Ebay lingo

[Buyatari]

Not really just eBay but I get asked so often about what these terms mean I thought this would be a good place to post those most often used on eBay.

NOS - New Old Stock
NIB - New in Box
MIB - Mint in Box
CIB - Complete in Box
OOP - Out of Print
NR - No Reserve
OST - Official Soundtrack ?
YMEI - Yet more Ebay Insanity

If you have any more lets hear em.

[Anonymous]

Good Call. I can't think of any, you pretty much called them all. I will say that I hate the word L@@K! But I like referring to eBay as 'the bay'.

[Achika]

MWMT - Mint with mint tags

I think any major "collectable" market has their own lingo that's sometimes significantly different from another, as you usually only see the MWMT in the Beanie Baby market.

[Tritoch]

HTF - Hard to Find
MT/NM/EX/VG/etc. - Common sports cards grading

[1bigmig]

More often then not..

Mint - damaged
Sealed - by myself
Rare - common
L@@K - ignore
Great Deal! - for me
HTF - see Rare
LOW SHIP!! - paper bag with a stamp

[Duncan]

MT/NM/EX/VG/etc. - Common sports cards grading

...but they can be easily used for many other collectibles as well. ;)

Here's a complete list of condition codes, according to my trusty Beckett Baseball Card Monthly. I've defined the terms in ways that could be handy for video game collectors:

P -- Poor. Well-worn or abused. The absolute worst possible condition that something can be in, and most often regarded as either filler material or (more likely) trash.

F -- Fair. Still in very bad shape, but more recognizable as something collectible. Not likely to fetch much of a value, though.

G -- Good. The "best" of the worst. Quite inexpensive, but could be a worthwhile placeholder until a more attractive copy comes along. (P, F and G grades are usually lumped together in the sports card world, but are more easily distinguished where games are concerned.)

VG -- Very Good. Handled, but not abused. For video games, this is usually the most common sight.

EX -- Excellent. Perfect and usable for most casual buyers, but serious collectors will see minor flaws.

EX-MT -- Excellent-Mint. Somewhere in the narrow gray area between perfect and "just-about" perfect. (This is really more of a sports card thing, having to do with photo centering and roughness of edges. Very OCD, if you ask me. :roll: ) For older video games, it might be something like whether or not the box is included.

NM -- Near Mint. (Again, more of a card thing.) For video games, this might be a game that's opened, but has never been removed from the package or played. (One thinks it would also be very hard to prove such a thing.)

NM-MT Near Mint to Mint. (I know, it's insane.)

MT -- Mint. For a video game, this would be an unopened copy in its original factory seal, with no visible damage and all parts in place exactly as they left the packing plant.

GEM-MT -- Gem Mint. (Very OCD here; this involves looking at the card with a jeweler's lens and measuring each area to ensure that every part of the card is exactly as perfect as it looks. There could be no reasonable video game equivalent to this grade, except for the very dedicated.)

Pristine -- Just like it says. The only way to reasonably get a video game in this sort of condition is to have an original, unopened shipping box with a stack of effectively new games inside. That's a highly unlikely scenario, but it's not totally outside the realm of possibility either.

And now, here's some other handy terms...

AU -- Autograph, for those Ralph-Baer-at-CGE Pinball carts. :)

COR -- Corrected error. Perhaps something like Atari's infamous black tape, or a second-edition ROM with some bug fixes.

DP -- Double Print, otherwise known as an extremely common item. PS1 and PS2 "Greatest Hits" games fall into this category.

ERR -- Error. This could refer either to a bug in the code or a mistake on the printed materials.

SP -- Short Print, otherwise known as a notoriously rare item. A short print could be defined as anything less than, say, two-thirds of a "standard" print run.

UER -- Uncorrected Error. For example, "A WINNER IS YOU!" or "CONGRADURATION". ;)

VAR -- Variation, such as differing box or label styles for the same basic item. Note that these are not errors, but just commonly seen differences.

That's everything I thought was relevant -- hopefully some of those will be useful.

Duncan :D

[portnoyd]

More often then not..

Mint - damaged
Sealed - by myself
Rare - common
L@@K - ignore
Great Deal! - for me
HTF - see Rare
LOW SHIP!! - paper bag with a stamp

It's funny cuz it's true. :0

[Tritoch]

Thanks Duncan, I didn't feel like typing all of that out. "Etc." was enough of an explanation for me. :)

Regarding sports cards, I think Beckett's got the best grading system around...even if it (and the whole grading craze in general) is a bit overboard.

Would you consider the several alterations to Zelda: Ocarina of Time gold carts a COR (removed red blood and toned down religious themes or something in several different steps), or something else? They weren't really bug fixes, but I can't see a better classification for them.

Does anyone know how OoT was actually adjusted over it's lifespan?

[Buyatari]

COR - is usually just a spelling typo which has been corrected.

Pole Position and Pole Positin for the 2600 are good examples of COR and ERR.

Zelda would be a Var. because the content has changed.

Adam

[k8track]

BMB - Bite My Butt
WGMMAS - Woman, Go Make Me A Sammich
HLATC - Hey, Look At That Comet
T?WT? - Train? What Train?
ILTES - I Like To Eat Sponges

That's all I can think of for now...

[Duncan]

COR - is usually just a spelling typo which has been corrected.

Pole Position and Pole Positin for the 2600 are good examples of COR and ERR.

Zelda would be a Var. because the content has changed.

Adam

To use up some five-dollar words, I concur wholeheartedly. But I'll explain some more, and maybe get some people thinking about how to classify their games.

A true "ERR" (error) is a glaring inaccuracy that makes the item definitively flawed in some way. For instance, if the original release of the game was unplayable due to a bug, that would be an error. If the error was removed, thus making the item unflawed (is that a word?), then the resulting edition would be regarded as a "COR" (correction). But if the error remained in place for the entire production run (highly unlikely as that sounds), it would become a "UER" (uncorrected error).

This opens up an interesting lesson in the laws of supply and demand. Either an ERR or its COR can be collectible, but usually not both (though there are certain exceptions). It depends on when in the production run that the ERR is discovered -- if it's early, the ERR will be worth more due to its relative scarcity compared to the COR version. But if it's late, then the COR will be worth more for the opposite reason. (Which makes UERs little more than interesting curiosities, since they have no alternate version to compare with -- they simply exist, untouched and proud. :) )

The exceptions to this rule occur when you have one item with more than one ERR or COR in the same run. A fine example of this in the sports card world is the infamous Billy Ripken "EAT SH*T" Fleer baseball card of 1989 (look it up sometime, it's hilarious). Fleer noticed the error very early on in the run and corrected it -- however, their correction wasn't quite good enough since the error was still visible. So a second correction was made later on. In this case, all three versions are somewhat rare, but the original error and the first correction hold higher price premiums.

Having said all that, I know that you can all think of several similar situations in the game collecting world. For instance, "Mono Poly" versus "Monopoly" on the Sega Master System.

Duncan :D

[Chunky]

I find myself using:

Sorta mint
Kinda mint
almost mint
looks mint
minty fresh
dirty as hell
ray charles says it looks mint

and that Billy Ripken was "Fuck Face" and i still have the 3, the one with the whiteout box was always the most.

[Keir]

This is good. I hated having to figure out these abbreviations from context. I did manage to guess them all except NOS which I thought meant "never opened, sealed". heh

Another common one is:

SW - shrinkwrapped

[dave2236]

You guys didn;t mention

BIN --- Buy it Now

[Qixmaster]

i got post 8000 :D

[Duncan]

and that Billy Ripken was "Fuck Face" and i still have the 3, the one with the whiteout box was always the most.

Thank you for clarifying; all I knew is it was two words, one dirty, and I only have the final edited version. (The price guide doesn't tell what the words are -- damn moralists.)

Duncan :D