I have a lot of questions on this one. When you buy old games, do you get the box and instructions also? Do you recommend getting the boxes and instructions? Where will I be able to buy them besides Ebay?
Boxes and Instructions
I have a lot of questions on this one. When you buy old games, do you get the box and instructions also? Do you recommend getting the boxes and instructions? Where will I be able to buy them besides Ebay?
If you can get older games with their manuals/boxes make sure you do everytime.
Having games in complete condition can double and triple their value.
There is really no easy way to obtain boxes/manuals...have to be lucky and most of the time willing to pay a bit.
Best ways are getting lucky at garage sales/pawn shops/etc., buying them by the b ulk on ebay, or finding private sellers here and on other game trading sites that are looking to get rid of spare boxes/manuals.
Hope this helps.
If you're just starting out you're collection, I highly recommend only buying games that are CIB. If you're collecting continues to grow, eventually you'll sit in a room and think "wow, all these loose carts look stupid"
I realized about a year and a half ago that I hated loose games. After about 3 years of collecting loose games, I'm still working on getting the boxes and manuals for games that I bought loose.
I came to this same realization recently, but it was coincidentally about the same time I started making more money..Originally Posted by Jumpman Jr.
Word. If I can't get a game with box and manual, I won't buy it.
If I sell or trade a game, I try to make sure it's CIB. If not, I feel bad.
The only time I buy them not CIB is when they are really really cheap.
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That's the EXACT reason why I don't own Stack Up, Wild Gunman or Donkey Kong Jr. Math.
I'm on the other side of the fence on this one. As far as retro things, I mainly collect for the genesis and have over 200 carts, not to mention misc. 32x and sega cd junk too. I also live with my fiancée in a two bedroom apt, one bedroom of which is occupied by our lovable weasel. Well not really, but his closet is full of other stuff like shoes, board games, tools, xmas crap, transformers, etc. Now even if I had all of the boxes for my genesis games, it wouldn't be feasible to display 200 of them. I just don't have the room, and even if I did, I'm not sure how I'd feel about inviting everyone I know over to a half assed room of doom.
Needless to say I have about 50 odd genesis boxes tucked away in a box inside Weasel's Closet. I plan on someday bringing out a couple cool ones as a showpiece. Maybe Two Crude Dudes for the homoerotic overtones. Sadly TCD only ranks a 6/10 in the innuendo catagory, narrowly defeated by Bebop as a leatherman in Turtles 4 and the entire Cho-Aniki series. I digress. I have a compact, but formidable tv stand and have managed to fit all of my sega games on one side in a mostly orderly fashion so far. Keeping carts contact side down seems to deter dust. I also keep my loose 32x games and n64 games on the same side.
On the other side I have 50+ Complete gamecube games, but it was a lot easier to be choosy about them. Genesis games are pretty cheap cib for the most part, but dirt cheap loose. Oh, and God couldn't break one if he tried. Some I own for pure novelty value alone. I wouldn't want to pay more than $3 for Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama, box or not, personally. Chibi-Robo worked hard for his box...
Last edited by outofkeyslightly; 05-08-2008 at 11:53 PM.
The only system that I really try for boxes and instructions on is the Virtual Boy. And any CD based console.
Boxes look nice and all, but they are a real pain in the butt in my opinion. I probably have around 120 boxes for my NES games, and at times I feel like selling them all. I feel like I have to be so careful with them, and they take up a LOT of space. Manuals, on the other hand, can be stored easily. I can fit about 10-20 in the hard plastic NES cases.
Even though Genesis cases take up just as much room (if not more) than NES boxes, I don't mind them because they aren't nearly as fragile. I can stack 30 of them and not feel bad about it, but NES boxes need to be handled with freaking white gloves. It gets old fast.
And as DigitalSpace said, if you limit yourself to complete-only games then it will take you a much longer time to build your collection (unless you are rich). I have about 900 NES games, and only 120 or so have boxes. Most of the best ones are cart only.
All what I just said only applies to pre-disc games btw. Now it's complete or no sale for me.
While I'd love to have boxes, they take up too much room, and make getting at the games too much of a pain for me. I've got official game drawers for most of them, and just put the loose carts in there. I love having manuals, when I can though, because they don't take up much space. N64 is nice to have boxes, because the cart labeling is lackluster. Genesis has the great boxes too, but not ergonomic for me. I would also agree that a loose CD or DVD game looks pretty cheapsie.
That said, I often wind up buying games that are CIB, because I want the game and manual, but not the box. So I've got a few boxes full of boxes I have to sell off or whatever. I know, I am a retro gaming blasphemer, but I don't care about the value of the game, I am not reselling and only collect a limited amount for each system. A big reason I do this though is that when CIB, there is a huge difference in the condition of the cart. You know it has been very well kept, whereas many loose carts are former rentals that have been beat to death.
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For me it depends on the system. Gameboy games (especially the older versions) are really problematic - so those I will pick up if I can get the manual at least - about 1/2 of my gameboy games are boxed but they all have manuals. (I would love to have boxes for Spud's Adventure and Knight's Quest - probably not gonna happen though.) My turbo games all have their jewel cases and manuals, but not many have the original cardboard outer boxes.
My SNES (for storage purposes I don't keep the games in the boxes but I do have them), genesis, sega cd, saturn and dreamcast games are all complete - mostly because I started these collections when I could get stuff new and it was not hard to get them used in complete condition.
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I always try & get the games boxed/w instructions if I can. Ideally in good condition too.
For the NES & SNES this can be tough (or expensive, or both!). When I got my NES (last year) I just bought a load of titles un-boxed which were dirt cheap just to play, & the same for my SNES. I'm just glad to have the consoles & cartridges at the end of the day, but I feel the CIB factor adds to my collection, with the box-art & helpful manuals. I get a greater sense of completion as a collector.
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