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Has the secondary market gone up or down over the past year?

 
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Roback
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 27 Jan 2007
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Posts: 125

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 2:54 pm    Post subject: Has the secondary market gone up or down over the past year? Reply with quote

To cut through the chase, is it a good time to buy handhelds, both loose and packaged? Based on what I'm seeing, most games are under $100.00 with a few exceptions. I'm curious to hear what your thoughts are on this. Being someone who has monitored the Mego market over the past 7 years very diligently this sort of info piques my curiousity. Anyone care to take a guess?
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Dan
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been banking (literally) on the market going up in 2010 or so. (I arrived at that year by figuring that is when the kids that were around 10 years old in 1980 will hit 40, prime second childhood time!) I've slowed way down for lack of room, but I used to buy tons of duplicates when I thought they were going cheap. I'd say it's still a buyer's market, but with the prices chickeneater et al are asking and often getting for games in their eBay stores (often enough to keep asking them) the tide may be turning...

Maybe I'm pissing in the wind, though -- how does my guess of 2010 map to the world of Mego collecting? (years they were produced vs. age of kids then vs. average age of their collectors now?)
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Roback
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 27 Jan 2007
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 4:25 pm    Post subject: seconday market predictions Reply with quote

Your far from pissing in the wind Dan, and as a matter of fact it's refreshing to hear similar views. The Mego Corp made its splash with kids around 1972 which is approximately 35 years ago. With the average age of a child being between 6-11 years of age, you start to see that this is peak time for our secondary market. Over at Megocentral, we talk about this quite often. One of the main reasons that I started the site was to promote Mego to a younger generation. My greatest fear is that once my generation grows older and gains new responsibilities such as the starting of a family, buying a home, establishing a career, that the Mego collecting hobby will start to dwindle unless some new blood comes in. Back in 2004 I hosted the first ever Mego convention. It was a three day even held at the New York Pennslyvania Hotel ( located directly across from Madison Square Garden ) and my primary goal was to get Mego on the map by introducing it to an entire new generation. You can check out the Megocon link here ( http://www.megocentral.com/FEATUREmegoconMain.html ) if your interested. You should check it out, it was history in the making.
Getting abck to your question, I think your right on target. The minute 2010 rolls around and those kids hit 40 years of age, they will have more disposable income than they know what to do with. I wish collectors thought ahead back when Mego was on the shelves. They would have been doing me a huge favor packing away cherry specimens. Getting back to the Mego market, I think it is close to peaking and if already. Your theory is right on Dan.


Last edited by Roback on Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:01 am; edited 1 time in total
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
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Location: California

PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 6:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'd have to agree with Dan also... For a while about 3-5 years ago there were a lot of games that fetched the multi-$100 tags. What fueled that was about 10-12 really serious collectors (Me, Taki (Chickeneater on ebay), Jaro (electronicplastic.com), Michael Roberts, Rich Rezza, Tod Browning, Tom Spilliaert, Steve Read, Will Fong... and others) all determined to get the 'choice' games in our collections. Games we had heard of, but few of us had ever even seen (Gakken Dig Dug and Moon Patrol, Tiger Star Castle, Entex Escape 1000 Mazes and 3-D Grand Prix, Grandstand Thomas the Tank Engine, etc...). Whenever these hit ebay, they'd sell for $300-500 + because this fairly small group were fighting each other for them...

Over time, 2, 3, 4 or so more would show up. Eventually most of us managed to get at least one of each of these. Now Dig Dug sells for maybe $100-200 when it would easily sell for $500+ (a LOT more boxed) a few years ago.

Now, that's not to say they aren't worth anything, but I think right now is the time to buy and keep. If you are looking to resell eventually, we should wait until handhelds hit the main-stream of collecting. As more and more people remember having these as kids, the demand will go up. That will probably never help Tomy's Blip, but I bet a lot of these games will start to go up significantly in the next 3-6 years.

(Also, note whenever a really rare game shows up on Ebay now, it's still sometimes those same 10-12 bidders (+ Linda now) that fight for it and drive the price up. Mr. Green )

Rik
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blue6demon
Adventure Vision


Joined: 31 Oct 2005
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

3 to 6 years, i kinda like that prognostic.

When i started over a year and a half before, i thought that i was already pretty late because most of the games that i was seeing on ebay were selling. I was pretty sure it was already in the main collecting stream. But finally there's still a lot of choice every week and from what i see there's indeed a great potential in the people that are now in their late 30's.

So my feeling tells me to buy in the next 2 years, after that i think there will be a lot of people on your forum Rik Wink . Just look at the new Excalibur Coleco clones, and also the 80's are quite popular...
at least they are here Mr. Green
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Panic Button
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 20 Dec 2006
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Location: London, England

PostPosted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 8:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here in the UK I think there's quite an active secondary market for vintage handhelds. I've noticed that it's sometimes better trying to source games from the worldwide market rather than just the UK as I can often get them cheaper, as there's less competition for them. I've also read that the UK is the country in which ebay is the most popular so maybe that's also a factor. The UK is also a big producer of computer games, with a big development industry here (the ZX Spectrum and the BBC Micro launched many a games developer's career I think!)

Interestingly, ebay.co.uk has a Vintage Handheld section with further subsections for Game & Watch, Grandstand, etc. whereas ebay.com doesn't. Perhaps another indication of the active market here. We also have a well established mainstream magazine here, Retro Gamer which covers retro computer games, though as far as I know they haven't covered handhelds.

Personally I think handhelds can only get more collectable. At some point in the future all the lofts in the country will have been cleared out and their contents sold on ebay! In the long term kids that are brought up on gameboys and xbox360s will see VFD handhelds as quaint antiques and handhelds also represent the starting point of a now massive multi billion dollar industry.... The Penny Black was the first postage stamp in the world, and they're now worth stupid amounts of money. Maybe the same might be true of Mattel's Autorace in the future!
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Roback
Bandai FL Burgertime


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You make a good point but you can also look at it another way. The reason the Penny Black stamp is worth so much is simply because way back then people didnt know enough to keep them in good condition for a later date. Today people are more savy, hence the mint in package collectors who dont even play with them in fear of damaging them. Will you be able to put your kid through college by selling handhelds, doubt it but you can make some side money in the future if you stock the right items.
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Rik
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 10:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also consider that stamps were designed to be 'destroyed' when used.

One thing that has kind of killed the action figure collecting market now is that everyone that buys them will either buy 2 (one to keep sealed), or buys one and never opens it. Look at all the new Star Wars figures that came out in the last few years- you can find sealed ones of all of them in every collectibles shop. But finding the original 1977 figures sealed isn't very easy, and certainly isn't cheap. Our hobby kind of falls in that later category- No one really thought back in 1979 or so to keep a handheld game unused in it's box, so finding them that way is much less common. (Usually the result of 'warehouse finds'.) Even now, how often does someone buy an LCD handheld and keep it sealed? These haven't really hit a major radar of collectibility yet, so you can get really nice ones fairly cheap and hopefully the value will go up.

I would definitely say in another 10-20 years these will be worth a _lot_ of money, but even in the sorter term they should definitely increase in value.

Ebay US does have a separate category for Mattel games under Games/Electronic/Handheld. Everything else is just in 'Other' (I'm ignoring Pixter).
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Roback
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 27 Jan 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 12:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also consider that stamps were designed to be 'destroyed' when used.

Good point Rik. The same thing goes for comicbooks. Back in the 40's the comicbook companies would include sheets of paper inside the comic that asked that after you were done reading if you could donate it to the war drive for recycling. Hence Superman ( Action Comics # 1 ) recently sold for over 2 million dollars because of that. There are only 3 high grade unrestored copies in existance. I've always half heartedly joked that anything manufactured past 1985 would turn to dust before turning a profit barring a few standouts. Forget the 90's. You also have to calculate whether a solid investment in an IRA would yield you more in 20 years than say investing in handhelds. Smart money is on the IRA, stocks or Municipal Bonds. In the end, you really should buy toys solely for your enjoyment rather than trying to put your kids through college. Just my two cents.
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Rik
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 4:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yeah, I would never consider a hobby of collecting anything a reliable investment plan. Collecting should be something you do for fun, with the added benefit that maybe you can make some money on it later if yuo every decide to quit. Or have something with at least a decent monetary value to hand down to your kids or something...

But most of all it should be about the fun of collecting it. Regardless of whether or not you collect to play with, or to just display. I look at it this way: If knew all of these things would never be worth anything, would I still collect them? Definitely! Mr. Green
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spacemonsterviras
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 18 Oct 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 2:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I wouldn't dismiss the investment value of game collecting just yet. Some of the early tin robots now fetch upwards of $50,000, and that can be loose and not necessarily mint or even complete.

In another 10 or 20 years we may see our games fetching similar prices. I'll certainly be ready to retire by then. Well, no more ready than I am now. Laughing

Oh and I'd say that the secondary market has, in general, gone up in the two years I've been collecting. There are definitely more collectors about, and greater contention for rare items. Which can actually work to your advantage - while everybody's hunting the big game, as it were, you can slip in a score an overlooked bargain or two. Christmas is usually a good time to sell rather than buy, but last year I picked up a number of desirable items at good prices, while everyone was busy fighting over the Galaxy Invaders and Simons.
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Roback
Bandai FL Burgertime


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PostPosted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 3:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not so sure about that. I find that Christmas is a horrible time to sell on ebay, at least regarding Mego action figures. So many people are buying Christmas presents that they have very little disposable income for anything else. I always wait untill Income Tax refund time. Now there is a time to sell. Everyone has money to burn! Well, almost everybody. Mr. Green
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