Yesterday I sold 6 game consoles and 152 games. For this I was paid a considerable amount of money, but it was like parting with a piece of my personal history.
In recent years the market value of ‘retro’ games has been skyrocketing. In particular certain systems and game genres have seen prices rise to borderline unbelievable levels. I own(ed) many of these, and therefore the value of my collection had risen as well.
Over the last few years I’ve written quite a few ‘My Collection‘ blog posts, and more than once as I set up the systems and spent a day playing I wondered if I’d ever want to play those particular games again. I questioned the wisdom of storing them away for another decade or more.
I still love games and still buy loads of them. In the last year or so I started to recognize that in all likelihood I wouldn’t be playing certain old ones ever again. Furthermore the collection was just too large (>1600 console games) and it was time to focus.
So I decided to sell. For this first wave I settled on six older systems, and all the games I had for them: Genesis, Sega-CD, Saturn, Dreamcast, Turbografx and XBox. Last week I sent a list to a local store I know and trust, and they quickly responded with a generous offer, which I accepted.
In total what I sold filled the seven boxes you see above. It took a few nostalgic hours to sort and pack them up and it took the two owners of the store another two hours to unpack and assess everything. They were astonished by the condition. One guy said he rarely sees any Sega-CD or Saturn games (from 20-25 years ago) without disc scratches: I sold him almost eighty, all in pristine condition complete with all packaging. Virtually everything I sold was the highest quality. I think they were more excited by the sale than I was!
Several of the games I sold are amongst the rarest on their systems. The one above (yes that’s the original receipt) they may sell for $800 or more, and I sold two others even more valuable. I hope they make good money on this sale, and I hope my games – some of which are ‘holy grails’ end up making other collectors very happy.
The guys told me I should become a streamer or write a book. They were amazed by my history as a gamer, the depth of my collection and the gaming knowledge I had. Also the fact I could give details about virtually every game including when and where I bought it as well as mini-reviews. But I’ve never collected for it’s own sake: every game I buy is simply because I want to play it.
Although I sold a lot of games, it represented less than 10% of my total collection. I’m still buying games of course, but going forward will increasingly concentrate on Nintendo and/or handheld systems. While I will very likely sell more of my collection, I can’t see myself ever parting with the (sizable) Gameboy/DS portion.
Am I sad about this? Do I feel regret? No I’m not and I don’t. I got a good price, I sold to a store that understands and respects the hobby and will find all my games new homes. I personally bought every one of the games myself, played them all, and cared for them for over two decades. They were precious to me but it was now time to pass them on. I hope their new owners love them as much as I did.
