Where can I find extra Saturn cases?

[mailman187666]

I tried looking on ebay for them with no luck. I hate how fragile the saturn cases are. Its almost as if from having them just sitting there for X amount of time, Hinges have broken and covers have cracked (or shattered). I know I can always find some cheapo sports games with decent cases, but finding those around my area aren't so easy and ordering them off ebay isn't very cost effective. Can anyone steer me in the right direction?

[wiggyx]

You pretty much described the only real option already. The other choice, if you want to preserve the original cases, would be to print repro covers meant for DVD cases and then store the original Saturn cases elsewhere.

[synbiosfan]

I locally bought cheap Saturn games with good cases and switched them out. Every so often you see "new" (LOL) cases listed on eBay but when I tried that, the cases weren't packed well and arrived broken.

[RCM]

There really isn't a single go-to resource to find good cases. You just have to keep your eyes and ears open. I purchased a ton of Sega CD/Saturn cases from a friend of mine last year that were in mint/NM condition. I probably have more than I'll ever need, but you never know when you might break a case by mistake.

[mailman187666]

There really isn't a single go-to resource to find good cases. You just have to keep your eyes and ears open. I purchased a ton of Sega CD/Saturn cases from a friend of mine last year that were in mint/NM condition. I probably have more than I'll ever need, but you never know when you might break a case by mistake.

Is there any way you are willing to part with maybe a half dozen to a dozen of those cases ;)

I was mainly wondering if anyone knew of a place that made repo cases or anything or had old stock of unused cases. I wouldn't be suprized if I am too late to find those kinds of deals

[RCM]

Is there any way you are willing to part with maybe a half dozen to a dozen of those cases ;)

I was mainly wondering if anyone knew of a place that made repo cases or anything or had old stock of unused cases. I wouldn't be suprized if I am too late to find those kinds of deals

The only ones I'd be willing to part with are the ones in not so great condition I keep around for some reason. What's the going rate for Saturn cases? I somehow doubt they're worth enough for me to tear my closet apart.

[xelement5x]

I consider a nice unbroken Sega CD/Saturn case worth about $4, if there is scuffing and stuff like that the price goes down for what I'm willing to pay. Broken tabs don't really matter as long as someone kept the tabs, I use super glue to reattach them and they work fine.

My local shop sells crappy Saturn games for about $5 a pop and occsionally they get ones with nice cases, I tend to buy them and swap out.

[mailman187666]

its mainly broken tabs that I dont like, followed by cracks in the case that go to the outter edge. Well I may as well search for the cheapo sports games and crappy sega cd games. I know of 1 store that sells the sports one for 2.99-4.99 a piece, only problem is its about 1.5hr away from my house, and last time i checked they didn't have a whole lot to pick from, let alone ones with good cases.

If only there was one website that sold them in bulk or something, that would be fantastic.

[Bojay1997]

its mainly broken tabs that I dont like, followed by cracks in the case that go to the outter edge. Well I may as well search for the cheapo sports games and crappy sega cd games. I know of 1 store that sells the sports one for 2.99-4.99 a piece, only problem is its about 1.5hr away from my house, and last time i checked they didn't have a whole lot to pick from, let alone ones with good cases.

If only there was one website that sold them in bulk or something, that would be fantastic.

There were a couple of Ebay sellers that sold them in bulk 5-6 years ago for a couple bucks apiece, but they have long since run dry. I haven't seen actual new ones on Ebay in years.

[Rickstilwell1]

When I buy early Playstation, Sega CD and Saturn games I just tend to take the plastic as it comes. I know with how fragile those and jewel cases are, it's kind of a lost cause because over time they'll all get some sort of damage in one shape or another. Even having to move from one house to another can cause these accidents. As long as the case can hold the game, manual and back insert without them being exposed to the outside of the case it works for me.

[Genesaturn]

Like everyone else...I wish I had a better answer for you. It's unfortunately something as a Saturn collector you have to get used to. Trust me, I buy up cheap sports games every chance I get. Around here I can snatch them up for between .99 and $1.50. More than worth it. You never know when you will drop a case or find a game in the wild with a broken one in need of replacement.

[xelement5x]

This thread reminded me to stop by that local place last night and they were doing a buy 3 get the 4th free promo so I picked up a handful of cases in really nice shape. I'll also mix and match so that I get the foam squares as well and they never care. :D


By the way I did look into having these reproduced from someplace but the initial costs involved would be quite high since the injection molds for the cases are pretty much missing at this point and would cost a couple grand each to get remade.

[Genesaturn]

This thread reminded me to stop by that local place last night and they were doing a buy 3 get the 4th free promo so I picked up a handful of cases in really nice shape. I'll also mix and match so that I get the foam squares as well and they never care. :D


By the way I did look into having these reproduced from someplace but the initial costs involved would be quite high since the injection molds for the cases are pretty much missing at this point and would cost a couple grand each to get remade.

Ouch - that's smarts. Maybe we should do a New Saturn Cases Kickstarter lol

[xelement5x]

Ouch - that's smarts. Maybe we should do a New Saturn Cases Kickstarter lol

Haha, that's really not a bad idea. Maybe I should dust off my spreadsheets with the initial numbers I put together and see how feasible it'd be.

But I'd hate to be yet another person with a Kickstarter campaign @_@

[Genesaturn]

Haha, that's really not a bad idea. Maybe I should dust off my spreadsheets with the initial numbers I put together and see how feasible it'd be.

But I'd hate to be yet another person with a Kickstarter campaign @_@

Technically though..all Saturn collectors benefit from this....think of it as "for the greater good.........for the greater good..." sorry..zoned out there :P

[mailman187666]

Haha, that's really not a bad idea. Maybe I should dust off my spreadsheets with the initial numbers I put together and see how feasible it'd be.

But I'd hate to be yet another person with a Kickstarter campaign @_@

well you know you'd already have 1 customer for a purchase of about 20 or so <---------------- ;)

[jb143]

By the way I did look into having these reproduced from someplace but the initial costs involved would be quite high since the injection molds for the cases are pretty much missing at this point and would cost a couple grand each to get remade.

The initial costs would be high but the per item cost would be next to nothing. Did you check into any places in Asia? I forgot where we used at my last job but we basically shipped them a few mockups of various odds and ends (plastic enclosures and rubber buttons) and they sent a quote back. Also, minimum order is likely to be 1000+, and there would be the cost of shipping, but when all is said and done, the per item price is likely only going to be 20¢ or so.

[BlastProcessing402]

I swear, those cases break if you just look at them funny.

Shame they didn't just use regular CD cases like they did for Japanese Saturn games. Then replacing them would be trivial.

Oddly Japanese PSX games didn't use regular CD cases. Are those hard to replace these days? I treat my few imports with kid gloves because I do not want to have to find out how hard it is. Oh well, at least they're not as fragile as the Saturn cases.

[xelement5x]

The initial costs would be high but the per item cost would be next to nothing. Did you check into any places in Asia? I forgot where we used at my last job but we basically shipped them a few mockups of various odds and ends (plastic enclosures and rubber buttons) and they sent a quote back. Also, minimum order is likely to be 1000+, and there would be the cost of shipping, but when all is said and done, the per item price is likely only going to be 20¢ or so.

You're right about the molds, and if I remember the cases are larger than what is normally used for for more basic injection molding which increased the overall cost.

Part of what probably skewed my numbers partway is that I was looking for something US based for a couple of reasons. The first was going to be better communication and customer service from what I've heard from other people that have had stuff manufactured overseas, the second was I have a lot of family that still work in manufacturing and I'd feel like a dick not researching local prices first. Plus if I was in the US it wouldn't be hard to actually keep the molds and have them set aside after a run, whereas I'm not sure if an overseas place would be as willing to ship me the molds which were produced.

I'm pretty sure that there also has to be advances in plastics over the last decade or so and would hope that if these were produced it would be using a plastic that is more durable than the original stuff.

Oh, and one last thing, there are actually two different types of long boxes! One has smaller holes for the hinge tabs compared to the other. From my experience, these mainly used on SegaCD games, and most Saturn games have the larger hinge holes.

[wiggyx]

You're right about the molds, and if I remember the cases are larger than what is normally used for for more basic injection molding which increased the overall cost.

Part of what probably skewed my numbers partway is that I was looking for something US based for a couple of reasons. The first was going to be better communication and customer service from what I've heard from other people that have had stuff manufactured overseas, the second was I have a lot of family that still work in manufacturing and I'd feel like a dick not researching local prices first. Plus if I was in the US it wouldn't be hard to actually keep the molds and have them set aside after a run, whereas I'm not sure if an overseas place would be as willing to ship me the molds which were produced.

I'm pretty sure that there also has to be advances in plastics over the last decade or so and would hope that if these were produced it would be using a plastic that is more durable than the original stuff.

Oh, and one last thing, there are actually two different types of long boxes! One has smaller holes for the hinge tabs compared to the other. From my experience, these mainly used on SegaCD games, and most Saturn games have the larger hinge holes.

Injection molded parts can be quite large. The Saturn cases are very much so on the small side of things. Tooling is priced based on size and complexity. Luckily the Saturn case is neither large nor complex :)

I manufacture overseas just because it's nearly impossible to get a US-based company to take on a project this small. It sucks, we moan about outsourcing, but it can be really tricky to keep that sort of business here because of how WE do things, not how THEY operate :( I personally have the benefit of working with a local company that has an office in China. So communication on my end is only with English speaking Americans.

You could have the molds shipped, but it would be insanely expensive. We're talking hundred, sometimes thousands of pounds of steel. the likelihood of them being damaged along the way is quite high too. Shipping cartons are not treated gently, and the Chinese aren't known for using terribly robust packaging. They would likely be tossed on a palette and wrapped. One would think that steel molds are really tough, but the tolerances required to make an injection molded part are quite tight, so a little ding on a surface that mates with another could end up costing a lot of money to repair.

There are better plastics out there, for sure. But they are WAY more expensive than polycarbonate. Prohibitively so. It would already be hard to make this a financially viable endeavor, and moving to something pricier than PC would just kill it.




The initial costs would be high but the per item cost would be next to nothing. Did you check into any places in Asia? I forgot where we used at my last job but we basically shipped them a few mockups of various odds and ends (plastic enclosures and rubber buttons) and they sent a quote back. Also, minimum order is likely to be 1000+, and there would be the cost of shipping, but when all is said and done, the per item price is likely only going to be 20¢ or so.

You are exactly correct, sir.

The price per part may only be .20, but just to clarify for everyone else, that would JUST be the cost of the part not including the R&D, tooling, shipping, etc. It could easily end up being 2-3 bucks a case with all those things factored in. Creating plastic parts on a small scale is tough. Some things can be made with soft tooling (i.e. silicone molds for casting), but not stuff like this. This would require injection molded polycarbonate for sure. Anything else just wouldn't have the strength.

I've already done research regarding cases like this and others. I think the way to make this even remotely possible on the scale that we're talking would be to ONLY produce the cover, since that's the weakest part in the chain, by far. Would you guys agree?

[mailman187666]

Well I found a bunch of sports games with good cases since I started this thread, all for roughly $3 a piece. I think its worth it. Now to figure out what to do with all these sports games with crappy/no cases since I already had them in my collection to begin with.

[xelement5x]

I've already done research regarding cases like this and others. I think the way to make this even remotely possible on the scale that we're talking would be to ONLY produce the cover, since that's the weakest part in the chain, by far. Would you guys agree?

Sorry if I snipped the rest but I agree 100% with all of it :)

I agree that just doing the front part would be the most reasonable, and then hopefully using some profits off the sale of those to fund the back part of the case if it ever got to that point. Also in the 500+ longboxes I've had, only like 1 has has a broken inner tray either so those don't need to be considered either.

The only problem with just producing the front like I said is there are two different case sizes. Ones with larger holes/nubs and ones with smaller holes/nubs for the hinges. You can just produce the smaller hole version and it will fit, but it will be a bit loose. Not a huge deal but something to keep in mind. If you'd be interested in helping me do some research on getting this rolling wiggy I can provide photos to illustrate what I'm talking about.

[mailman187666]

oh and I also found this site:

http://www.videogameboxprotectors.com/

maybe these game protectors could help preserve the cases that are still in good shape? not sure if anyone has heard of or used these things before.