jonebone

I mean this is a stupid move by Sony no other way to put it. $500 to $600 is the sweet spot on consoles. $700 for a slim version of something that's been out for years already? And they took out the disc drive? It's a joke and just for Sony diehards, won't cause any impulse purchases. Probably even too lackluster for people to attempt to scalp at release and that should tell you just how bad it is.

RIP Psycho Sid

That was mine. I knew the 10s wouldn't be limited forever so I posted it for sale around $7 or $8k on Facebook I believe? Sold and was then flipped within months, just a reminder of how crazy that hot market was. As for the topic... cool I guess? Bumping the 9.8s to 10s rubs some people the wrong way. Not much you can do though. It would make more sense if there were some newly created grade type (like an A+++ for perfect seals), not when the 10 A++ seal scale was there all along.

Yeah that sounds good but again limited hours. I'd probably work a 4-9 or 5-9 pm after school, so $15 an hour was maybe $60 / $75 bucks and wasn't guaranteed. Take off a $10-$15 meal or so and it's not like it's amazing money. Just much better than minimum wage at the time but nothing glamorous.

So much going on on this thread... If you don't tip because it is not normal in your area, that's great. If you don't tip in the USA then you shouldn't be going out to eat. It's part of our culture and it will never be abolished because it is entrenched in the culture. It's just the way things are... just like Canada has "free healthcare" (which I've heard is a joke?) and we don't. Those are facts-of-life you accept if you live in the area. I waited tables as a late teen (late 90s / early 2000s), and I believe my salary was $2.38 an hour + tips. I think I made around $15 / hour at Friendly's on weeknights, then maybe got to $20/$25 an hour at Ruby Tuesdays when it was brand new (and packed all the time). Later on I worked at an expensive seafood house and those were typically $30+ an hour on the weekends but a lot of the attractive females made much more. Not stereotyping but if you're working the bar area with a bunch of drinking guys what do you expect? And those tips weren't shared that much, you typically tip out the bus boy(s) and sometimes the cooks if it were really busy. But when you're tipping those people out, you made plenty. What wasn't mentioned is that you obviously are part time with no benefits and you're working every Friday and Saturday night and usually Sundays too. Your money is in the hours people don't want to work and the weekdays are pretty mundane. Then you usually buy a meal yourself (some places were more lax and let you get one for free if you had enough pull) since you're working a mealtime. So that's all great if you're a single person, not so much if you're trying to make a liveable wage as a family. So end of day I typically tip around 20% plus or minus at most sit down. If the service is absolutely horrifying I say something to the manager and still probably leave about 10%. I can't recall ever stiffing anyone. But at pick-up carryouts I usually just do 5-10%. I do hate that our society expects you to tip (or at least makes you click thru the tip screen before payment) at so many places nowadays. That is annoying no matter what.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned... "Residual Value". Some hobbies are purely money consumers... like travel, golf, drinking, etc. They can provide you lots of great memories or experiences but you spend money and get nothing back. Then there's a ton of low cost hobbies that don't make anything but cost very minimal. Hiking, running, fishing, etc. They may have a small upfront cost (equipement / shoes / etc.) but for the most part it only cost time to enjoy. Lastly there's hobbies with residual value. Modding a car, boating or even collecting games. Boats and cars can be money pits but at the end you can eventually sell it and get some money back. You lose money, but you didn't get into boating / car modding to make it in the first place. That was the cost of enjoying the hobby. Video games have spoiled a lot of people because they basically were investments that paid off. Even if you didn't sell, your stuff is likely way up the longer you've been collecting. But regardless of making or losing money, the point is that they do have some value. So in your case, let's say you shell out thousands to complete the set. At the end of the day, they'll still have value when you decide to sell. No guarantee it's up, but you'll still get something. The point is that you'll still be able to salvage something if you do decide to leave the hobby unlike some other hobbies that will give you nothing in return. Just some more food for thought.

40 hit me fairly significantly this year too. Not a mid life crisis but I did think it was a great time to step back and evaluate all aspects of my life... financials, retirement strategies, health, diet, hobbies, mental / emotional wellness, etc. So I think that's perfectly normal at big life events. In terms of how it has affected my collecting, I've been in a long trim for a couple of years now. And while I'll always be a collector, I also know that I don't want to collect items that are losing value if I can help it. I've stopped set collecting and stop collecting just to collect, I'm much more focused. I also decided to get into some vintage baseball cards as I thought that was more age appropriate than video games. Not to mention I do have kids and if I one day die, would I rather pass down 1,000 items worth $10 each or one $10,000 item? Not to say that I only need $10,000 items in my collection, but the point is that low value stuff may as well be garbage in an inheritance. I'm actively looking to increase the "average value" of an item in my collection and get it down to much more manageable levels. End of the day: No right or wrong answer. I do think it is important for everyone to take a step back every now and then and evaluate your priorities though. Whether it's a big birthday, change in life circumstances (becoming a parent / changing jobs / losing someone / etc.) or something else, it's good to hit the pause button and think things over. You aren't the person you were yesterday and you might not be the same person tomorrow either.

That's not the norm, just an unfortunate circumstance with a seller. Some people will play hardball more than others and some have flexibility. Just the way it goes. I'll speak from the seller side. I get so many unsolicited comments: "What's the lowest you'll take?" or my favorite, "$xxx" where they literally type a price and no other words at all. A lot of that stuff is annoying and I just don't have the time to respond in my day. Also, if a buyer ask a ton of questions I've learned it's just best to block them and move on. No offense to any buyer that does this, you have a right to ask as many details as you want to feel comfortable about a purchase. But as a seller, I have a right to refuse a sale and just keep waiting for a less picky buyer. Especially in this era of free returns. As a seller, that means you have to eat shipping both ways for absolutely any return reason. So just remember both point of views in the transaction... both sides get frustrated with the shenanigans of the other.

I would be collecting not investing. But yes you'd expect most vintage "good" cards to at least hold value with inflation, not necessarily to produce a huge investment. I didn't get into collecting video games as an investment either...

I'm thinking about getting into some vintage PSA baseball cards... RIP my wallet.

You know what would be a great idea @DefaultGen ? More ads! I hear that the internet can never get enough ads!

eBay fully refunds any international claim through GSP FYI. I don't know why or how and not sure if international buyers are exploiting it, but international sales are easy as cake. If you deal on ebay enough you'll occassional come into the problem buyer. One who asks a million questions, makes and offer, goes back and forth, finally wants to accept... then adds special shipping criteria afterwards, etc. I've learned to cut those buyers off after a couple of back and forths but if it's an international one then I just let it go through. Had an international guy try to return a $750 sealed graded game due to "case scuffs" (which we went back and forth on extensively, just became buyer's remorse), and ebay handled it all. Kept the money and buyer was refunded via ebay somehow. SInce I've learned that I'll gladly take any international GSP sale.

Recognize the name old timer!

I'm not sure if I've willingly picked a game that didn't hold my interest? I guess I've been lucky? I assume I'd at least give a game 30-60 minutes if that happened though.

Man so much misinformation there. One the "appraisal" is a crock, no way it goes even remotely close to that. Two, no way you're getting into a Heritage Auction in July if today is June 21. Those leads times are more like at least 2 months and that's assuming you've already gotten all of your paperwork in and items mailed. It's cool and I could see someone speculatively going up to $5k+ at a open auction on Heritage, but I bet pivate offers are more in the $2k-$3k range at best.

Checked it out, will definitely play thru with my kids (daughters). They really liked Link's Awakening and I'm sure they'll love this one too. Using the wand to essentially summon monsters at your disposal seemed pretty cool too!

They cleaned house long ago, it's just the PSA machine now. That's a really bad mistake but I wouldn't say they are any more experts than any of the other grading companies at this point. They're all about equal in terms of having some more experience that others in certain areas or being very average in their experience otherwise. No dedicated TG collector would get duped by this and TG isn't really that speculative either. It's basically just the collectors in that segment instead of investors and I hope the buyer isn't duped. A Tonma card / manual is still what, maybe $750ish? As long as the price is under that then it didn't really screw anyone even though it's a blatant miss.

What are you offering for the GP-NUS-USA inserts? I could maybe check some games and pull some depending on the offer for them.

Man, what the hell? Bickering in a memorial thread? I'm far from a history buff and honestly glossed over the DDay stuff but my parents brought it up when I visited for lunch yesterday so I did brush up on my history briefly. 10,000 Americans died that day and my dad mentioned how many soldiers were lying about their age (young as 16, had to be 18) just to get drafted. Americans WANTED to go over there and fight Nazi Germany after Japan made the mistake of attacking America on our own soil at Pearl Harbor. History isn't about whether you like it or dislike it, whether you immortalize it or vilify it, but to REMEMBER it. You can't even fathom those numbers in today's society. We lived through 9/11 and that was a life-altering and nation-altering experience, and "only" 3,000 Americans died in that. I can't even imagine the magnitude of an event that comes anywhere close to the DDay death total and how life in this world would be forever changed again (WW3 basically). Not to mention this whole society that is all "ME ME ME", you probably can't even pay enough people to want to go to war. So self centered to the point to where some are complaining that the internet is forcing them to remember history. If you're that offended then please just go live in your bubble where you are oblivious to anything in the world that could potentially offend you.

Lots of back and forth discussion on price in here but you can really sum it up quite briefly. When prices are going up, it's easy to be a collector. Not easy to get everything you want (prices going up and getting priced out), but pretty easy to buy anything then sell it at a profit in a few months if you're bored of it. It's easy to be part of the fad. When prices are going down, people in it for the money shake out quick. Speculators / investors drop off very quickly when they start losing money or get stuck holding games and watching values fall. Demand drops rapidly which causes prices to drop even more and it's a cycle that keeps running itself. We're now at a safe stagnant point. Prices aren't really moving a ton either direction and demand is pretty flat. The people who wanted out are gone and a lot of the core people will still buy a deal if they see one. I suspect we'll be in this type of environment for awhile.

Short answer, it's pretty stagnant. New collectors aren't coming in much but the core group of collectors is still mostly around, though some are selling off too. I wouldn't expect a surge either way, things pretty much are what they are.

Ironically, they sent an email today saying that Population Reports now available (who would have thought?) But everytime I check for something it keeps spinning and I haven't had much luck.

It's a hangtab, you can probably count the number of confirmed copies on two hands. It was nice condition too, so rare and desirable things go for a lot of money.

Does seem a bit silly for "WATAGAMES" to grade movies, maybe should be "WATAMEDIA" or something else now. Though I blame CGC. They are a pure greed company that wanted to expand into Games / Movies / VHS / DVD / etc just to simply under price the market and get a piece of the pie. Only makes sense that Wata would follow suit after being bought out. Word on the street is that VGA may expand into CIB grading formally too... because they see Wata / CGC making money off it. Businesses are for profit so they go wherever they think they can make a little money.

I watched a Stallone documentary the other day and unfortunately he had one very real quote that hit me hard, especially as I've just turned 40. "Life is addition up until 40, then it's about subtraction". Sad but true and you have to mentally prepare yourself to accept it. While you're viewing it as your parents, its everyone sadly. Most of your friends will eventually pass or you'll be the one to go. Children grow up and leave the nest. People retire and lose their social connections at work. Parents are very important and I'm extremely thankful both of mine still alive (almost 79 and going on 70), but the point is that deaths or loss of connections is something we have to cope with as we age. Make the most of the time you have as it's a finite clock. Take some vacations or research some "things to ask your parents" lists, there's a ton out there. I see my parents about an hour or so every week and typically the conversation is surface level "how's it going / what's new / so and so did this / etc.", but when you get actively plan some deeper stuff, you really learn. This past Xmas season I asked really pointed questions about their childhood Xmas memories and learned some things I never knew before. Just take things a bit deeper when you can and accept the fact that time catches up to us all.