the old timers who has been collecting, on and off, for about 24 years, starting in 1992. In that time span I've bought and sold two MASSIVE collections consisting mostly of pre-crash systems. I sold my first entire collection in 1996. I started collecting again in 2000 and sold that entire collection in 2005. I regretted getting rid of everything shortly after both sell-offs.

I started in 2008 on my third collection, this time vowing to just buy games and systems I enjoyed but also to not sell it all again. That first part, about only buying games and systems I enjoyed, lasted about a year. In 2009 I started making youtube videos (which I haven't done for several months now) and getting reactions to people watching my pickup videos encouraged to buy anything and everything just to make some damn pickup videos. Around late 2011 and early 2012 I took stock of my collection and how it was getting so out of control, how I had so much fluff and shelf filler, most of which I NEVER played, and I started a big purge of all those systems and games I didn't play. I did a similar but smaller purge in the summer of 2014.

As of yet, I really don't regret anything I've gotten rid of and I think THAT is a testament to how much of my collection was really unneeded and unwanted.  I am glad I've made videos over the years as I still have a record of my collection at various points over the years, at least of this third collection. I wish I would have taken more pictures and videos in the 90's and early 2000's when I was hunting regularly, during those first two collections when it practically rained classic video games, before ebay and resellers. I had some finds, the quality and quantity of which would make your head spin. Think of what Flea gets x 10. I'd regularly come home from yard saling with several boxes and garbage bags full of pre-crash games and systems and most of the time I never spent more than 30 or 40 bucks. Not joking.

[burningdoom]

Never mind, this post was going off subject.

[olly88]

Yes, I've seen that before, and particularly with one channel I've followed for years. The guy will sell off a bulk of his games - a year later he's like "why did I do that?" and re-buys them at a higher price, then sells off some other games - a year later he's like... "why did I do that?" and re-buys those ones again. Then those games he re-bought the year before he sells off again and... you get the idea. Drives me nuts. If you like the game just keep it!

That describes almost exactly one person who I'm subscribed to.

I've thought that maybe some people prefer the process of finding/buying games over anything else (which is really fun to be fair), and in the back of their minds it makes them want to do all this.

[turf]

It would hurt me to see someone have some sort of tragedy come up, and that cause them to have to sell out.  Giving up something you love sucks. 
On the other hand, if you someone just lost interest or had a moment of clarity; I'll happily buy them out.  I'm a little bit of a piece of shit though.  I'll take a deal from anyone. 

I've considered selling out in the last year or so.  Life came up, and other things were more important.  It wasn't the money.  It was more of the lack of room, lack of desire, and the high prices.  I could make a small fortune if I sold out while prices are high. 

I've also considered downsizing my collection.  In fact, someone that I may or may not have been married to helped me pair it down quite a bit.  I was relieved of my Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, Genesis, and Virtual Boy collections.  It works out though.  I didn't care about the pre-crash stuff.  I only want some of the Genesis stuff back.  The Virtual Boy missing pisses me off. I nearly had a full set and my virtual boy was in a Blockbuster rental box.  That's not something you see every day. 

TL;DR  It depends on why the person is selling out.