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Thread: OK is it really worth getting the VGA GRADING ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    Yep, the VGA grading thing seems to have slowed as well. There haven't been as many record breaking sales lately and I see a lot of stuff just sitting on Ebay for months at a time with no buyers. The stuff graded at 90 or above does seem to still sell quickly, but the reality is that there just isn't much of it out there, so the few collectors who buy it are always competing for it.
    It was just one whale buying everything, there's a fine medium somewhere. People looked at those sales and thought that was the basis of all collectors... it's not, it's just one rich guy and his money.

    Say a title goes for about $150 sealed on average then someone gets a VGA 90 of it. So they're probably $200 into it themselves. There will be plenty of buyers at the $300 / $400 / $500 level based on the premium grade. The problem is that this title was selling for like $10,000 if the whale needed it, so ignorant buyers assume that's the value on a VGA 90. Yet the real value may have been closer to $1,000, but the market never got to see it.

    So prices are still moving up in a steady fashion in you really know the fair value of an item. You just exclude those outlier flukes and sealed games are as healthy as ever.
    Last edited by jonebone; 10-16-2012 at 01:58 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    Actually, VGA does grade opened but allegedly not used games, they just call them "qualified".
    That's why I put "new" in quotes.

    I used mint open versus mint sealed because I was trying to see if it was actually new

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    Quote Originally Posted by wiggyx View Post
    That's why I put "new" in quotes.

    I used mint open versus mint sealed because I was trying to see if it was actually new
    Well, you probably should have stated factory sealed then because there are plenty of PSX games out there being sold as sealed/mint/new that aren't factory sealed.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jonebone View Post
    It was just one whale buying everything, there's a fine medium somewhere. People looked at those sales and thought that was the basis of all collectors... it's not, it's just one rich guy and his money.

    Say a title goes for about $150 sealed on average then someone gets a VGA 90 of it. So they're probably $200 into it themselves. There will be plenty of buyers at the $300 / $400 / $500 level based on the premium grade. The problem is that this title was selling for like $10,000 if the whale needed it, so ignorant buyers assume that's the value on a VGA 90. Yet the real value may have been closer to $1,000, but the market never got to see it.

    So prices are still moving up in a steady fashion in you really know the fair value of an item. You just exclude those outlier flukes and sealed games are as healthy as ever.
    I don't know, it would be interesting to do long term tracking of all sealed sales to get a better sense of fair market values. In my personal experience, prices in general on all sealed games seem to have sort of hit a plauteau in the past few months. I'm not seeing records being hit on non-graded or graded stuff. Maybe that will change if some rarer stuff comes into the market. There does seem to be a glut of VGA stuff graded at 80 and 85 that doesn't seem to be moving at all.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    Well, you probably should have stated factory sealed then because there are plenty of PSX games out there being sold as sealed/mint/new that aren't factory sealed.
    I obviously meant factory sealed. The words "new" and "sealed" are together are pretty hard to misconstrue as "used" but "re-sealed" in this context.

    Also, plenty of games have been re-sealed in hopes of selling for new prices. Hardly exclusive to PS games, and they're far from the first generation of games to be subjected to this type of fraudulent misrepresentation.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wiggyx View Post
    Mint as in new and sealed, or mint as in open item? I ask just because the VGA only grades "new" games.
    I obviously meant factory sealed
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    Quote Originally Posted by wiggyx View Post
    I obviously meant factory sealed. The words "new" and "sealed" are together are pretty hard to misconstrue as "used" but "re-sealed" in this context.

    Also, plenty of games have been re-sealed in hopes of selling for new prices. Hardly exclusive to PS games, and they're far from the first generation of games to be subjected to this type of fraudulent misrepresentation.
    Except on newer games, you have the Gamestop problem. A gutted game is technically not used, but it's also not factory sealed. My local Gamestop used to even leave the Sony hologram seal on top and just slip the disc out of the bottom of the case. I've also seen new games that have had the Y Fold removed and replaced with shrinkwrap, all without tampering with the Sony seal. Similarly, in the old days, before Sony did the UPC punch out or case spine punch, you could buy new games directly from companies like Atlus that didn't have the Sony seal up top or a Y-Fold and those were sent to Atlus like that direct from Sony's authorized replication facilities. They are clearly new and sealed, but not factory sealed.
    Last edited by Bojay1997; 10-16-2012 at 07:24 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    Except on newer games, you have the Gamestop problem. A gutted game is technically not used, but it's also not factory sealed. My local Gamestop used to even leave the Sony hologram seal on top and just slip the disc out of the bottom of the case. I've also seen new games that have had the Y Fold removed and replaced with shrinkwrap, all without tampering with the Sony seal. Similarly, in the old days, before Sony did the UPC punch out or case spine punch, you could buy new games directly from companies like Atlus that didn't have the Sony seal up top or a Y-Fold and those were sent to Atlus like that direct from Sony's authorized replication facilities. They are clearly new and sealed, but not factory sealed.
    Again, nothing new. EB/Babbage's/etc ALL did the same exact thing with every sort of game, whether disc-based or cart or floppy or whatever. We're sort of getting off track at this point.

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    Yeah yeah, play your games, never leave them sealed, whatever. It's easy to play games in emulation or find crummy condition stuff that works great to play. It's a lot harder to find stuff in great unopened shape.

    I love to play me some games, but you're in denial if you don't acknowledge that there is a collectors' market for video games, and that many will remain sealed as tributes of worship.

    I'm not a huge supporter of indiscriminate grading, but if I had a really nice sealed game that I was a huge fan of, I'd consider having it graded, even if that's the only thing I ever had graded. And that has nothing to do with it's eventual value.

    If you want to worry about eventual value, it's a much dicier proposition, bordering on speculation when you get beyond the most popular franchises.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wiggyx View Post
    Again, nothing new. EB/Babbage's/etc ALL did the same exact thing with every sort of game, whether disc-based or cart or floppy or whatever. We're sort of getting off track at this point.
    I'm simply addressing your lazy use of terminology. New/sealed is not the same as new/factory sealed nor is it the same as mint/new.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ianoid View Post
    and that many will remain sealed as tributes of worship.
    ...

    Wow. There are no words.
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    OK, as to the people who say just open and play it.. I did and beat it and I do have two copy's of the game, I got one for a few dollars. For me king field series were Special, just like some other games. Zelda, ect..
    If it's not fun? Your not really playing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bojay1997 View Post
    I'm simply addressing your lazy use of terminology. New/sealed is not the same as new/factory sealed nor is it the same as mint/new.
    And I'm addressing your unnecessary splitting of hairs. I would either say "sealed" or "resealed". It's not lazy, just different from your penchant for the term "factory sealed".
    Last edited by wiggyx; 10-17-2012 at 07:40 AM.

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    If you ever plan to sell it, yes it probably is on certain titles. If you don't, then don't wast the time. I personally don't care for the grading. It just seems to be an excuse for people to ask asinine prices for games.
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    Cool It just seems to be an excuse for people to ask asinine prices for games.

    Well maybe, But to me as a collector its like a piece of art and you want to put it in the best frame you can to show it off to you and me...but the price is to high So game over, if I was rich and money was no big deal? then why not
    If it's not fun? Your not really playing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wiggyx View Post
    And I'm addressing your unnecessary splitting of hairs. I would either say "sealed" or "resealed". It's not lazy, just different from your penchant for the term "factory sealed".
    Well, as a collector, I would say that your "different" term leads to problems. I'm coming from the perspective of a number of years of buying factory sealed things on Ebay. When somebody calls something new/sealed, it's not necessarily "factory sealed", although it could be in fact new. Indeed, going back as far as the Atari 2600, distributors and retailers have been sealing games for sale. Those games aren't factory sealed, but they are new and sealed. You may see it as an unimportant distinction, but for sealed collectors it makes a massive difference.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aussie2B View Post
    I don't think you're going to find much interest here, unfortunately. In general, this is a community that doesn't look too favorably toward VGA.
    That's because VGA is a giant rip-off scheme. Uninformed people are paying tens of times, even hundreds of times more than they would for a game in the same condition just because it has a VGA rating. For instance Shenmue, in good shape, goes for $10-20. In mint condition sealed, maybe $60-100. But in that SAME mint, sealed condition but VGA graded it goes for thousands because some people still think a VGA grade means something. It means nothing, it's just a plastic case and a sticker with a number on it. This is nowhere near the worst example I've heard of, I heard of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker going for something like $25,000 a few years ago... a game that, mint and sealed, goes for under $100.

    Collecting mint/sealed games is one thing. They should be worth much more, maybe a few times as much as a typical CIB game. A lot of mint/sealed games that are inexpensive (in the $10 range) CIB go for $50+ mint/sealed. But mint/sealed prices, while high compared to CIB and especially loose games, have a reason to be high as they are in perfect condition and are much less common than CIB or loose; it's a small percentage of games that survive decades factory sealed or mint, the vast majority lose their factory seal the day they're first bought. But VGA prices are beyond ridiculous. As a video game collecting community, we must turn our backs on VGA - all of us - and only pay what is reasonable for our games. I would hate to see video game collecting become a hobby that is only accessible to the wealthy.

    As for the Golf vs. S-Class analogy, an S-Class costs about 4 times what a Golf costs - about $25,000 vs $100,000. That's a typical gap between a CIB game in okay shape vs. a mint sealed game. VGA is like taking that S-Class and slapping a $10,000,000 price tag on it with a sticker saying "new". No shit, it's new - that's why it's $100,000 in the first place.
    Last edited by WelcomeToTheNextLevel; 11-23-2019 at 10:49 PM.
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    playing devils advocate here but the one real advantage of VGA is that you KNOW its not a re-seal and the condition is going to be verified. you can only see so much from the pictures on eBay. and if its slabbed, you know it wont get damaged during shipping.

    does that warrant the higher price tag? to me it doesnt but to some it does. I just get vibes of "elitism" whenever the subject comes up. Buying a game encased in plastic. yeah not really my thing. you lose all the functionality of it at that point. and you can still keep the game in good condition and play it. my two cents

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    Quote Originally Posted by gbpxl View Post
    the one real advantage of VGA is that you KNOW its not a re-seal
    I would question their ability to truly tell the difference. There are plenty of people who have access to sealing hardware, and if it came down to making hundreds of dollars by resealing rare boxes with a big rock inside, I think there are people who could pull one over on them. Of course, the buyer will never open the thing and so will be forever in the dark about it, and no one will be there to call out VGA or WATA on their errors.

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