Volunteers needed to make Ebay Pricing Guide

[Anthony1]

Ok, before everybody screams "Bloody Murder" please actually read this post in it's entirety. The title of the thread really doesn't explain the focus of this Ebay Price Guide. So please read the whole thing, and then feel free to comment about it.


What I'm looking for is volunteers that would be willing to collaborate on a Ebay Pricing Guide. Depending on how many volunteers offered their time, we would try to cover every platform worth covering. Hopefully we could get enough volunteers, where each person has one specific system to do research on. It would be even better if we had enough volunteers to have multiple people working on the same systems, but we will have to see what the interest level is on this.

Now I understand that alot of people out there think that a Ebay pricing guide would be similar to scriptures of the Devil, and they are totally, absolutely, 100 percent against such a guide ever being created. The fear being that this guide would fall into all the wrong hands, and that it would end up making games in the "wild" go up dramatically in price.

I can understand that. And that is why this guide will be a "PRIVATE" guide. The guide won't even be posted on these forums. To ensure that nobody goes postal over this, we would keep the guide 100 percent private. The only way you get the guide is if you participate in making it.

Everybody that legitmately participates in the guide would get the end results of our efforts, and continuing participation would allow them to get quarterly updates.

Now, certainly, there are people that would be interested in such a guide, and people that would think it to be ridiculous to do such a guide. To the people that are interested, well, join on up. To the people that aren't, well don't worry about it.


The first question that most people have is....WHY? Why do you need a Ebay Price guide? Why not just use the DP guide? Well most people that are familar with the Ebay video game market and the DP guide are aware of the fact that they are two totally seperate animals. The DP guide is a very valuable source of information, especially from a rarity standpoint. But, Ebay isn't always about rarity, and Ebay isn't always logical. In fact, it's rarely logical. That leads to the next question....

Tracking values on Ebay is virtually impossible, it fluctuates too much, it's like trying to accurately predict the weather, so why try to do it? Well, certainly, trying to get a grip on Ebay valuations will be a very difficult endeavor. It's definitely not going to be a perfect science, and there are tons of variables to consider, but still, I think a decent guide could be made and then updated every quarter. Would it be perfect? Absolutely not, but I still think it's better than trying to do a few advanced searches every now and then to try to stay on top of things.

Now another thing that I want to comment on, is the whole profiteering thing. Whenever I have mentioned a Ebay Pricing Guide in the past, some people quickly understood the value of such a guide, and others resorted to calling anybody interested in such a guide as a "Ebay Profiteer". Comments like, "Look dude, this is a collectors site, you can take that profiteering shit elsewhere, this is a site for collectors, not for people that are going to try to make things even more expensive for collectors."

Now, I'm not going to say that there aren't people out there that are very much "Ebay Profiteers", but I'm not one of them. There is a very logical reason as to why I'm interested in such a guide. When I go into the wild, the flea markets, the swap meets, the thrift stores, the garage sales, etc, etc, I almost never find anything that I actually want. For example, I've never seen a TurboGrafx-16 game in the wild. Never. I've never seen an Atari Jaguar game in the wild. I've never seen a Neo-Geo game in the wild. I mostly see loose Genesis, SNES, NES, Master System and PS1 and N64. Well, for those systems, I already have pretty much everything I want.

So the reason that I want a Ebay Pricing Guide, is to be able to take it with me, to flea markets, etc, and to know what games "OTHER" people want. So if I happen to see "those" games at a very good price, I can buy them, and then either trade them or sell them to get video game items that "I" really want. It's that simple. There are so many various video game items that I want, and they all cost money, and I rarely ever find them. So I really don't see it as any high crime that I buy stuff that I'm not interested in, and sell it to other people, to get the money to buy stuff that I am interested in. It would be one thing if I was selling games and getting the money and using it for non video game related stuff, but I'm throwing that money right back into the retro gaming industry.

So I personally don't see a damn thing wrong with it. Other people might disagree, and that's fine. But I'm thinking that some people out there do the same thing as me, and they would love to see a Ebay Price Guide too.

Well if you happen to be one of those people, then volunteer for this project. But please understand that if you do volunteer for this project, there is going to be alot of work involved. Alot of tedious work. It might be a month or two before we have a decent guide, and then in another month we will have to update it. And then we will have to update it again in another couple months. And so on and so on.

I will volunteer to work on the Super Nintendo. I need somebody to volunteer for Genesis, Saturn, Playstation, Sega CD, NES, etc,etc, etc. Also, it would be great to have multiple people working on the Playstation and the NES and stuff like that. Any of the systems that have a huge catalog.

In terms of the details of how we are going to determine the most accurate values, don't worry about that now. All we need right now are volunteers. The first step is going to be to see if we have enough people to even try to undertake this project. If we have enough, then we will move onto the nuts and bolts of how best to determine the most accurate values. Then once that is done, then we can begin the actual process of making the guide. Once the guide is done, then we can share the information with everybody else in the group. And then of course we would have to continue to monitor it, and continue to udpate it to try to have it as accurate as we can possibly make it.

The key is to get as many volunteers as possible, so that each persons work load will be as small and managable as possible.

If you are interested in volunteering, then email me at tapdatazz1@yahoo.com

[Griking]

I'm just more curious than anything on how you plan on doing this.

Say I'm the volunteer for the Atari 2600 guide. Am I supposed to monitor every single auction for Atari 2600 games? What if I go to the bathroom and miss a B.I.N. auction, does that throw the entire project off? How do you determine the value of a game if it was part of a lot of games? How does what the seller charge for shipping factor into your guide? What if the shipping price isn't listed?

[v1rich]

I think you need to have 3 prices for each game - High, Low, and Average. Also taking in consideration box and manual, and complete. Also price shoud be shipped price paid (or estimated shipping).

Ex: (Low, Avg, & High for each of these)

Game only
Game w/ box
Game w/ instructions
Game complete

Earthbound - 23 35 60
Earthbound w/ Box - 40 50 70
Earthbound w/ Guide - 45 55 75
Earthbound Complete - 60 80 150

Chrono Trigger - 32 35 45
Chrono Trigger w/ box - 35 45 50
Chrono Trigger w/ instructions - 35 45 50
Chrono Trigger Complete - 45 60 90

Also should take in consideration the condition of the items. I can do estimates on SNES games real quick, because I have been very familiar with it, but out of the loop for about 6 months now.

[LensIrritant]

Hi, I am interested in this project, I don't know how much volunteers it will get but I would be interested in working on the NES prices.

[rhiohki]

...When I go into the wild, the flea markets, the swap meets, the thrift stores, the garage sales, etc, etc, I almost never find anything that I actually want. For example, I've never seen a TurboGrafx-16 game in the wild. Never. I've never seen an Atari Jaguar game in the wild. I've never seen a Neo-Geo game in the wild. I mostly see loose Genesis, SNES, NES, Master System and PS1 and N64. Well, for those systems, I already have pretty much everything I want.

Really, I have seen Turbo, Jag and Neo stuff in the Wild. I guess it depends on your location.

...So the reason that I want a Ebay Pricing Guide, is to be able to take it with me, to flea markets, etc, and to know what games "OTHER" people want. So if I happen to see "those" games at a very good price, I can buy them, and then either trade them or sell them to get video game items that "I" really want. It's that simple. There are so many various video game items that I want, and they all cost money, and I rarely ever find them. So I really don't see it as any high crime that I buy stuff that I'm not interested in, and sell it to other people, to get the money to buy stuff that I am interested in. It would be one thing if I was selling games and getting the money and using it for non video game related stuff, but I'm throwing that money right back into the retro gaming industry.

I can understand where you are coming from. I too am a collector and also a seller, but it seems this is strictly going to be used as a profit making guide, whether you say the extra money you make is going back into the retro gaming industry or not is besides the point. I have nothing against maknig a profit, but it just seems you want this for personal gain only and not really into it for the "thrill of the hunt". Maybe I am reading into it too much, but this is what I am getting from this.

Finally, you might as well get a portable notebook with WI-FI or the new Broadband adapters the Cell phone companies are starting to offer and just hit the flea markets, pawn shops, etc. When you see something of interest, make a mental note, hit the laptop and do a completed search on ebay for what it usually goes for.

[monkeychemist]

So the reason that I want a Ebay Pricing Guide, is to be able to take it with me, to flea markets, etc, and to know what games "OTHER" people want. So if I happen to see "those" games at a very good price, I can buy them, and then either trade them or sell them to get video game items that "I" really want. It's that simple. There are so many various video game items that I want, and they all cost money, and I rarely ever find them. So I really don't see it as any high crime that I buy stuff that I'm not interested in, and sell it to other people, to get the money to buy stuff that I am interested in. It would be one thing if I was selling games and getting the money and using it for non video game related stuff, but I'm throwing that money right back into the retro gaming industry.

So what you are REALLY doing is taking all the valuable games from the wild to sell them for profit. You are taking away the chance that someone who might want that game for his/her collection and possibly getting it cheap so that you can get more money from it. thanks a lot buddy, there are already too many people that are doing that and it is getting extremely hard for us COLLECTORS to find good stuff in the wild. NO THANKS!

[video_game_addict]

http://www.digitpress.com/dpg_plug.htm

[jonjandran]

Finally, you might as well get a portable notebook with WI-FI or the new Broadband adapters the Cell phone companies are starting to offer and just hit the flea markets, pawn shops, etc. When you see something of interest, make a mental note, hit the laptop and do a completed search on ebay for what it usually goes for.

I've had a T-Mobile sidekick for 3 years that let's you web browse.
I take it with me everywhere and have myEbay search page loaded up to search for games when I need to know what they are going for.

And at 112kb/s it's actually quite fast.

So uh yea this might be an easy way to do it.

[Jibbajaba]

Sorry, man. I know that we are all "nor-cal buddies" and whatnot, but other posts of yours have hinted at what is now obvious. You are turning into something that many of us hate: an eBay reseller. You are the reason that game prices at flea markets and thrift stores are sky rocketting. You are one of those guys waiting outside of TRU or Circuit City the morning of a big sale with the list in your hand. You are one of the people ruining it for the rest of us.

I couldn't believe it when you were lucky enough to find that Caltron cart at the flea market that I always go to, only to turn around and sell it on eBay. What an awesome addition to your collection that could have been.

So please read the whole thing, and then feel free to comment about it.

Might be easier if you were able to create posts that were less than a thousand words. DP Visiiting DP shoulddn't feel like homework.

[Anthony1]

Sorry, man. I know that we are all "nor-cal buddies" and whatnot, but other posts of yours have hinted at what is now obvious. You are turning into something that many of us hate: an eBay reseller. You are the reason that game prices at flea markets and thrift stores are sky rocketting. You are one of those guys waiting outside of TRU or Circuit City the morning of a big sale with the list in your hand. You are one of the people ruining it for the rest of us.

I couldn't believe it when you were lucky enough to find that Caltron cart at the flea market that I always go to, only to turn around and sell it on eBay. What an awesome addition to your collection that could have been.

So please read the whole thing, and then feel free to comment about it.

Might be easier if you were able to create posts that were less than a thousand words. DP Visiiting DP shoulddn't feel like homework.

That would have been an awesome addition to my NES collection if I had a NES collection. I don't collect NES. Right now, I'm collecting SNES, Genesis, TG-16 and Jaguar.

When I got that Caltron, I offered it up in the buy and sell forum on this site, and I didn't get any offers for it. So I put it on Ebay.

How totally evil of me to do that.

But you know what? With the money from that Caltron, I'm going to be able to get a TG-16 CD attatchment that I've been dreaming about forever.

[Jibbajaba]

Sorry, man. I know that we are all "nor-cal buddies" and whatnot, but other posts of yours have hinted at what is now obvious. You are turning into something that many of us hate: an eBay reseller. You are the reason that game prices at flea markets and thrift stores are sky rocketting. You are one of those guys waiting outside of TRU or Circuit City the morning of a big sale with the list in your hand. You are one of the people ruining it for the rest of us.

I couldn't believe it when you were lucky enough to find that Caltron cart at the flea market that I always go to, only to turn around and sell it on eBay. What an awesome addition to your collection that could have been.

So please read the whole thing, and then feel free to comment about it.

Might be easier if you were able to create posts that were less than a thousand words. DP Visiiting DP shoulddn't feel like homework.

That would have been an awesome addition to my NES collection if I had a NES collection. I don't collect NES. Right now, I'm collecting SNES, Genesis, TG-16 and Jaguar.

When I got that Caltron, I offered it up in the buy and sell forum on this site, and I didn't get any offers for it. So I put it on Ebay.

How totally evil of me to do that.

But you know what? With the money from that Caltron, I'm going to be able to get a TG-16 CD attatchment that I've been dreaming about forever.

You totally ignored my first paragraph. You want some classic gamers to help you create an eBay price guide so you can resell stuff you find in the wild. It doesn't matter what the money is for.

Look, man. I like you and all, but you are basically saying 'if you are going to accuse me of being an eBay profiteer then shut up, but if not, then help me make a guide so that I can profit off of eBay."

Maybe I'm missing something.

Chris

[monkeychemist]

Look, man. I like you and all, but you are basically saying 'if you are going to accuse me of being an eBay profiteer then shut up, but if not, then help me make a guide so that I can profit off of eBay."

Maybe I'm missing something.

Chris

No, you are absolutely right. This guy is only trying to make money by exploiting all the sources where you would normally find games in the wild. I don't sympathize with him one bit. There are other much easier ways to make money than ruin what is left of the market for the rest of us. If people help him in his greedy quest then one day everything rare will be exclusively on eBay at outrageous prices.

[Anthony1]

Sorry, man. I know that we are all "nor-cal buddies" and whatnot, but other posts of yours have hinted at what is now obvious. You are turning into something that many of us hate: an eBay reseller. You are the reason that game prices at flea markets and thrift stores are sky rocketting. You are one of those guys waiting outside of TRU or Circuit City the morning of a big sale with the list in your hand. You are one of the people ruining it for the rest of us.

I couldn't believe it when you were lucky enough to find that Caltron cart at the flea market that I always go to, only to turn around and sell it on eBay. What an awesome addition to your collection that could have been.

So please read the whole thing, and then feel free to comment about it.

Might be easier if you were able to create posts that were less than a thousand words. DP Visiiting DP shoulddn't feel like homework.

That would have been an awesome addition to my NES collection if I had a NES collection. I don't collect NES. Right now, I'm collecting SNES, Genesis, TG-16 and Jaguar.

When I got that Caltron, I offered it up in the buy and sell forum on this site, and I didn't get any offers for it. So I put it on Ebay.

How totally evil of me to do that.

But you know what? With the money from that Caltron, I'm going to be able to get a TG-16 CD attatchment that I've been dreaming about forever.

You totally ignored my first paragraph. You want some classic gamers to help you create an eBay price guide so you can resell stuff you find in the wild. It doesn't matter what the money is for.

Look, man. I like you and all, but you are basically saying 'if you are going to accuse me of being an eBay profiteer then shut up, but if not, then help me make a guide so that I can profit off of eBay."

Maybe I'm missing something.

Chris

When I go to a flea market or a thrift store or a garage sale, I'm not even thinking about Ebay. I'm thinking about this dream I always have of finding a Neo Geo AES system with a bunch of carts, or finding a mint TurboDuo, or a Jaguar CD, or a Wondermega. That's the stuff that I'm thinking about. And if I found any of that stuff, I wouldn't be putting it up on Ebay. I would be keeping it for myself.

Right now, I'm primarily collecting SNES, Genesis, Jaguar and TG-16. So when I go to those places, that is what I'm looking for. If I find any of that stuff that I want, then definitely I buy it for myself to add to my collection. But if I happen to see a NES game or a N64 game or whatever, and I happen to know it's a valuable game, and I can get it at a cheap price, then of course I'm going to buy it. I would be a retard not to. That's great trade bait or Ebay bait as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, I'm not going to drive all over town, to different thrift stores and flea markets, etc, etc, and not buy something just because it isn't something that I'm collecting. Many times I never find any items that I'm actually looking for, but I find items that other people are interested in. If I can trade it, I'll trade it. If nobody is interested in trading for it, then I'll put it on Ebay.

When I get the money for it, then I can use that money to buy a TG-16 game that I've always wanted, or a Die Hard GameFan that I've been trying to get or whatever.

If that makes me a bad person, then fuck it. I'm a very bad boy.

[jonjandran]

Umm you don't have to quote everything , it makes it harder to read all this wonderful soap opera like writing.

[Anthony1]

Look, man. I like you and all, but you are basically saying 'if you are going to accuse me of being an eBay profiteer then shut up, but if not, then help me make a guide so that I can profit off of eBay."

Maybe I'm missing something.

Chris

No, you are absolutely right. This guy is only trying to make money by exploiting all the sources where you would normally find games in the wild. I don't sympathize with him one bit. There are other much easier ways to make money than ruin what is left of the market for the rest of us. If people help him in his greedy quest then one day everything rare will be exclusively on eBay at outrageous prices.

So are you saying that if you don't collect for a certain system, and if you happen to see a valuable game for that system, you don't buy it?

Well, if that's the case then more power to you.

But I can't even begin to think about all the times I go to Garage sales or thrifts and I don't find a damn thing. Nothing that I want, and nothing anybody else wants either. Then sometimes I go and find nothing that I want, but some stuff that other people would want. Then sometimes I go, and actually find something that I want.

The bottom line for me, is that I come up empty so many times that if I didn't buy anything that other people wanted but I didn't, then I wouldn't get hardly anything.

I would be driving around for nothing.

I have to buy things either for myself or for trade bait or for Ebay, whenever I happen to see them, because if I don't then I would be totally wasting all my time.

If you serously are trying to say that you never buy anything with the thought of trading it or selling it, then that's your issue.

But for me, I'm going to buy stuff that either will be something that is going directly into my personal collection or it will somewhere down the line help my personal collection.

[monkeychemist]

If you serously are trying to say that you never buy anything with the thought of trading it or selling it, then that's your issue.

Yes i will get some trade bait too, but judging by your posts and the huge project you are starting you are just trying to make money by exploiting certain sources. I dont buy your story that you are merely trying to accomplish your dream of purchasing this and that games. If you really wanted that money you would just get a job that can support it, not buying and reselling games. That does NOT make you very much money, all it does is deplete the sources for real collectors...so please dont feed us your BS story about collecting jaguar etc...that is just insulting my intelligence.

[Anthony1]

I'm just more curious than anything on how you plan on doing this.

Say I'm the volunteer for the Atari 2600 guide. Am I supposed to monitor every single auction for Atari 2600 games? What if I go to the bathroom and miss a B.I.N. auction, does that throw the entire project off? How do you determine the value of a game if it was part of a lot of games? How does what the seller charge for shipping factor into your guide? What if the shipping price isn't listed?

Well, as I said in the original post, the first step is to see if we have enough volunteers to even attempt this undertaking. Then once we have enough people, we will have a discussion about all of that. But certainly, the goal would be to have the most accurate guide we possibly can, so we will be taking all of those kinds of variables into consideration.

Just as an update, right now we have one guy that wants to help on SNES (me), one guy that wants to help on Genesis and one guy that wants to help on NES. So we still need quite a few more people to volunteer. Again, hopefully we can have multiple people working on the systems with large catalogs of games.

And again, all this information is going to be kept "Private" just for the people participating in the guide. So don't worry about every Thrift store in America getting this information.

[Griking]

Let me go on record as saying that I have absolutely no problem with people reselling games (ar anything else) that they find in the wild to make a buck or two. It's called making a living, is there some sort of a problem with that?

What I just don't care for is the constant asking for us to do the leg work for him. Maybe its just me but I think that this project is all for nothing. if one simply reads the forums here on a regualr basis you'll gradually learn more than enough to do very well while out thrifting or at flea markets.

[Anthony1]

monkeychemist:

Look buddy, first off, you don't know me from Adam. So don't start assuming things.

So, you are apparently inside my brain and you know what I'm thinking and what I'm really trying to do?

Look man, you don't know squat about me. Try doing a search on Anthony1 in the Buying and Selling forum. See how many things I have for sell. Very little. See my trade list, gee, why would I have a trade list if all I wanted to do was snach up all the rare games on Ebay and sell them for a profit.


Get a job? I have a job. I have a wife, and two little boys and a huge ass mortgage. Ok. I don't have tons of extra money to throw around at my video gaming hobby. Right now, I collect games for certain systems, and I also collect old gaming magazines.

The Super Nintendo is my Number 1, most favorite system, and I have a pretty nice collection of loose carts for the SNES. I actually collect loose carts, and I don't have a problem with loose carts. My next favorite would be TurboGrafx-16. I have a decent collection of TG-16 Hu cards. I recently sent my TG-16 to Hawaii to that Matthew Ross could mod it for RGB output when connected to a TG-16 CD player. He is also doing an internal region mod for me, so that I can play Japanese Hu cards on it. The SNES and TG-16 are my two biggest passions. Along with Die Hard GameFan magazine. I hope to one day have a 100 percent complete collection of GameFan mags.

I also collect loose carts for Genesis, 32X and Jaguar.


The bottom line, is you don't know a damn thing about me. So stop talking about things which you know nothing about. I got into retrogaming a little over two years ago, and you can go do a search on Anthony1 in the Video Gaming forum and see my old posts on the subject.

A quick look will let you know very quickly that I'm not some asswhole profiteer that is ruining your precious little hobby.

Recently I've been doing posts about what things are worth on Ebay, but it had an awful lot to do with the recent GameCrazy sale. Time was of the essence, and I wanted to try to get some of the best games before they were totally snatched up. So if you did a recent search on me and you found a bunch of topics regarding valuations, then maybe you would get a skewed opinion that I was trying to rape everybody of all their Ebay knowledge so that I could totally mess up the entire world of retro gaming.

But the reality is that isn't the case. If you want to go on believing whatever you want to believe about me, fine. I really don't give a F.

This topic was created for the people that would be interested in, and could benefit from such a guide. I said in the original post that if you don't like it, then don't worry about it. It's not for you. For the people that are interested in it, then send me an email and get signed up.

Like I said, I have myself and two other people that are interested in this, and we need a bunch more people to contribute.

If you aren't down with this, then stay out of this topic and don't worry about it.

[Anthony1]

Griking:

Why do you think I'm trying to get everybody else to do the work? Do you have any idea how much work it's going to take to create a decent Ebay Price Guide for all the most popular retro systems?

It's going to take tons and tons of work. I'm going to be right there with everybody else doing tons and tons of work for this project. One person by themselves simply can't do it.

In fact, one person by themselves is going to have a hard time simply doing one system that has a huge library of games. Could I do a 32X guide by myself? Yes. Can I do a Atari Jaguar guide by myself? Maybe. Can I do a PSone or NES guide by myself? Hell no. There is just too many damn games to try to track.

That is why I was asking for volunteers. It's called division of labor. A group of people working together to achieve a common goal.

I'm guessing that there are people that are doing lists like this on there own, but the list that they are doing are little "quickie" lists that probably aren't very accurate or very complete.

Well instead of a bunch of people working by themselves to try to have lists for various systems, we get a group of people working together, with individual people specializing on just one system, and maybe even just one category of games for a specific system.

If you think I'm trying to get everybody else to do all the work for me, then you are simply misinformed.

Have you ever seen my Power Rankings?

Do me a favor, do a search just on "power" "rankings". See what pops up. You will find that I did two major projects where I worked on ranking the best games for SNES and Genesis with a power rankings. Alot of people submitted lists to me, and I had to do a helluva lot of number crunching to get all the results. I spent hours and hours on those projects with no help from anybody else. So if you think that I'm some lazy son of a B that doesn't want to do any work, you are incorrect.