I bought some clear plastic boxes:
“What the hell are these?” you ask? These, my friends, are polyethylene terephthalate protective cases for retro game boxes! I bought 150 of them: 25 each for NES and SNES/N64 and 100 for GB/GBC/GBA/VB. Since my collection has value, I reckoned it was time to add a little extra protection to the more expensive titles I own.
The protectors ship flat and fold into boxes very slightly large than the game cases. Insert a game, close the tabs, and you’ve got yourself a game protected from the grubby hands of the typical gamer!
Every game above I purchased myself new. I’ve kept them in astonishingly good condition over the years as they have appreciated. I paid $20 for Dragon Warrior IV 25+ years ago; it’s $200 now. Final Fantasy cost me $14; it’s $150 now. You can see why I put them in cases!
But it gets better with the SNES stuff:
Those three combined would easily fetch $750 today! Possibly more since they’re in immaculate condition (Chrono Trigger alone could probably fetch $500). Keeping them in cases should preserve them for many years longer.
The Nintendo 64 boxes are the same size as SNES boxes so they share protectors. This ‘chrome’ collectors edition of Zelda fetches a pretty penny today and is just one of a few N64 games I own that sell for much more than I paid when I bought them.
If you’re astonished by these prices be mindful it’s all about the boxes. The cardboard boxes Nintendo used for their first few consoles tore easily and many people just tossed them out. At least 50% – sometimes 75%+ – of the value of a lot of these games lies in owning the box and manual, hence the utility of these box protectors.
Box protectors are a bit of a rabbit hole to delve into though. Frustratingly Nintendo used different boxes in different regions so I can’t protect my Japanese copy of Sin and Punishment or any of my Famicom games. There’s also a few (silly valuable) N64 games with custom boxes that don’t fit in the protectors. But I’ve kept them in good condition for 20 years already and should be able to for another 20 at least.
I’ve still got the 100 Gameboy cases to put on. I’ve got about 260 boxes games that they can fit so it’ll be fun working out which ones are worth protecting. Maybe I’ll post an update when I’m done 🙂