People are just butthurt. You can replace video games with any collectible in what you said and add in since 2020 and it would be accurate. Yes WATA did some shaddy thing but overall is doing more good than bad. The bad noise is just trying to gatekeep people from other hobbys and walks of life crossing over to niche video game collecting.
6.5A is likely more beat up than you’d find off the shelf. You might find 8.5-9.2 A+ as an average off the shelf game that maybe has been moved around a couple of times.
6.5 seems to have some pretty significant creasing in multiple areas. This is more like a game that has been tossed around and ultimately ended up in the discount bin for a months.
This was a very fun thread to read. @pokerd your knowledge and passion in this side of Pokémon was great to see.
I have personally never stepped into graded games but I love having CIB or a at least a good box for display purposes. I have a Red 2nd print and a players choice Firered! Planning to get more!
Thanks for all the knowledge this thread brings.
4 Likes
I guess it all depends on how your stores were set up. I have memories of my toys r us using the spring loaded shelfs so that innate pressure would make the boxes look like what I’m buying in 6.5s.
Do note regarding WATA they did get sued for the possible manipulation shenanigans they pulled during COVID. Said possible manipulation shenanigans + lawsuit would definitely color how people see WATA at least. I see less specific hate on CGC and VGA.
I personally can see box only grading getting bigger in the next few years and maybe sealed, but I think CIB is still a pretty hard sell, at least among the general populace. Maybe when carts/disks start dying.
2 Likes
Do you happen to have a collection picture? And have you graded any of these games yourself?
How do you feel about the price points you are at for these games?
1 Like
Yeah, most folks who grade games are aware of this already. some weird stuff happened with Wata. Also their lawsuit is pending so no clear answers here yet.
Even so, grading is unregulated and it’s unfortunately just too easy to engage in poor optics or improper market activity.
We’ll see what happens, but like all the other graders, people will move on and times will change. They’re owned by Collectors now so they can’t mess around quite as much as they could before.
1 Like
2 posts were split to a new topic: A comparison between WATA and PSA grading scales
I moved your wata / psa comparison to a new article/thread so it’s easier to find or link to instead of being eventually buried in this thread
2 Likes
After getting my first game for pretty cheap, I caught the bug for VG collecting hard, and the majority of my 2023 has been in that market. I’ve actually come to enjoy sealed games more than I enjoy the cards, and have started shrinking down my card collection to fund my game collection. I don’t aim for the top of the top like many others seem to do, a decent looking copy is usually good enough for me.
I still love my humble card collection, but games simply look amazing on a shelf, and the nostalgic rush that I get when I hold them is 10 fold to the cards. The games also get a bigger reaction compared to the cards when shown to my irl non-collector friends, since everyone played Pokémon and can appreciate that rush.
Safe to say that I’m extremely bullish on games long term lol
10 Likes
That’s awesome! Thanks for sharing! What are your overall goals? I see you have CGC over wata, do you have a preference against wata, or was it just how it ended up? Or did you grade them yourself?
Thanks! I would say that I have achieved the short term goals that I set for myself in terms on my game collection. For English I have one from the first 3 gens, and for Japanese the yellow was my priority since I’m a basic pikachu collector. In both games and cards, I try to keep a “quality over quantity” mindset, so I try to keep it minimal for both. Taking a break for now, and might upgrade my grades down the line, as long as it makes financial sense to do so.
Nothing specifically against WATA (except for their inner blisters), coming from the card space I was familiar with CGC and loved their cases, so I sent my first submission to them and have stayed with them since. I will say that out of the three companies, I dislike WATAs cases the most, both the legacy and newer cases. VGA definitely displays the best, and then CGC seems the most protective. I’ll be ecstatic if CGC games decides to change their label to black like they did with their card slabs.
And I usually grade my own games if it makes sense to do so. Earlier this year it seemed like there was a big disparity between raw and graded, so I bought a lot of raw games to grade myself. Nowadays it seems like finding raw Pokémon games for a good price is harder to do, almost like the raw pop is slowly drying up. I don’t dare touch Japanese raw though, I’ll let others deal with the unopened/opened headache and just buy the graded.
1 Like
EBay Sales - Nov 6-12, 2033
Feels like someone went on a buying spree, a bunch of OBO sales. Will dig into the sales and see if I can grab the prices and comment on the rest later.
6 Likes
We are in business, a lot of this stuff is low grade items, and we are starting to hit floor pricing, there isn’t much room between $1K and $3K, so you will see quite a bit more volatility on pricing vs grade.
8.5A++ Red (Black esrb) - $2.6K - feels really high, but if we look at what’s out there at this price point for a Red, I kind of get why someone might have been desperate for a copy, feels like you should be able to get a 9.2A+ for this price, so maybe someone felt the A++ made up for the box grade
8.5B+ blue (sandshrew blue) - $1.8K - maybe inline with expectation, a little strong given it’s a B+ seal, 8.5A+ just did $2.7K at Heritage(HA) this month, so maybe it makes sense
6.5A yellow (black esrb) - $2K - this one is way high too, I would have expect sub $1K, it’s low grade and late print, a 9.2A++ pixel (1st print) just did $3.6K at HA this month
9.0A+ Sapphire - $2.5K - probably reasonable, seems a bit high, would have expected under $2K, maybe $1.5K
9.2A+ LG - $1.7K - seems about right, probably one of the more reasonable sales of the week
8.0A+ LG - $1.1K - I’d have expected sub $1K, give me the 9.2A+ for $600 more any day of the week
9.2B FR (PC) - $1.1K - seems crazy that it sold for this much with a B seal and is a player choice, maybe someone appreciated the 9.2, but the seller won this one
4 Likes
Do “collectors” buy the lower-graded copies (e.g., 6.5 A, 8.5B+, etc.) or do you think they’re being purchased by investor-types?
These feel like they are purchased by someone who was impatient and just wanted to buy what was on the market at this exact moment in the $1-3K price range. It almost feels like a crypto guy cashed out and was looking for tangible “assets”
2 Likes
Ah, that is what I was thinking. I just don’t see as much appeal for low graded games like this.
From experience, I honestly think you are sometimes better selling a sealed game raw on eBay than selling it with a low WATA grade, if there is reason to think you will get a sub 8 with WATA. At least that way you have the regular game collecting market to sell to + the speculators who hope to hit on a high grade. The graded game speculator types see the low grade and treat it like a low grade card even though it would still be worth plenty to a regular game collector who is less concerned about box or seal imperfections and just likes to acquire a game new. If anything, my advice to non-graded game collectors would be to check out more lower grade WATA auctions and be willing to crack cases since these games are going for less than what they would raw, regardless of imperfections.
Regular game collectors are often completely put off by the fact a game is graded, but they are also the more sophisticated/knowledgeable buyer pool. But with a Pokemon game, the appeal is so broad that knowledge/sophistication level matters less than with an item that is “genuinely rare,” and you will still likely get a decent price for a sealed Pokemon game at any grade vs raw.
6 Likes
You know, I’d probably agree there might be arbitrage on buying low grade and selling raw, but looking at the sales from last week, I am wondering if times are changing. Some really strong sales on low grade lately!
