Rare Games You Bought by 'Accident'

[Ascending Wordsmith]

Ever buy a rare game only because it was in front of you? You didn't know it would become rare. In fact, you weren't even thinking about where this game would be in your immediate future. It was there. You bought it. It's yours. Time passes. It's still in your possesion for some reason but you don't get rid of it. Next thing you know, it's sought after by collectors.

Anyone ever routinely buy a game only to become the owner of a collector's item?

[Oobgarm]

Rez for PS2. Bought it on release day, still have it, still play it, and it fetches upwards of $70.

:rocker:

[Trellisaze]

It's more rare than valuable, but I picked up a loose SNES Chavez II for $5 many years back, simply because I felt just then like having a boxing game. Didn't really feel that strongly about it by the time I got it back home, though...

[Sotenga]

I got Klonoa when it first came out. I'm still not selling it. :P

I also hear Mega Man X3 is a rare game, and I got that too when it was new. 8-)

[den68]

I picked up Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo a few years ago at Best Buy for $9.99. The only reason I bought it was because it was cheap and my wife and I both really enjoyed playing Tecmo Stackers. It turned into our favorite puzzle game and while not all that rare it's pretty sought after.

[Queen Of The Felines]

I bought Fox Hunt off ebay for less than $5 because at the time I had a booth at a bi-monthly toy show and was looking for cheap games to resell. It soon disappeared in the vast wasteland I call my bedroom and I re-found it about a year ago. Again, not too valuable, but pretty damn rare for a Playstation game.

Kristine

[NE146]

Pretty much anything I had that is supposedly somewhat 'rare' was 100% by accident. Because I sure as heck don't hunt them down later LOL

Lessee... a good number of the 80's jap handheld games I own. Tengen Tetris, 2600 Bumper Bash, some Square games, Starfox Tournament Edition, Radiant Silvergun, Some general 5200 stuff like Mr. Do's castle. Various Genny, NES, SNES, TG-16 games. Old 80's videogame magazines.. The original Star Wars mail in 4pack of figures and the cardboard display for it. *shrug* Stuff like that

[Gamereviewgod]

Flinstones 2, NES. Bought during a B1G1 free sale. Only had it because I didn't have it.

[norkusa]

I bought Peek-A-Boo Poker and Hot Slots (both complete) from a local video store when I had no idea how rare they were. It was when I first started collecting 5 years ago and knew nothing about NES games. Thought it was worth the $5 they were asking for each cart so I picked them both up. Today I still have them and I credit the find as to what got me started collecting for the NES. I figured since I got 2 of the hardest games to find, the rest should be easy. Now I only need 88 more carts until my collection is complete.

The crazy thing is I almost traded them off a couple weeks later to some dude for a boxed Fairchild Channel F system, but backed out at the last minute. Man, he was pissed but I'm so glad I didn't go thru with it.

[ubersaurus]

I bought Mega Man for Game Gear, which is now pretty well sought for.

[Slipdeath]

chavez 2 is rare?? i saw a boxed one on saturday

[SoulBlazer]

I bought the remake of the first three Wing Commander games, called the Kirathi Saga, for the PC when it was brand new for $50. Played it some. Knew it was rare but I was'nt going to sell it -- till a friend offered me $200 for it last year (as it was complete and mint). I sold it. :D

Most valuable game I still have? Suikoden 2. Traded for it and the Prima hint book with my old GBP. Did'nt know how valuable or sought out that the game would be today. It looks like, based on current prices, I could sell both the game and the book for over $100 today.

[Sylentwulf]

I took a maxi-15 NES game because it came with a system and caveman games, otherwise I would have passed on it, for free (this was quite a while ago)

Other than that, the only other thing I can think of is finding out that "new-style" NES I bought was worth a ton 10 years later :) Guess it WAS a good thing my mother threw out my NES....

[CRaCKeRJaCK1980]

Well, these are not video games. But I found some old sports books at the local thrift store. I had no idea they were RARE. Thought I might be able to sell them on e-bay for some quick cash. They ended up being some extremely rare putnam sports series books. Payed 1.50 each for 9 of them. They are worth almost $2000. I'm pretty excited. :D

[Arqueologia_Digital]

I bought Out run 3D for $ 20 (About 5 dollars) Complete with box/manual 8-)

[GrandAmChandler]

I bought Strider, John Madden, and Columns for SMS as a kid having no idea they were toward the end of the SMS life-cycle

oh yeah Action 52, genny

[fcw3]

I bought a NES Secret Scout (complete) a few years back. Apparently, I hear it is rare. I could be wrong about that. It was cheap and one I didn't have at the time.

FRED

[le geek]

Suikoden II and Radiant Silvergun. I got them when they came out...

Cheers,
Ben

[Scoots]

I got a complete Herzog Zwei at the Salvation Army for 2 bucks. At the time I sort of vaguely remembered hearing something about the game being good.

[chadtower]

Pretty much half of the TG library, both HU and CD/SCD while everyone was trying to dump them. That goes for the hardware too... Duo, TE, etc. Also all of my PCE games (Toilet Kids, Dracula X, Ys IV, FEOE series, the wrestling games)... all bought when people didn't really want them anymore.

[RetroYoungen]

I don't have much of anything that's really rare, per se, but I did pick up Trouble Shooter (R5) and another game (can't remember the name, R4) for Genny for about 5 bucks total, and togther they're worth like $20 according to the guide. Not much, but I was pleased. :)

I also won an online auction for a new Genny 2 with like 5 games for about $25, and so for practically free I got Wardner (R7, $35). Good luck in those.

[ubersaurus]

If you want to get consoles into the mix too, I got a top loader back in the day when it came out, because my NES was sucks from being used so much.

[bargora]

I also bought Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (PSX) in the normal course. Paid $20 for it, if I recall correctly. And then, when it was reissued I picked up a second copy. Due to the reissue, though, it seems to be going for $30-32 on ebay these days, rather than the $70+ it used to get.

[sisko]

Same with Puzzle Fighter 2...paid $18 for it.

[slurpeepoop]

I've always bought most games when they first come out, and statistically, some turn out to be rare.

However, the best example was Dragonball GT: Final Bout on the PSX.

My friend was working at Toys R Us, and I (along with most of my friends) were big Dragonball fans at the time, so he told me there was a Dragonball game out on the PSX. I went up there, and they had 4 copies for $30 each. I bought all 4, one for me, and the other three for my friends, that way, we each had a copy to play at our own homes, and had an equal opportunity to build up our characters.

I ended up giving just one of the copies away, and kept one for myself, and stored the other two away in my collection.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I find out that Dragonball is selling on EBay for $150 or more. I knew I had my copy, but had completely forgotten about the other two I had, still sealed, in a box somewhere. I eventually ran across them, and almost had to change my pants.

Needless to say, I sold both of the sealed copies, each went past the $200 mark. I was very happy.

[KirbyStar27]

Bought Blakthorne (sealed) and T-Mek(sealed) for 32x for 4 dollars. Had no idea what the heck they were except that they were cheap! :D

[lendelin]

Not rare ones, but a lot of high in demand ones.

E.g. a Castlevanaia Dracula X or Mega man 5 around 8 months after their release (each for $20) when noone really wanted these games.

...but the best thing I ever did in hindsight was buying a NES Toploader in March 1996. I scrolled around at ToyRUS becasue I had to buy a birthday present for a kid of a friend, and saw the Toploader for $25. I thought for this price it's not a bad buy, just in case your NES breaks down one day. I was hesitant to buy it, but I did.

Only later I learned that the Toploader was discontinued in late 1994, it must have been one of the last ones, and I had no idea at the time that people would pay $250 for it later.

I still have it in the original box like new (with the receipt), all the items inside in the original wrappings, I never opened or used the dogbone controller; only the actual unit was out for about two months years ago for space reasons, but I put it back in the box, and it's today in the original wrapping, too.

THANK GOODNESS I wasn't to cheap to pick it up back then. :)