The King of Collectors: Full Playstation 2 NTSC Library Sealed

[Oobgarm]

Boy, some people have more money than they know what to do with. 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.

QFT. I love the PS2, but I find this crazy. Maybe 1/10th of the games on the system will be looked at as "good buys" later on down the road, especially sealed, but the rest will likely be "just more old common crap".

And the sheer number of dupes I saw was kinda sickening. 13 copies of the GH version of Crazy Taxi? WHY??? No one needs 5 sealed copies of NCAA Football 2002. NOBODY. Showing off piles of dupes just screams of arrogance to me. And this is the kind of arrogance that was simply bought with piles of money.

Anything can be achieved if you throw enough money at it.

[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.

[Parodius Duh!]

its not like collecting sealed NES or other vintage stuff either, Im sure quite a few super nerds have put away sealed copies of "what might be rare" just to hock on ebay in a few years. You'll see.

[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?

[Emuaust]

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 would rather have a full PS2 set(sealed is stupid) then a CIB Nes set anyday, takes all kinds I suppose.

While this guy seems to have too much money and probably doesn't super appreciate what he has I am nearly half way on a PAL PS2 set and Im dirt poor...

[Porksta]

He says he only collects the first release with the white logo? Were there other releases, or does he just mean black label?

[jonebone]

lol @ all the hate in this thread. So what if he has money, he's still a collector.

Now if he just slapped $100k down in someone's face and bought their entire PS2 collection, then you'd have a point. But he pieced it together game by game just as many of us collectors do.

When talking about the last game he needed, he even says:

"The first Moto GP. It was an early release title and I had never seen one sealed. I literally looked through thousands and thousands of games every day on EBay to find one."

Someone looking through thousands of games in a day obviously has a love for the hobby, no matter how much money. If he was such a filthy rich snob as you guys make it seem, he'd pay someone else hundreds of dollars to search for him and land the deal.

Seriously, the jealousy in this thread is disgusting.

[Darko]

And I thought I had quite a few PS2 games at around 200

Now, as far as people bashing him for having money, that's ridiculous. Who cares? I make a great salary for being 27 and I grew up without much want. Does that make me a bad person? If I wanted to have a complete sealed PS2 collection I could make it happen over a few years. I just don't spend a ton of money on collecting because I enjoy the hunt and finding great deals on games. It's part of the fun in it to me.

Collecting games should be something fun and personal. Jealousy shouldn't drive you to the point of being a dick. Money isn't everything and the amount of shit you have lying around doesn't make you who you are.

[Aussie2B]

You guys are exaggerating the "hate" in here. That's usually how these topics go. If anyone posts something the slightest bit negative, anything other than "Wow, that guy and his collection are awesome!", then accusations of jealousy and hatred are thrown around. Nothing that terrible has been said in here. Some just feel that his collection isn't as impressive or meaningful as others. I think there's something wrong with the collecting community if the guy with the most money is automatically considered to have the most impressive collection. It's not just about what's on the shelf; it's about the hunt itself. Anyway, if this guy came here personally to post his collection, I think you'd see less negativity, but when you do an interview and that interview gets posted on forums, you're opening yourself up to discussion - discussion of all kinds. This guy would have to be naive if he'd think that every reaction would be praise. Heck, as fellow collectors, we can relate to where this guy is coming from and our negativity is pretty mild as a result, compared to people who don't collect games and would have far more disparaging words for a guy that has thousands of sealed plastic cases (because that's all they are if you're not opening them) which he's spent God knows how much money on.

[Bojay1997]

You guys are exaggerating the "hate" in here. That's usually how these topics go. If anyone posts something the slightest bit negative, anything other than "Wow, that guy and his collection are awesome!", then accusations of jealousy and hatred are thrown around. Nothing that terrible has been said in here. Some just feel that his collection isn't as impressive or meaningful as others. I think there's something wrong with the collecting community if the guy with the most money is automatically considered to have the most impressive collection. It's not just about what's on the shelf; it's about the hunt itself. Anyway, if this guy came here personally to post his collection, I think you'd see less negativity, but when you do an interview and that interview gets posted on forums, you're opening yourself up to discussion - discussion of all kinds. This guy would have to be naive if he'd think that every reaction would be praise. Heck, as fellow collectors, we can relate to where this guy is coming from and our negativity is pretty mild as a result, compared to people who don't collect games and would have far more disparaging words for a guy that has thousands of sealed plastic cases (because that's all they are if you're not opening them) which he's spent God knows how much money on.

I agree. While there is the usual negativity regarding sealed stuff in this thread and a few people probably went a little far questioning how this relatively young guy could afford all this stuff, I'm just not seeing a lot of jealousy or even hate. If anything, the OP set his interview subject up for ridicule by declaring him the "King of Collectors". I think it's neat that he has a full PS2 sealed set and more impressive that he has a near complete Neo Geo English collection, but I don't think this is the kind of story that is going to inspire people or make them jealous. He's collecting a very recent system where even the "rare" games are plentiful and literally anyone with a little time and a credit card can complete the set if they really want to.

[tom]

Any PS2 special box releases, like MGS on PSX?

[Darko]

I think there's something wrong with the collecting community if the guy with the most money is automatically considered to have the most impressive collection.

If you have more buying power you're going to (potentially) have more items (more=better to many collectors). I agree with your statement but not everyone thinks like us.

It's not just about what's on the shelf; it's about the hunt itself.

Truth.

I'm just not seeing a lot of jealousy or even hate.

Yeah, I agree. I might have gotten a little carried away. It just rubs me the wrong way when I hear/see people throw around negativity towards someone's achievement, monetarily or otherwise. Hit a little personal chord.

I'm pretty impressed simply because of the amount of time/effort he's obviously put in to finding everything sealed. Sure, it's not the oldest system in the world but it's still quite the collection. Also, I'd bet that his duplicates are widely due to the purchase of large lots of unsealed games along the way.

[Darko]

Stupid double post...

[Swamperon]

Most expensive paper weight ever?

I jest. Well kinda. Yes it's impressive to a degree and I don't care about the money side but they're just gonna sit there now... Granted PS2 is recent enough that he can pick up any game again on the cheap probably, but... meh.

There's more impressive collections out there and much harder sealed ones to achieve.

At least they're not all graded!

[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?