What's a good price to pay per game for bulk of common NES titles?

[treismac]

What's a good price to pay if you buy a lot of 25, 50, 100 common ($1-5 on price charting/ebay) NES games? Would a high percentage of Black Box games affect that price I know someone who has tons of duplicate NES games he will never sell, so I'm thinking of making an offer for some of them with an eye to resell them.

I think at the current moment the market for NES games is still strong enough that I can make a buck or two and keep a few carts for my collection. What say you?

[Tanooki]

I hate to take the NA angle with it, but you got to feel out who you're buying from. If they do not know what they have you can go for like $2~ a game and it won't matter if it's black box or the freaking flintstones 2 at that point. Now if someone has an idea that some of it is worth a bit, you kind of just have to figure it out as you go. You could point out what's common and then pull the rares to the side and bundle up a deal that way. The real issue is when you know they know what they have, if they're selling in bulk I wouldn't give them more than 1/2 of what the better stuff is worth and the rest still falls into the couple bucks average junk.

I think the key here is whatever you pay, I wouldn't at most not pay more than 1/2 the given value on any of the games, and if it's a true $5 or less super common title no more than a buck or two because you'll end up ebaying that crap for maybe $4-5 and you take out the 10% + 3% w/29 cents it gets down to where you bundle those turds or it's just not worth it.

[fairyland]

Typically if it's not an already picked over lot then offering $2 a cart is fair. If it's picked over and obviously nothing but crap, then 50 cents a cart is fair. Paying anything more than that and you'll loose money unless you really know your stuff to make a proper offer.

My offering prices are a little on the low side, but I have to factor ebay & paypal fees, cleaning time, packing material costs, shipping, etc. When everything is done, I tend to pay three times more in related costs than my actual inventory cost!

On ebay, I typically get about $2.50 each for those common $1 to $5 dollar rage games no matter what size the lot is and that's breaking even or perhaps even loosing money...it tends not to be worth the bother. My money is actually made off of the better names and rare titles and not the bulk crap that I seem to always end up having at the end of the day.

Having black box games or 5 screws never seemed to matter at all to my buyers. They seem to want the big series names like Super Mario Bros, Zeldas and Castlevanias and never a black box cart lot.

The collection you are looking at is probably going to be a dud. I wouldn't pay more than 50 cents a cart with plans to keep about 25%. I'd flip the rest at $2.50 per cart and hope to break even. I'm doubting he'll let them go for that cheap, so you may be better off asking to pay $2 a cart (or whatever you feel is fair) to pick out the ones you do want and just enjoy without all that flipping fuss.

[Rickstilwell1]

Bulk titles are best bundled with systems and sold to new owners of the system in general. You can make more money off a loose NES deck by bundling a bunch of cheap stuff you happened upon with it because they help make it look better.

[treismac]

Bulk titles are best bundled with systems and sold to new owners of the system in general. You can make more money off a loose NES deck by bundling a bunch of cheap stuff you happened upon with it because they help make it look better.

You're right, but I hoard systems. Parting with any of my reserves will put me behind when the retro video game apocalypse is upon us.

[Ro-J]

Whether this helps or not, you judge, but last year I looked up the going rate of every NES game I own on VGPC. I had 249 games at that time, so there was quite a bit of variety in the games I owned -- but the average value per game I owned last year was $5.52. Since then, as a rule, I've been looking for games at around $2 per title for reselling. I figure with ebay\paypal taking 13%, plus the $0.30 paypal fee, plus the $1.93 postage for USPS First Class when purchased online (or is it $2.07, I sometimes get my games mixed up).....selling a game for $5.50 only nets a little over $2.

Of course there are other variables in play, but if you figure $2 per title then at the very least you'll make your money back....and if there is a DKJR Math (for example) in the mix...profit.

[Tanooki]

True enough at $5 you don't have much room left and under is just dumb. If you figure roughly 15% + 29 cents (ebay10%, pp3%, fvf into the shipping charge)+29 more PP cents is about right. Let's say you do flat rate shipping at $3 (so $8 on the game.) $8 -1.20 - .29 = $6.51. It may be a hair off with the shipping but there's the cut on that. You still need to factor in what you're paying for in gas, paper+ink, personal time, and bubble mailer and you're probably $4-5, if that because whatever your overhead is on the rest eats more into it.

It's why I won't sell a thing online for under $5 by itself at and all on ebay, I'll take it to a local chain and get like $3 for the item against something I'll actually use. I just did that today too with a few manga books and a few sub $5 items I had on here and ebay for months (4 games.) With that along with my PS2 slim lot I had at $40 no one wanted with 4 games I ended up getting $67 in store credit. I turned it around got a blu ray, mario paint complete in the box, and a nice $20 bill. I already had $35 in credit too so on a 2nd transaction I got a new copy of Smash Bros 3DS with an added 5.29 out of pocket on that one. See when you get low the rewards are better stacking the crap to get something you want.

[wizardofwor1975]

You're right, but I hoard systems. Parting with any of my reserves will put me behind when the retro video game apocalypse is upon us.

+1 retro system hoarder. Retro video game apocalypse...LOL