Appraisal of old games

[raph]

I have recently inherited several boxes of old games from my uncle, who as it turns out to be a bit of a game collector. Mostly it seems to be old playstation games and nintendo games but also some for more obscure consoles. It comes to around two rather large boxes of games and consoles. My question is; is there a good/trustworthy place to get this collection appraised if I end up wanting to sell it?

[llj]

The best appraiser is yourself. You'll either be way off or you'll find some shmuck out there who will overpay for something.

Seriously though, you could go to a bunch of places and get a different opinion in every one.

Best to look at every game yourself and check its market price online. Decide for yourself its condition and then make up your mind on what you want for it.

[spanky]

Cool - one of the best hauls I ever had was a free box of SNES games from my buddy's stepdad who was throwing them all out. There was stuff like Earthbound and the Final Fantasies in the box. I honestly think that nowadays your best source for retro game hunting is friends and family who might have it just lying around and don't want it anymore.

Anyway, there are sites like Price Charting that you can use to get a rough idea of the value of your games. After that, I always check eBay because you can see what these games actually sold for.

I've never sold "lots" of stuff, but I'm sure you'll get more return if you sell your games individually.

I sold a few games recently and have had luck on eBay - I swear, you can downright fleece people on there. Just look what's on there, and put your game up for a good price. I'm not incredibly patient so I try to undercut everyone else by a few bucks so I can sell faster.

[llj]

Sometimes in ebay auctions I see people bid more for an item when they could get the same item in the same condition for cheaper from another seller selling it at a set price.

I think sometimes it's an ego thing to win an auction.

I wish people would stop giving in to bad instincts and raising the overall market price for items, as a buyer myself.

[Napoli]

Check eBay and make sure you check the box for “sold items” under the filter. This is the best way to get an idea of a value for a game. You will probably end up paying 15% on eBay and PayPal fees if you sell the games on eBay. Can you offer them up here first? I collect games and would love to know what you have.

[spanky]

Nov 7, 2017 22:05:18 GMT -5 llj said:

Sometimes in ebay auctions I see people bid more for an item when they could get the same item in the same condition for cheaper from another seller selling it at a set price.

I think sometimes it's an ego thing to win an auction.

I wish people would stop giving in to bad instincts and raising the overall market price for items, as a buyer myself.

I've heard of this happening but I've never experienced it myself. I'd feel like in most cases, people wouldn't bid over the lowest Buy It Now Price.

The only way I think I'd do an auction is if my game was the only one available currently or say if I had it complete and no one else did.

[surnshurn]

finding prices for this kind of thing really comes down to research. look for collections that people have posted, see how common the particular titles are. depending on how many (say 50+) you could probably automate this process with a bit of coding know-how to save yourself some misery. for the more obscure stuff, get more info into who's collecting and what kind of prices they're expecting. the more information you can gather, the clearer an image you can get and the more accurate picture of how much the titles you have are worth. how much you actually sell them for is up to you.

alternatively you could put them aside and just throw a highball price onto ebay and see who's biting (this is easier if you're evil).

as for the paying more than a "buy now" price on ebay, there's a very real psychological explanation for that - people who pay more, expect more. it's part of the mentality that money has real worth - so if you're paying 70 for a cart instead of 50, you're getting that extra 40% of value in your eyes. you'll feel that much more ego when showing it off. there's also the fact that people respond to "buy now! supplies are limited!" so if their search only results in one hit, they'll go for it in a panic state. because - and let's be honest here - a lot of collectors these day have way more money than they know what to do with, and 20 dollars to one person is 20 cents to the next.

[llj]

Nov 8, 2017 9:47:22 GMT -5 spanky said:

Nov 7, 2017 22:05:18 GMT -5 llj said:

Sometimes in ebay auctions I see people bid more for an item when they could get the same item in the same condition for cheaper from another seller selling it at a set price.

I think sometimes it's an ego thing to win an auction.

I wish people would stop giving in to bad instincts and raising the overall market price for items, as a buyer myself.

I've heard of this happening but I've never experienced it myself. I'd feel like in most cases, people wouldn't bid over the lowest Buy It Now Price.

The only way I think I'd do an auction is if my game was the only one available currently or say if I had it complete and no one else did.

I think at first, nobody intends to bid more than the lowest Buy it Now price. But the last 2 minutes of many auctions can get pretty crazy with members simply trying to one- up the other just to "win". Sometimes rationality goes out the window in that 2 minute span. Also, a lot of people momentarily forget the shipping price, so it seems like you got a deal, but when you factor in the shipping it still ends up the same as a Buy it Now seller.

[raph]

Thanks everybody for your suggestions. Looks like most of it is common games that can probably be sold as a bundle. I will do some research into the other games.