VGA rated NWC Gold cart on eBay

[Parodius Duh!]

They've never "given back" they have made money off illegal reproductions.

Yeah they made a few repros as well as released all the roms of those repros for free, which mind you- something like Kittys Catch was developed by a single guy, so when they bought it basically they can do whatever they want with it. Theres so many people doing repros out there that yoiu have no right to single them out. Oh and lets not forget the prototype ROMs they have released and have not made repros of.....

Your argument is pointless. So every print of famous artworks must be illegal in your eyes too, hmm? Is a reproduction Fiberglass Shelby Cobra illegal to you?

[Panzerfuzion]

Yeah they made a few repros as well as released all the roms of those repros for free, which mind you- something like Kittys Catch was developed by a single guy, so when they bought it basically they can do whatever they want with it. Theres so many people doing repros out there that yoiu have no right to single them out. Oh and lets not forget the prototype ROMs they have released and have not made repros of.....

Your argument is pointless. So every print of famous artworks must be illegal in your eyes too, hmm? Is a reproduction Fiberglass Shelby Cobra illegal to you?

Why sell the horse when you can get the cock for free, you understand my child.

[Bojay1997]

Yeah they made a few repros as well as released all the roms of those repros for free, which mind you- something like Kittys Catch was developed by a single guy, so when they bought it basically they can do whatever they want with it. Theres so many people doing repros out there that yoiu have no right to single them out. Oh and lets not forget the prototype ROMs they have released and have not made repros of.....

Your argument is pointless. So every print of famous artworks must be illegal in your eyes too, hmm? Is a reproduction Fiberglass Shelby Cobra illegal to you?

Are we really going to have the absurd argument about prototypes being in the public domain again? I don't know anything about Kitty's Catch, so I can't speak to that, but anyone selling repros is engaged in a violation of copyright unless they have permission from the rights holders. Famous artwork that is not in the public domain (i.e. the only public domain artwork is generally from prior to 1923 for US artists and older for French artists and certain other countries except in those rare instances where an artist has released the work into the public domain) cannot be replicated or copied without being licensed. In fact, you can't use it in any commercial way without permission unless you want to get sued. There are some exceptions under fair use, but duplicating a piece of art for sale is not even close to fair use.

One of my first jobs in television was handling litigation on behalf of television producers who were being sued by artists and other rights holders for using their work allegedly without permission. It gets expensive to settle those claims and you would be surprised at how many shady print companies there are out there selling poster prints of artwork they have no right to sell or rent as television set decoration.

[Bojay1997]

It's interesting, I went back to the CD-i thread with Zelda's Adventure and I estimated over $100 based on an actual previous Ebay sale while you thought the estimate of $300-$500 was more accurate since the retail version always sells for over $300 despite the fact that you had nothing to back that up. You then only ended up getting $200 for this allegedly rarer version. So, what happened? Is it possible you were just flat out wrong about the value and were using the same fuzzy logic that results in estimates of $27K for a NWC Gold when the highest previous sale was $17K?

On the Vectrex imager, you were positive yours would sell for as much or more than the one that sold the week before on Ebay. As we both know, it clearly didn't. So again, do you really have a solid handle on pricing when your two major recent public sales have fallen well below your estimates?

With the exception of the 3-D imager, I still own every item in that Vectrex lot. It wasn't bought from a developer, and it wasn't flipped for a profit. I paid large sums of money for both Vectrex lots I purchased.

Each one of the price check threads Mark linked to have post from you citing bullshit low prices with no source of reference, much like you have in this thread.

[Panzerfuzion]

Thank you Bojay for your continued pursuit to expose the brothers mcmullen.

[tom]

I do my own VGA rating, if it works on my PC, it's VGA.

[mrmark0673]

It's interesting, I went back to the CD-i thread with Zelda's Adventure and I estimated over $100 based on an actual previous Ebay sale while you thought the estimate of $300-$500 was more accurate since the retail version always sells for over $300 despite the fact that you had nothing to back that up.

swlovinist estimated $300-$500, and at no point did I respond to it in any way. Please show me where I believed it to be "more accurate?"

Also, I never said they always sell for $300, I said they sell upwards of $300. As in, there are past sales in excess of $300. Please show me where I even infer that it always sells for more than $300

So, what happened?

Glad you asked! In the thread, You responded with the outcome, and I did as well. For those playing at home, here is the exact quotes:

Looks like the red disc Zelda's Adventure went for $200. Not bad, but not crazy either.

Yeah, I wasn't going to get greedy with it, and the buyer is a huge Zelda collector. I'm sure I could have gotten more with a counter offer, but I'm happy with the results

GRRRRR!!! What an evil reseller! I settled for a lower amount than what I had hoped (not expected) because I didn't want to be greedy and was happy to help out a Zelda collector. What a terrible way to go about transactions!

Is it possible you were just flat out wrong about the value and were using the same fuzzy logic that results in estimates of $27K for a NWC Gold when the highest previous sale was $17K?

What do others' estimates of the NWC have anything to do with actual sales transactions that I have completed? I never estimated the value of this (or any) NWC, so what are you even talking about? I linked to two of the only price checks we've done in the last 2 years (collectively), both of which you posted in, one of which you estimated 100% below the final sales price, the other of which you estimated approximately 100% lower than the final sales price. Those are objective, anyone can just click and read.

On the Vectrex imager, you were positive yours would sell for as much or more than the one that sold the week before on Ebay. As we both know, it clearly didn't.

At no point did we EVER mention that we were "positive (y)ours would sell for as much or more than the one that sold the week before", we never even mentioned a comparison. I posted a completed auction for other members to look at so if they were looking to sell their own in a similar condition, they would have a recent benchmark instead of lowball (as evidence by the most recent sales) speculation. You tried to call the feedback of that sale into question, clearly to save face over your absurdly low estimate, then I followed with another sale (this time of my own) that was roughly twice your estimate.

So again, do you really have a solid handle on pricing when your two major recent public sales have fallen well below your estimates?

In neither thread do Matt and I make a single estimate. Seriously, copy a quote where we estimate the value of either. Your estimates, however, were 100% lower than the actual sales price, and over 100% on the low end, just under 100% lower on the high, for both estimates you made.

You mad?

[Panzerfuzion]

You mad?

Are you mad you were born with a midgets pinky where your cock is supposed to be.

[Mayhem]

Guess I missed the fun here today. Gonna recommend locking this one down before it goes any further. Consider some of the tone inappropriate here, especially PanzerFuzion...

[Bojay1997]

You mad?

Only that you are selectively leaving out my very accurate description of the market for Zelda's Adventure. I guess you couldn't be bothered to scroll down a few more posts in the chain when I said:

"Wow, Zelda's Adventure has popped up in value lately. For most of 2010, it was going for $150-$200 mint complete and slightly more sealed. I just looked at a couple recent auctions and one complete copy went for $300 and another went for $400. Having said that, I think there may be a misunderstanding among non-CD-i collectors about what these red and white discs are. They are simply store and review demo discs and Philips pressed them by the truckload. I know I have several copies of Zelda's Adventure in both the red and white versions, a European version with a different font as well as several test disc versions. I suspect you will get more from non-CD-i collectors than CD-i collectors on that particular disc. I also suspect this won't go for more than a hundred or two, but I could be wrong given that I haven't seen a copy of the red disc version sell on Ebay in an open auction in the past couple of years. One was listed for $1K for a long while and just ended with a side deal a couple weeks ago. Another sold in a similar way a month or two before. Who knows what those sellers got for them."

I believe in line six I estimate the game would sell for a hundred or two. Look at that, it sold for $200. Guess I was actually spot on.

As for the Vectrex stuff, I simply stated that the last few open auctions had ended at anywhere from $400-$600 in similar condition. Obviously, the one that sold the week before yours went for $1300. Of course, you ended up selling yours for $950 to someone who had bid far more on the first auction. That would lead me to believe that again, trying to estimate actual value based on one sale is just not accurate and stuff doesn't always go up with each sale. So, yes, I'll concede that you sold your item for more than previous auctions I had observed or slightly over 50% more than my estimate. I guess you really showed me.

Until I saw the other posts, I forgot you were part of the infamous duo who side dealed that sealed NES game lot and sold unauthorized copies of copyrighted work to pay for your proto habit. Please let me know when I should stand and slowly applaud all your tremendous contributions to your fellow collectors.

[wiggyx]

Bicker bicker bicker. All this hair splitting over a non-issue. Tale it to pm. None of us need to hear this.

Guess I missed the fun here today. Gonna recommend locking this one down before it goes any further. Consider some of the tone inappropriate here, especially PanzerFuzion...

Instead I would suggest that people like panzer who who seem to think trolling is a competitive sport receive infractions or a vacation. You don't throw away an entire carton of eggs just because of a couple of broken shells...

[mrmark0673]

I believe in line six I estimate the game would sell for a hundred or two. Look at that, it sold for $200. Guess I was actually spot on.

My mistake, you are correct. I hadn't realized you had made a second estimate, you're absolutely right in that regard.

So, yes, I'll concede that you sold your item for more than previous auctions I had observed or slightly over 50% more than my estimate. I guess you really showed me.

See, that's not really true. You estimated the value of it to be between $400-$600. On the low end, you were over 135% off, on the high, over 50% off. You can skew it any way you'd like, but the numbers are there.

And to the other points?

Where do I ever say they always sell for over $300?
Where do we ever say we're positive our Imager would sell more than the previous?
Where did we estimate the value of either of those items?

I'm not asking you to applaud anything, but we've done plenty for the classic gaming community over the years and I've given you actually examples. You can ignore it, others appreciate it. What have you done lately?

[Panzerfuzion]

My mistake, you are correct. I hadn't realized you had made a second estimate, you're absolutely right in that regard.



See, that's not really true. You estimated the value of it to be between $400-$600. On the low end, you were over 135% off, on the high, over 50% off. You can skew it any way you'd like, but the numbers are there.

And to the other points?

Where do I ever say they always sell for over $300?
Where do we ever say we're positive our Imager would sell more than the previous?
Where did we estimate the value of either of those items?

I'm not asking you to applaud anything, but we've done plenty for the classic gaming community over the years and I've given you actually examples. You can ignore it, others appreciate it. What have you done lately?

Yea you've raped it like you were just recently paroled, face it the only reason why anyone acts like they like you two douche bags is because you've someone how gotten into bed with the guy that runs one of the major collecting sites. If that fact were null you would have quite a few more people calling you and your boyfriend out.

You Mad?

[Panzerfuzion]

Bicker bicker bicker. All this hair splitting over a non-issue. Tale it to pm. None of us need to hear this.



Instead I would suggest that people like panzer who who seem to think trolling is a competitive sport receive infractions or a vacation. You don't throw away an entire carton of eggs just because of a couple of broken shells...

How is your personal quest on the recent discovery of your homosexuality going? Have you been remembering to stay protected?

[Bojay1997]

See, that's not really true. You estimated the value of it to be between $400-$600. On the low end, you were over 135% off, on the high, over 50% off. You can skew it any way you'd like, but the numbers are there.

And to the other points?

Where do I ever say they always sell for over $300?

Where do we ever say we're positive our Imager would sell more than the previous?
Where did we estimate the value of either of those items?

I'm not asking you to applaud anything, but we've done plenty for the classic gaming community over the years and I've given you actually examples. You can ignore it, others appreciate it. What have you done lately?

I'm not trying to skew anything. I provided a range based on previous observations of actual Ebay auctions. Another collector provided a lower estimate. You had an idea of what you thought it was worth by posting a comparable recent auction and it turns out none of us were correct. I will happily concede that $950 is closer to $1300 than $400 or $600, but it's still over 30% less than a virtually identical auction just one week prior, so I suppose it's just more support as I said for the idea that prices can vary week to week or item to item or auction to auction. It also supports the contention that just because something sells for a price once is no guarantee it will sell for that price a second time, even if some of the same bidders are involved.

On the other points, you're right, you didn't use the word "always". You said this:

"Just over $100? I'd sooner use it as a coaster than sell it for that. Is that what they've sold for historically? Was it a red disc or white? Retail copies sell upwards of $300, I was hoping for significantly more. "

The statement "retail copies sell upwards of $300" seems pretty absolute to me. No range or anything, just a statement that they sell for upwards of $300 and you wanted more than that. It also seems like an estimate of the price to me. You didn't specifically say it's worth "X", but you did set the floor at $300 since that's what an ordinary and far less rare retail copy goes for.

On the Vectrex stuff, you're right, I overstated what you said. You simply posted the first auction as a point of reference on which to base your sale and likely to prove to myself and the other collector who posted that we were wrong. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be all that accurate and who knows what a third comparable would go for given the 30%+ drop off in price between the two sales.

I support the classic collecting community by speaking out against profiteers and by helping new collectors and collectors who are actually trying to preserve this history find items at the cheapest price possible. I certainly have never tried selling someone else's hard work and intellectual property or releasing it for free without seeking their permission first. I can't imagine stealing from someone else in that way.

[stardust4ever]

Where did this long, drawn out argument about Vectrex stuff come from? I check back and there's like 50 new posts that don't even seem to be worth reading anymore.

Eventually all the NWCs, all protos, all repros, and almost all NES unlicensed games will be dead. How they are cared for makes little difference. Unless the carts are regularly dumped and verified nobody knows how many are already losing data.

How does bit rot apply to Unliscensed games? I have a fair collection of unliscensed games, and I have opened up quite a few of them. I didn't specifically notice any that contained EP-ROMS with little windows on the chips like the protos/ NWC carts did. I'd have to check, but I don't recall seeing epoxy circles on the chips either (I haven't reopened them recently though), a tell-tale sign that it contains an sealed EP-ROM instead of PROM. I believe most of the homebrewers and repros also used write-once PROMS as well. How will these suffer from "bit-rot" when the data is "burned in" permanently?

I guess in the grand scheme of time, any EPROMS, whether epoxied or not, will eventually succumb to partial bit erasures due to background radiation. I am curious, whether or not it is possible to recover an unreadable bit-rotted EPROM using forensics? For example, suppose an EPROM that has suffered bit-rot has only partially erased bits on it. If someone used a logic analyser to measure the output voltage on the pins for every single bit of the ROM, suppose a partially erased bit has an output voltage of 4V, but a bit that originally was recorded as a "1" and never was burned, is still 5.0V. They would all show up as logic "1" on any digital TTL circuit, but by recording the analog voltage output of every bit, the results would likely be lower on the "rotted" bits than on the original logic 1s. It would be a painstackingly slow process to read a ROM chip in this manner, but a lot of curropted data could likely be fully recovered.

Forensic scientists have successfully recovered even professionally "wiped" hard drives, because a "1" overwritten by a "1" will be stronger than a "0" overwritten by a "1" and visa-versa, so a even a drive that has been wiped using software, with every bit erased, may still have extremely weak traces of data left on them, though extracting it would be incredibly expensive and time-consuming.

[skaar]

This is just... goofy now.

[Buyatari]

Can anyone explain this. When a collector finds a prototype for sale exactly what is it he should do? This is starting to sound like "the pearl" and collectors should throw them into the sea and avoid all of this.

If he buys it for asking price then he is taking advantage of the seller.
Yet if he believes the prototype is worth more then he is inflating the price.

If he sells a prototype for going rate he again is inflating the price for gain.
Yet if he sells for less than going rate he has been caught in his lie about the price.

If he keeps the prototype it to himself he is a selfish horder.
Yet if he instead dumps the ROM for all to share he is illegally making copies.

There is no prototype collector in the world who can escape wrong doing by these guidelines. Everyone of them has either dumped or not dumped. They have all paid asking price at one time or another when items are posted for sale. If asked for a value they have all quoted prices on items above what someone may have once paid.

[goatdan]

I'd suggest if I may that everyone should just calm the heck down.

I've been an, uhm "flipper" for 13 years with the GOAT Store. The reason that I started doing it was because when I would buy games online before that, I didn't know what they would look like when they arrived -- would they be new, used, good, poor, whatever... So we started the GOAT Store so we could hopefully help other people out.

Guess what -- I make a little bit of money off each game I sell. If I didn't, I wouldn't be doing it anymore. Not enough for us to do it full time or anything, or even anywhere close to that, but enough to keep the company open, and enough for us to bankroll the MGC each year.

Even before I did this, I had no problem with others making some money when selling to me. These are their games, and if the market price drives the pricing for those titles up, the market drives prices for those titles up. If not, they'll drop.

If you help people out and sell stuff for the love of the game at cost, that's awesome. But, please don't knock people who do it to get a little extra money -- they are still doing people a favor, and if people want to pay $150 or $300 for a copy of a game, it's their right to do so.

For the record, I know no one involved in this 'feud', it just seems strange to me. Every store you buy a game at is making money off it.

[Emperor Megas]

I've only read the first and last page of this thread. I don't what the fuck this is all about, or how serious some of you are taking this debate, but this Panzerfuzion guy is funny as hell.