The King of Collectors: Full Playstation 2 NTSC Library Sealed

[Parodius Duh!]

Should be "North American" sealed set, not NTSC. Japan is NTSC as well, doubt he has all those games sealed......or ever will for that matter. Anyone who has a complete Sealed Japanese set is the real balls to the wall ps2 collector.

[Boltorano]

Should be "North American" sealed set, not NTSC. Japan is NTSC as well, doubt he has all those games sealed......or ever will for that matter. Anyone who has a complete Sealed Japanese set is the real balls to the wall ps2 collector.

Perhaps, although I think most would get the right idea.

If somebody said they had a "Complete NTSC-J collection" I wouldn't assume they had all the North America releases automatically.

[SpaceHarrier]

Fun read.. I don't get the sealed thing either, but it's certainly an amazing collection!

[savageone]

Wow I totally overlooked that this guy is only 2 games from completing an english AES set when I made my first post here. I thought he was just starting.

He says he is only missing Metal Slug and Ninja Masters, and while those two are definitely rare they aren't the rarest english AES games. If he has legit copies of Kizuna Encounter and Ultimate 11 he should be well known in the Neo Geo community. These are probably the 2 most rare commercially available games ever. As far as I know the last documented sale of those two games were $55,000 for the pair 2-3 years ago. How did he get either of those 2 games? Does Ahans76 use a different ID there? He obviously has the money for them, is he is the same guy who paid $55k?

[TonyTheTiger]

Boy, some people have more money than they know what to do with. It only takes him four years to get a full, sealed PS2 library (is it full NTSC? I don't see Japanese games), and he immediately starts a US AES set and is only shy two already? All by 23 years old? Crazy. Talk about the silver spoon. Kudos to him for meeting his collecting goals, but a huge, sealed collection like that is just a massive waste of both money and space in my book. I'd be more impressed by an average Joe without bottomless pockets slowly piecing together a full set over many years, one which he plays and loves.

Just because you have money doesn't mean you are smart with your money. Also, I agree with this post. This moneybags should talk to the moneybags on NA who has two complete in box GG collections. Together, they can forge an even more meaningless collecting goal and waste even more money.

I'm not going to pass judgment on somebody for their buying habits so long as their affairs and necessities are in order and their priorities are straight enough that they aren't harming themselves or others.

But, I really would like to hear more about these truly grand collecting goals in terms of money. I realize that people's finances are none of my or any one else's business but there are two things I always think of when I see collections like this.

1) What kind of floor/shelf space do you need to comfortably handle it all?
2) What kind of initial investment and management is necessary to follow through?

People talk about the amount of money collections are worth after the fact but they never talk about the actual process of accumulating everything (and not going bankrupt in the meantime) in much detail. I think I'd be interested in reading a candid explanation/advice column on how to balance large collecting goals with money.

[Doonzmore]

What's the story behind the Uncharted Fortune Hunter Edition anyway?

[tom]

Any PS2 special box releases, like MGS on PSX?

[Xtincthed]

Any PS2 special box releases, like MGS on PSX?

one of the pictures in the interview shows some of the box sets

[PapaStu]

What's the story behind the Uncharted Fortune Hunter Edition anyway?

It was a special edition given out/won when Drakes 2 released. Something like 100 copies in each region were made (or was it just 100 total, I forget). They were never put up for sale, just given away by SCEA/Naughty Dog.

Whenever a massive set like this is established some of the first things kicked around always revolves around the $$ needed to facilitate the collection. The second thing that gets kicked around seems to revolve around the time it took to facilitate the collection. This is compounded by the simple fact that it was done relatively quickly and the final outcome... sealed. I've never seen anything as alienating as the sealed/complete/loose item collection arguments that spring up, with the sealed collections taking the cake for interwebz drama. What doesn't help here is the fact that some of the attitude his interview has portrayed him as a braggart and that tends to really rub people the wrong way.

4 years to make a full set of PS2 games is no small matter. 4 years to make a full SEALED set is pretty insane.
Early NES collectors who started to make full sets appear got this kind of reaction too. So much money, stupid collection a huge waste of space, all of that was kicked around. Now people may think that, but because a complete set is a bit more common, its not as shocking as it used to be.

What anyone decides to do with their income is completely their own perogative. Do questions come up, when a 23 year old person has amassed a sealed set of games in a relative quick period of time? Of course. It cost money, no doubt about it, but if this guy chooses to spend 40k (conservative estimate) amassing this set, so be it. It may not be the wisest choice with ones money, but game collecting on the whole is that way. Even those of us who've been doing it for a decade or two, we know we're not going to get it all back.

So this guy has also almost completed an AES set (among who knows what else), he's got money, be it from the lotto, a trust fund, a massive stock payout, his invention of the snuggie, working hard in his 9 to 5 job. Who gives a fuck. Would it have been any better to the collecting community had the AES set not been mentioned? I doubt it. The target would have just fallen onto other things like Assassins Cases, or Fortune Editions, or 14 copies of Crazy Taxi GH. There is no pleasing everyone.

[The 1 2 P]

Doesn't Dream have a full or near complete set of PS2 games also?

[gum_drops]

As far as I know the last documented sale of those two games were $55,000 for the pair 2-3 years ago. How did he get either of those 2 games? Does Ahans76 use a different ID there? He obviously has the money for them, is he is the same guy who paid $55k?

That was wolf, who bought them from Shawn for 55,000.

Yes, appears this is the same Ahans76 from neo-geo.com.

[Gameguy]

It's not really how many games he has, but how quickly he got them all. It wasn't carefully built over a long period of time, it was pretty much instant. He focused on the PS2 for four years, and if I'm reading the interview correctly he had 300-400 sealed games before he decided to focus on the console. Four years has approximately 1460 days, even subtracting the 300-400 sealed games he already had that's about 1 sealed game per day. I'm sure he bought other games for other systems during the same time, and he said after he finished the collection he literally started on the Neo Geo the next day. I'm more worried that he's giving the impression that most "serious" collectors are overly materialistic and are driven by compulsive behaviour beyond their control.