Good collector's guides

[Trench]

I want to know what the best ones are and where I can get them.

 

All systems.

 

Accurate as of 06', perhaps the 07 edition if it's out.

[Shawn]

1

[Trench]

Could you be a little more specific?

[Shawn]

Could you be a little more specific?

 

 

I mean I want to know what guides are good ones to get also

[Trench]

Hell you make some games that are collector items, thought you for sure would have a guide.

 

I know one day I will regret only getting $70 for Skate or Die #20.

[rustblackend]

There is video collector magazine which has a price guide in it http://www.vgcollector.com/ some of it is off but most price guides are. I got issue 6 at blockbuster

[Zwackery]

No offense to VGC, as I am a paid subscriber, but many of their prices for classic systems are the same as what appears in the DPG, which you can search online for free (and yes, I own the print copies of the DPG, too). I think they do slightly better with contemporary consoles, but my gut feeling is that they don't stray too far from the databases that EB Games/GameStop/et al use. The Official Price Guide to Classic Video Games: Console, Arcade, and Handheld Games by David Ellis is rather poor from a price guide perspective (and a so-so visual reference book) and Highland Dynamics Inc. put out a Video Game Price Guide in 2003, 2004, and 2005, but I have not bought any of those (although you can get any of these books on amazon.com).

 

Since the video game market can fluctuate more than the comic book market, generating printed guides is a cumbersome, laborious task with not much payoff unless you build in a strong historical component, or game-related articles, or some other features that make it worthwhile. The price on loose 2600 carts has fallen off a lot this year, while mid-rarity boxed carts has gone up, pretty much all boxed Colecovision titles have taken a major leap up in price, and Vectrex cart prices have fallen considerably in the last year or so, and that's just the classic era systems I track. Generally, SMS and Genesis games seem to have gone down, and I expect a serious catalog dump of PS2 and GC titles beginning now.

 

I think that you'll get a far better indicator of the value of games by watching the long market changes in eBay, staying on top of what the video game stores (brick & mortar as well as virtual) sell new and used titles (of all eras) for, and reading around in various forums, all of which is a more time-consuming process than flipping open a book. I still get guides just because they are gaming-related, but I don't feel that there is any sort of definitive guide out there.

[udisi]

I'm actually working on personal one myself covering 25 systems, and yes it is a long and frustrating process. If it was my job to research pricing it's be a liitle better, but as video games are a hobby, the time needed for a task of this nature can be hard to come by.

 

Other problems arise with specific systems such as the pre crash systems in the fact that for the most part are harder to come by locally, and usually found in garage sales, goodwil, etc. Just cause you fouund a quadrun at a garage sale for 25c doesn't mean that's it's market value. Thus you turn to ebay completed auctions and message boards, which do give you a descent average to work with. The problem with ebay and such though is that it can takes years to get enough completed auctions to have a good representitive price on pre-crash games. For example, put coleco in ebay and you get 300 results, put nes and you get nearly 20,000. Even pricing colecovision R2's can be hard if only 2 sell and one sold for 3.99+ Shipping and anther sold for .99. Intellivsion is much like this also. Odyessy 2 is worse yet as most games are sold in lots, as opposed to singlely.

 

Another major problem that arises is variations, the 2600 has a lot of variations, and there is a market for major variations. The question though comes down to which to include/exclude and being able to research them indepently.

 

As opposed to previously published guides, I've been attempting to also lists prices for complete games, which has made my attempt at a guide even harder, in that I've had to research which games came with overlays, etc and also run into the pre-crash problem again. Will all complete copies of Gust Buster go for $230? or will it be $100 next time or $500?....these games just don't come up very often in this condition.

 

Overall, I've been working on this for 4-5 years and I have be able to pinned down most titles pretty well, but even in the time since I started collecting data, I've had to revise my pricing(granted it's easier to reivse then to research from scratch).

 

For guides out there, Atariage, seems to be the best for atari rarity, (Granted not perfect_ big props to the variation attention, digital press is probably the most complete for all systems, though their Turbo Grafx section seems terribly priced to me. (Their online guide has adjusted these a bit). I applaude Video Game Collector for attempting to do this monthly, though it seems that not all the games or systems are researched monthly.

There is a new SNES guide available from snescentral.com, that is pretty good (released 8/2006)

 

Ideally I think a yearly publication would surfice, whith multiple people each concentrating on a specific system or systems using a common research method. Until then, Atariage, Digitpress, VGC, internet guides, adn personal research is the best you can hope for.

Edited November 22, 2006 by udisi

[Shawn]

Hell you make some games that are collector items, thought you for sure would have a guide.

 

I know one day I will regret only getting $70 for Skate or Die #20.

 

 

Seeing as any games I have made that have sold on the open market lately have gone for a minimum of $100+ I guess the masses agree with you on that.