How long did it take to get full ness collection
For all those who have complete nes collection or near complete nes collection how long did it take to complete. What was the hardest thing about getting it full. How did you go about getting those real rare games like statium events, nintendo world champion ship gray and/gold, and all them other ones. As someone who would like to get more main stream in colletion nes games share some advice.
Comments
As for the rare games, brute force or dumb luck.
If I were you, I would go for the games you like first, then go for sub sets and then for the rare ones. It would suck if you just went for the rarity's and then realize you don't like the hassle of tracking them all down.
Just remember, it isn't a race. Unfortunately I'm still at a stage where I spend many more hours per week collecting than gaming, but the end is in sight for me. Very near my collection goals on all the systems I collect, though backfilling N64 "commons" is a very low priority for me. I can work on that after I've enjoyed my summer outdoors.
Do what makes you happy and don't try to "keep up with the Joneses". We all start somewhere.
During 04-early 06 I didn't have a lot of options locally so I'd pretty much exhausted my resources for finding games in the wild. I wasn't buying any online yet because the shipping was often more than I intended to pay for the whole cart. When I moved at the beginning of 2006, it put me in an area full of new places to go hunting, I also made friends with someone else who had a really big NES collection which got my momentum going again. Then in 2008 I first found Play N' Trade and spent a lot of 08-09 traveling all over the state raiding their inventory until I found my self in the position where the games I was missing were pretty unlikely finds in the wild so I got the rest of them through NA and deals on ebay.
So long story short, by collecting on the cheap I'd say collectively it took me about a decade. I've seen people do in a few months though if they have a big enough disposable income. Personally for me there is some satisfaction to be had spending a long time on it, since so many of the games really aren't that good the thrill is often in the hunt more than anything.
The hardest thing about finishing it up was the 2 year wait for a Stadium Events cart to appear. In my last semester of college, I overslept on a nap through the end of a Stadium Events cart auction that ended for $40. 2 years go by and nothing. Then a cart appears and everyone is frothing at the mouth. I was second or third bidder for the cart which ended at about $350. As it turns out, that same cart would end up in my collection. The guy who bought it by the name of Dan Bloom (long since out of the hobby) ended up selling it to me with a complete copy of DWIII to finish my set for $350. Yes, the next to last game I needed was DWIII. Go figure.
I'd need to dig through my old email account for specifics but here's how I got some of the rarer stuff:
Stadium Events: See above. Thanks to DNG, I got the box for $75 and thanks to Orrimarko (and DNG calling me), the manual for $150.
NWC Grey: I traded a loose Rodland, loose Mr Gimmick (which I got my trading the sealed Uninvited below), boxed Trolls in Crazyland and loose Devil World to EarlyWorm. I have since sold it.
Myriad 6-in-1: I bought Digital Press's sealed copy for $300, which at the time, was a pretty high offer.
Caltron 6-in-1: Sealed copy from orangest for $90.
Cheetahmen II: Sealed copy from Mike Etler for $50 shipped.
Hot Slots: I'll be damned if I can remember, but I bought the box and manual from neschampion for $50.
Bubble Bath Babes: So this lot popped up on eBay. Huge lot, tons of choice stuff including Bubble Bath Babes and Peek A Boo Poker. So I'm like, fuck it, this guy has no clue what he has, lets go balls to the wall and make an offer . I ninja in an offer of $300 and he takes it, I pay shits fast and he pulls it. The lot arrives, the 2 Panesians are complete. Also has a sealed Uninvited, boxed Bonk's Adventure and a whole bunch of nice titles complete, boxed or loose. I probably made back half of that $300 selling stuff I already had.
Peek A Boo Poker: See above.
Flintstones 2: I bought the game boxed from D_N_G as part of a large trade that took us over a year to get off our asses (mostly my ass) to complete. I then bought the manual for $15 shipped off of DP.
When I collected my set, there was more options available, particularly the twilight of Funcoland's life which was just fucking golden for NES and Genesis, especially if you had friends there that would hold stuff for you so it never even made the store shelves >.> and it was easier to score deals. eBay was primarily auctions only so you had better shots at winning stuff as opposed to trying to find fixed price auctions simply because an auction sat for X days while a fixed could last minutes. I'm an old fart, what can I say?
Best advice is to buy bulk lots up front and fill gaps after. 40% of my collection is from two comically oversized lots that I paid $1-$2 shipped per game.
Shipping is your enemy so if you find a good price on a game you want, check their other auctions. Shipping can and will kill a lot of fair deals.
Depending on where you are, thrifts, garage sales, Craigslist and fleas can be very kind to you or desolate/overpriced. It never hurts to check any of them regularly though. You just never know. The wild has always been the best spot to do your collecting even if things have dried up a bit.
Collecting is all about the journey, that's why i dont like buying big lots, they arent as fun
So there's the minimum amount of time you COULD spend, and then the minimum you SHOULD spend if you really like the hobby (and money, lol).
~~NGD
For all those who have complete nes collection or near complete nes collection how long did it take to complete. What was the hardest thing about getting it full. How did you go about getting those real rare games like statium events, nintendo world champion ship gray and/gold, and all them other ones. As someone who would like to get more main stream in colletion nes games share some advice.
well, loose, cib, or sealed? I would guess it takes this long:
loose - six months
cib - couple/three years
sealed - somewhere between 5 years and never
what i did was , i sold my room to get nes things
so everything in my room or house was sold to get more nes games
also pete aka Chevys4ever650 would come over and sell me games for like 1.25 each and i was getting like 30 games every 20 to 40 days
Now that I know it took NGD 5-6 years I'm kind of worried...although I'm pretty sure he's talking CIB, I'm not that crazy...
Port, your post makes realize just how much of a newb I am
Same here Fris!
woah! i had gotten almost ALL my rares from that Dan Bloom guy Port! go figure i got to him after he got rid of his SE cart :-(
Let me tell you, I wish I grabbed several of those things myself. At the time, I was solely looking to finish and I wanted all the DWs fully complete so SE and DWIII were the right things to go for.
I finished my N64 collection a few months ago after about 3 years of collecting. That was a nice feeling
I've been collecting NES for about 5 years. I'm roughly 45 licensed games from complete but most of them are in the $20-$40 range so I could get them if I want but... I'm cheap and would rather find them myself in the wild.
I finished my N64 collection a few months ago after about 3 years of collecting. That was a nice feeling
you should post your name in the complete N64 list.
@ Portnoyd
We are both old farts. We started collecting the same year. I remember thinking " who is going to pay $100 for Stadium Events?? I will never get that one." I had decided that I was just going to get all of them minus that one. I had no clue that in 2009 I would fork out 1300 for a loose one.
I've been collecting NES for about 5 years. I'm roughly 45 licensed games from complete but most of them are in the $20-$40 range so I could get them if I want but... I'm cheap and would rather find them myself in the wild.
I finished my N64 collection a few months ago after about 3 years of collecting. That was a nice feeling
you should post your name in the complete N64 list.
@ Portnoyd
We are both old farts. We started collecting the same year. I remember thinking " who is going to pay $100 for Stadium Events?? I will never get that one." I had decided that I was just going to get all of them minus that one. I had no clue that in 2009 I would fork out 1300 for a loose one.
and i had no idea it would be almost $2k now for loose
When I stopped collecting in January of this year, I had roughly 675 games (about 275 or so CIB, plus an additional 25 boxes or so and about an extra 100 manuals, not counting variants or carts from other regions). It was certainly a fun trip, but I just lost interest in collecting NES stuff, and I regained interest in the games I was collecting in the beginning (those being RPGs across all different systems). I've sold off a fair bit of my better stuff, but I still have quite a ways to go (and if you want a piece of the collection, check out my near-weekly Live Chat Auction series threads in the NA Auctions forum).
Edit: On the topic of SE and other games advancing in value over time...I think it came with the evolution of the hobby as a whole. Not many people would've paid $250-$350 for Stadium Events in 2002, nor would they have paid $2500 for a gold NWC in '03 (wouldn't ya know I'd actually be forking over $1200 cash plus a prototype of a game never released in NTSC format for a SE some 4-5 years later...? *that* was a fun birthday present
Port, your post makes realize just how much of a newb I am
Same here Fris!
Yeah, awesome you remember the prices and the deals you got. I guess I remember most of where my rare shit came from too.
I've been collecting NES for about 5 years. I'm roughly 45 licensed games from complete but most of them are in the $20-$40 range so I could get them if I want but... I'm cheap and would rather find them myself in the wild.
I finished my N64 collection a few months ago after about 3 years of collecting. That was a nice feeling
you should post your name in the complete N64 list.
@ Portnoyd
We are both old farts. We started collecting the same year. I remember thinking " who is going to pay $100 for Stadium Events?? I will never get that one." I had decided that I was just going to get all of them minus that one. I had no clue that in 2009 I would fork out 1300 for a loose one.
and i had no idea it would be almost $2k now for loose
I love this quote from Dain looking back in time October 14, 2006
It's always amazing to me how some of the most worthless games from a gaming perspective tend to fetch outrageous amounts of money. But then again, it could be said that something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I'm curious if the high bidder of the $873.04 Stadium Events (cart-only) realizes that it's nowhere nearly as rare as about 20+ games I can think of that sell for 1/10th that amount?
At any rate, I wanted to draw attention to this trend: if people say it's rare, it must be true, and therefore it must be had at any price.
-Dain