Your best "I didn't know that was rare!" moments?

[Robocop2]

Year later when I found out the copy of Action 52 that my mom bought me when I was young was actually valuable. Of course it was long gone at that point.

[BetaWolf47]

Most of the NES stuff that has gone thru the roof in the last few years. Many of them mentioned in this thread.

Makes sense, though. The system has been discontinued for almost 20 years now. It's not unlike how a 60's or 70's Corvette goes for tons more than it did back in the day. I imagine once the labels of these games are starting to decay, even games like Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt will be worth a few Jacksons.

[Carnby]

Another moment I had was finding a complete copy of Bioshock Limited Edition for 30 dollars. The Big Daddy was sealed too. I believe the store based the price on the average copy on Ebay, which are usually incomplete.

[geezuzkhrist119]

Year later when I found out the copy of Action 52 that my mom bought me when I was young was actually valuable. Of course it was long gone at that point.

I feel your pain. I had that game as a kid. My mom sold all my NES stuff to buy me an snes.

Daaaaaamn you moooooom!!!

[StarBlazer]

When I started collecting in 2000, I was only interested in my childhood systems, the 2600 and Colecovision. In a thrift in a bad part of town that I visited once every week or two. I kept passing on a boxfull of Emerson Arcadia CIB games. Never heard of the system...wasn't interested. A few months later , I had really gotten bitten by the collecting bug. I went back to that store and they were still sitting there. About 8 CIB title's in a Emerson Arcadia shipper box. Wound up paying only $6 for them. Must have sat there for atleast a few months. That would never happen nowadays!

[NoDanaOnlyZool]

I bought the N64 "glove" from a church yard sale last year for 50 cents. I had never seen it before and only bought it because I saw it had a n64 connector.

[old_skoolin_jim]

He cracked open a VGA case on a Gun Nac a couple years back, and then just sealed copies of Stinger and Panic Restaurant(this one done at the trade show while others starting having varying reactions from amusement, stunned, or actually mouthing off or screaming like it was murder.)

Please tell me this is on YouTube somewhere...

[old_skoolin_jim]

On-topic, my best instance would be buying a sealed Buster Douglas Boxing for Master System from the video store in my hometown for $3 (part of a 4-for-$10 deal, actually... 90% of my SMS library came from that store but I digress...), circa 1996. Fast-forward to 2009, and I see it's one of the rarest/most valuable games on the system... fliiiiiped that isht.
Kinda surprised/disappointed to see it has kept on increasing in value... I sold it then (opened, of course, because I wanted to play it when I bought it in 1996) for $75, and now I see it going for roughly double. Oh well! Such is life.

[Spidey80]

Not sure if this could be considered rare,but since I never knew this game even existed until I found it at Play-N-Trade in 2008,I`ll count it as rare...Poker Face Paul`s Gin for the Game Gear.

I already knew of the solitaire,poker,and blackjack versions of the PFP series,but not the Gin one.