Collecting original Nintendo games
Jan 20th, 2010 by Nintendo DSi
I have just been reading about starting a Nintendo game collection, but just the original games. It’s a bit of different view from the kind of things I normally talk about and thought it would be fun to share the details, in case any of you wanted to do this.
Many people have fond memories of the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) from when they were children so it’s not surprising that avid game collectors exist. I myself used to waste days at a time glued to the screen, thrashing my controller around. Starting your collection off may be a little difficult as not many people sell the original games any more. Probably the best way to get going is on eBay, log on and buy an original NES console as these are normally bundled with all the games the owner has because he will have no use for them now. I’ve seen them go with up to 30 games and the price is minimal, like £50-£80 which isn’t bad to get you started. Something to keep in mind about eBay is when you are searching, the people listing it may of spelt it incorrectly which means the game wont appear in the results. Try searching for common mis-spellings. This used to be a very good money spinning trick on eBay but as with most things they have caught on and have made it hard for the lister to make such mistakes. They do still exist though so it is worth checking.
When you have got your base stock you simply need to build on it one at a time. Car boot sales can be a gold mine on occasions, but many visits wont turn up any. These type of places will have small price tags, 20p, 30p and probably 50p at most. carry your stock list with you as you don’t want to waste money buying doubles, unless you plan on making a little business of selling them on, which may not be a bad idea. We’ll touch a bit more on this later.
Bulk buying will help to bring the price down. This generally applies to game store which are going out of business. You may be able to pick them up at cost price. An important point to make is to not feel pressured into buying. I experienced a situation in a second hand shop once where the man saw I was keen to buy some old records and started pushing me to buy, telling me others had been in and where interested and they are worth xx amount. You need to keep your cool, its your money and your decision. Try and think sensibly and value the game on your own with out taking into account what the seller is telling. As time goes on you will become very good at pricing accuratley.
Another tip is to carry a your own made list of rare games. It will probably take some time to build up but it will become an invaluable tool to have. Do your research and find out what is rare and th different price tags you should expect. Google is a very good research tool. A good place to start is by finding out how many copies of the game were produced. Take 1990 Nintendo World Championships: Gold Edition for example. How much do you think this is worth? Would you be shocked if I said $15’000 – $21’000 dollars? I’m not joking, there where only 26 copies made and where the prize in a Nintendo gaming competition. Yes it’s extrememly rare you will find one, but you need to know just incase you do. imagine finding one of these in your local second hand shop!
Going back to to what I said earlier about buying and selling your duplicate games. It’s not hard nowadays to make websites and it can be cheaply done. A good idea might be to list any duplicate games on your website. Make a shopping cart section so people can buy direct from your site. Over time you will most likely find that you can build up a very nice home based buisness and people will start contacting you to sell their own games. This would be a good way to find rare games, having people contact you as you become more known and getting first refusel.
I hope this has given you some idea as to what can be achieved from collecting these great items. Don’t forget you can check our store page for original Nintendo games.
Something that might be worth trying is searching eBay for games that have main key words misspelled in the title, buying them at a discount, and then re-listing them on eBay for a profit.
Most interested buyers will never see these misspelled listings, so you have a better chance of getting a good deal.
You can use a site like ebuyersedge.com (typojoe.com, etc) to search ebay for common misspellings of keywords you enter.
Ebuyersedge also gives you the option of saving your favorite searches, then sending you an email when an item is listed matching one your saved searches, giving you a jump on other potential buyers.
This works best with ‘Buy It Now’s, but is also effective with auctions.
I’ve read that some people profit from this and even make a living doing it. I don’t know about that, but it is at least worth a try to find yourself a good deal if nothing else.