The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, Wata Graded 9.8 A+, Nintendo DS

[silentshadow56]

Looking to sell Wata Graded The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the Nintendo DS

 

9.8 A+, As close to perfect as you can get without actually being perfect...

 

Asking  $1,000

[jesusc]

Lol

[cvgplus]

I'm not a sealed game collector at all. But in seriousness if someone was: what is the major difference between a 9.4 sealed WATA for 299, 9.6 for 499 or just buying a sealed copy on Ebay for 120 for Canada location, 155 for another US seller on Ebay, and then sending it in to be graded for like 50 dollars and then maybe having a high rating. These are DS games with hard cases not cardboard boxes which I agree would make a huge difference in comparison to NES, Snes, Atari, etc. As long as the celluphane was pristine, it seems like all would be a pretty high rating. I am not trying to s..t on your fs thread but the price seems way out there and just trying to see what I am missing. I see you have yours on Ebay for 1100 obo and seems like a huge difference between the 9 ratings.

[DNA128k]

41 minutes ago, cvgplus said:

I'm not a sealed game collector at all. But in seriousness if someone was: what is the major difference between a 9.4 sealed WATA for 299, 9.6 for 499 or just buying a sealed copy on Ebay for 120 for Canada location, 155 for another US seller on Ebay, and then sending it in to be graded for like 50 dollars and then maybe having a high rating. These are DS games with hard cases not cardboard boxes which I agree would make a huge difference in comparison to NES, Snes, Atari, etc. As long as the celluphane was pristine, it seems like all would be a pretty high rating. I am not trying to s..t on your fs thread but the price seems way out there and just trying to see what I am missing. I see you have yours on Ebay for 1100 obo and seems like a huge difference between the 9 ratings.

WATA was caught engaging in market / price manipulation, they're not a trustworthy entity.

[Shawn]

18 hours ago, silentshadow56 said:

Looking to sell Wata Graded The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the Nintendo DS

 

9.8 A+, As close to perfect as you can get without actually being perfect...

 

Asking  $1,000

 

Wrong forum for this kinda BS, Champ.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, silentshadow56 said:

9.8 A+, As close to perfect as you can get without actually being perfect...

of course... that would be the legend of zelda the phantom hourglass...😁 while not 100% perfect, I enjoyed it way more then spirit tracks... 

[silentshadow56]

27 minutes ago, Shawn said:

 

Wrong forum for this kinda BS, Champ.

I'm confused, is this not the marketplace? Where should I try selling it otherwise?

[silentshadow56]

3 minutes ago, Zeptari1 said:

of course... that would be the legend of zelda the phantom hourglass...😁 while not 100% perfect, I enjoyed it way more then spirit tracks... 

That's what everyone keeps telling me. Albeit, to be honest, I remember TRYING to get into this game and something about blowing into the microphone pissed me off to the point that I just couldn't be bothered

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, silentshadow56 said:

I'm confused, is this not the marketplace? Where should I try selling it otherwise?

Sotheby's or maybe Christie's ? But seriously, you'd probably have better luck selling an open complete or loose cart here for a reasonable price here. Crazy, 1K for a game ya can't even play. To each their own.

[+5-11under]

1 hour ago, silentshadow56 said:

I'm confused, is this not the marketplace? Where should I try selling it otherwise?

Not too many people around here are fans of paying $1000 for a ~$100 (or whatever) game.

Not too many people around here are fans of WATA, for several reasons.

 

[+groundtrooper]

1 hour ago, Zeptari1 said:

Sotheby's or maybe Christie's ? But seriously, you'd probably have better luck selling an open complete or loose cart here for a reasonable price here. Crazy, 1K for a game ya can't even play. To each their own.

Or eBay. @silentshadow56 I think what people are trying to day is that the Atari Age forums are not the place to try and sell any graded video games whether they are Atari related or not. 

Most people here are not fans of graded games especially games if they were graded by WATA. 

[+cvga]

Serious question. Since I'm not into the graded scene, are all the grades in even numbers (as in 9.0, 9.2, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8, etc)? Feels like 9.9 would be as close to perfect as you can get without being perfect. 

 

That said, can you tell what makes this a 9.8 vs a 10.0? Do they just give you a grade or do they also point out the flaw?

 

Good luck with your sale

[3DFXgamer]

1k for a game that normally sells for $100 and graded by a fraudulent company sounds like one heck of a deal to me!

[Tanooki]

14 hours ago, cvga said:

Serious question. Since I'm not into the graded scene, are all the grades in even numbers (as in 9.0, 9.2, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8, etc)? Feels like 9.9 would be as close to perfect as you can get without being perfect. 

 

That said, can you tell what makes this a 9.8 vs a 10.0? Do they just give you a grade or do they also point out the flaw?

 

Good luck with your sale

The problem is, even if you take the sketch value of WATA out of it since they're repeat offenders in deceit and manipulation, comes down to some very very nearly impossible to see things, and worse yet, the number assigned isn't hard it's still fuzzy.  Yes they have some guides to use and unlike VGA(for years) actually made the guide public which is less shady, but in the end, it's opinion not fact based and that's the problem.

 

Let's say you have a panel of 3 people, there aren't jsut 3 who grade at the company, many groups of 3 or a mix of 3 that spread by the day/title that comes down the pipe.  If one group of 3 sees a tiny smudge they may feel this smudge is worth .2 off, but another group of three may feel the smudge is worth .3 or .4 off.  That's HUGE to these nutter investors in it for the money and prestige of it.  A simple tenth of a point can make a difference of hundreds or thousands of dollars, in extreme cases tens of thousands of dollars.  A common thing going back to VGA was to not agree with the trio of heads on a title, so you re-submit, maybe once, maybe twice, because you feel you know better and eventually you'll get a group of 3 who thing you're right, it IS a 9.8 and not a 9.6.  Suddenly you dropped another $500 in re-submission fees and months of time, but your game went from being worth $10000 (9.6) to $40000 (9.8.)

 

Does this seem fair to you (or anyone) reading this?  The thing is, largely it's an unregulated racket.  There are some harder firm set of rules that actual mature things use with sports cards, comics, coinage.  But with this new thing in the last 10 years of games having it, there has been a lot of smoke and mirrors, far too much inconsistency(not that the others don't have screw ups, but they're fewer and far between to exist as anomalies) to trust this junk.  Yet some do.  Why?  Money.  Those who have deep pockets can invest in these, grade or get them already graded, and then use them as investment property and prestige art like a nice painting or something of the sort.  The difference here is, we're not talking like a limited set of Van Gogh pieces which have millions of matte, repainted, or photo copies to an original with real value.  These are mass run consumer items and they're being treated the same, and having a blow back effect of fucking up the values of every other sealed, complete and even loose pieces of games because of utter greed and manipulation.

 

if you want to know how truly and utterly slimy and caught in criminal activity WATA and his shitbag founder member Halperin have been caught up in for decades now Karl Jobst did a fantastic expose and follow ups, so well researched, so evenly done that multiple lawyers have been using the research to start up class actions against WATA/Halperin over it due to the details honestly dug up that are into the irrefutable territory.  Halperin himself had an over million dollar fine slapped on him in the 80s for doing what he's doing NOW to video games for being a scummy manipulative thief.

 

Start here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A and follow with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKbuNwS-gaI

 

Neither are short but need to be watched/listened to when you have the time.  There has been some push back from some coin whoring losers on youtube trying to make up provable lies about these videos to try and protect their own asses investments, yet despite this it continues, and the last post in July 2022 shows this info was solid enough to take these pricks to actual court and that video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMtjl0O2a4Q

 

[mutil8]

nice. I had watched his first video some time ago, which forever kept the name of heritage auctions in the back of my head. Nice to see there is legal action being taking now against them and wata.

Be even nicer if the feds go after those trashbags. Seems like a constant stream of scammers these days. 

[ColecoGamer]

Unfortunately, anything graded by WATA is considered worthless after they were caught manipulating the market. 

[Moriya]

Unfortunately, they are still being used on the places like eBay which makes people all over the Internet think they can cash in on that unboxed Mario 64s.

[Cebus Capucinis]

Unpopular opinion time: whether for legitimate reasons or not, I think it's in pretty poor form to go into sale threads and talk about how items are overpriced or "rip-offs," so to speak, absent outright fraud on the part of a member, which should be reported to the moderators. Is WATA itself a scam? Maybe (or definitely), but it's not like this is a fake sale or fraudulent post - both of which would justify alerting other members.

 

"I don't think it's worth what you're asking" is grounds to quietly move along or haggle, preferably via PM. The market will correct itself, and the item won't sell or the price will be adjusted accordingly. If some other "sucker" wants to buy it at the price people think is too high, that's on them, and I hope they enjoy their "overpriced" item.

 

And I say that as a WATA hater. Nobody else would want a group in their sale thread questioning the price point and indirectly telling others to not buy.

 

Now don't mind me, putting this thread on ignore to avoid the inevitable arguments in response / righteous indignation. Good luck with your sale, whatever the price point, if you find a buyer!

[jesusc]

I think it’s good form for a forum to protect others from buying magic beans. 
 

I’d be real sad if this place, like so many others, turned into a dumping ground for sellers to list hilariously overpriced items hoping someone with more money than sense comes along. “It’s on them” is a crappy life view. 

I’m not saying we need a seller police to make sure every one is playing fair, but in an extreme case such as this the rare occurrence of the community speaking out is warranted.

 

Now don't mind me, putting this thread on ignore to avoid the inevitable arguments in response / righteous indignation because I’m a narcissist that believes my opinion is unflappable so any dissension isn’t worth viewing let alone considering. 

 
 

 

[bubufubu]

5 hours ago, jesusc said:

I think it’s good form for a forum to protect others from buying magic beans. 
 

I’d be real sad if this place, like so many others, turned into a dumping ground for sellers to list hilariously overpriced items hoping someone with more money than sense comes along. “It’s on them” is a crappy life view. 

I’m not saying we need a seller police to make sure every one is playing fair, but in an extreme case such as this the rare occurrence of the community speaking out is warranted.

 

Now don't mind me, putting this thread on ignore to avoid the inevitable arguments in response / righteous indignation because I’m a narcissist that believes my opinion is unflappable so any dissension isn’t worth viewing let alone considering. 

 

Very well put.  Thank you.

[silentshadow56]

SOLD

[+OLD CS1]

On 1/2/2023 at 5:15 PM, Cebus Capucinis said:

Now don't mind me, putting this thread on ignore to avoid the inevitable arguments in response / righteous indignation.

Another opinion which will apparently be unpopular: it is pretty bad form to lob a turd bomb into a thread, then set the thread on ignore for the inevitable arguments to your point.

[bubufubu]

2 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

Another opinion which will apparently be unpopular: it is pretty bad form to lob a turd bomb into a thread, then set the thread on ignore for the inevitable arguments to your point.

 

It's a cowardly, self-involved, indifference to the whole matter.  I prefer the company of people who enjoy looking out for their fellow man.  Not everyone has the wisdom, hopefully, gained from experience.  People who enjoy marking up their products to an astronomical price aren't helping and deserve to be called out when they do.  There's more to life than free enterprise and money.  A lot more.

[Keatah]

Well it's been sold. No one is really paying attention to the WATA scams..

[mutil8]

On 1/4/2023 at 10:38 PM, Keatah said:

Well it's been sold. No one is really paying attention to the WATA scams..

OK for some reason your post got me thinking. Or maybe its too many late night energy drinks not sure. Anyway "No one is really paying attention to the WATA scams..".

Well, a few are. You are. Other people that posted here are. And thats a good thing. And that leads me to thinking that its a good thing that people brought up the WATA scams here. Not

poor form at all as cebus claims. In fact very good. Because it raises awareness. Maybe, just maybe, some person who considered buying this graded game and read these posts got a little more educated.

Maybe that person decided he better research WATA a little more before he buys puts any more cash into their graded product. Maybe he decided to discuss this with his friend who also buys games.

 

On a side note I remember months ago approaching a man I know through business, who happens to collect video games. Asked him if he had seen the video about WATA on youtube or was aware of the

relationships between WATA and heritage auctions. He mumbled something about not knowing about it and didnt even seem interested.  I sure hope he doesnt have a collection of WATA graded products.