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

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    Question OK is it really worth getting the VGA GRADING ?

    I have a seal small jewel case version of king fields one in mint condition. [ the small jewel case version is the harder to find of the two ] what do you guy's think?
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    What do you mean by "worth it"? If you're referring to the numbers game, then you'll just have to look at eBay prices and the way they're trending and decide if selling the game as-is will get you more money than whatever profits you'll have left after you get it slabbed and sell it off, either now or at some later date. (However, I imagine the VGA pricing bubble won't endure indefinitely, so you'd probably want to sell it sooner rather than later.)

    If you're not interested in selling it, then the question is meaningless.
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    Box protectors will do for normal games. And ones valuable enough to want to further minimize shipping damage.

    Save VGA for games who warrant it. It'll mark a treasure in your collection or to the right buyers.
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    You have to look really closely at the shrinkwrap. Even the smallest tears or damage will downgrade it.

    It can be worth doing for 'good' titles, that is, rare sealed stuff or common in demand stuff.

    How long will you keep it? In the long long term (10+ years?), my belief is that grading will be worth it for nearly anything that will grade 90 and up. But if you plan to make a quick flip, grading hasn't caught on universally for video games, so you may be wasting your time and money.

    If I was a huge fan of a game and I had it mint/sealed, regardless of where value was going, I'd consider having it graded.

    If you are using your last dollar to grade something, don't bother. Grading is a luxury item at this point.

    If throwing down $50-$100 for an acrylic case sounds like an awesome investment, then it's always time to have your sealed item graded.

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    Talking Thanks for the replys

    Well, I do love the game.. Also, I though it cost like 25.00 and anymore then that would be a no go. Just wanted to see what collectors though of the Idea. Would look kind of pretty though
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    Quote Originally Posted by PROTOTYPE View Post
    Well, I do love the game.. Also, I though it cost like 25.00 and anymore then that would be a no go. Just wanted to see what collectors though of the Idea. Would look kind of pretty though
    Yeah it'll be more than $25 so you answered your own question. You have to pay to ship it to VGA, as well as insurance + return shipping too. If you're just subbing one game it's going to be closer to $40-$50 even if you opted for the slowest turnaround time possible (~2 months).

    On a title like this, I'd just leave it as-is. I only grade stuff that is 85+ or better, "Mint" to most untrained eyes. As someone already mentioned, I don't see a lot of demand for stuff that grades below gold (85+) in the future. Unless it's something really old next to impossible to find sealed Mint, like DK Jr. Math for example.
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    Quote Originally Posted by ianoid View Post
    You have to look really closely at the shrinkwrap. Even the smallest tears or damage will downgrade it.

    It can be worth doing for 'good' titles, that is, rare sealed stuff or common in demand stuff.

    How long will you keep it? In the long long term (10+ years?), my belief is that grading will be worth it for nearly anything that will grade 90 and up. But if you plan to make a quick flip, grading hasn't caught on universally for video games, so you may be wasting your time and money.

    If I was a huge fan of a game and I had it mint/sealed, regardless of where value was going, I'd consider having it graded.

    If you are using your last dollar to grade something, don't bother. Grading is a luxury item at this point.

    If throwing down $50-$100 for an acrylic case sounds like an awesome investment, then it's always time to have your sealed item graded.
    The problem is that getting a 90 on many games is very difficult, even if the game comes out of a factory sealed shipping case. I would say in my experience that most jewel case games that to most collectors look mint sealed grade at between 85 and 85+. I really don't see the point of getting anything graded unless you're just looking to maximize resale value and you know it's something VGA sealed collector's want in that condition and are willing to pay a premium to buy. You can buy a nice acrylic case for a lot less than $50, so there really isn't much point to VGA for someone looking to keep the game in their collection.

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    Why do people say "sell off" instead of just sell? It's only a internet thing, people don't say that in life. Anyway, if you have somthing graded from an unopened factory case it might get an 8 but with a "u" for untouched by hands , this is actually better than a 9.

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    Quote Originally Posted by PROTOTYPE View Post
    I have a seal small jewel case version of king fields one in mint condition. [ the small jewel case version is the harder to find of the two ] what do you guy's think?
    Mint as in new and sealed, or mint as in open item? I ask just because the VGA only grades "new" games.

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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.
    Actually, VGA does grade opened but allegedly not used games, they just call them "qualified".

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    Trend started big time in the comics world.CGC has been slabbing comics for at least ten years. They sold like hotcakes for a bit too. Now, people seem to have come to their senses as they aren't selling anywhere near as good as they used to. I guess people decided they wanted to read the comics and realized that once it's slabbed, it's pretty much a done deal, especially after spending all of that money. There is wisdom here somewhere.

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    Quote Originally Posted by T2KFreeker View Post
    Trend started big time in the comics world.CGC has been slabbing comics for at least ten years. They sold like hotcakes for a bit too. Now, people seem to have come to their senses as they aren't selling anywhere near as good as they used to. I guess people decided they wanted to read the comics and realized that once it's slabbed, it's pretty much a done deal, especially after spending all of that money. There is wisdom here somewhere.
    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.

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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.
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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 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 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.
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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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