Rarity / Collectors Guide - For Handheld Electronic Games

[vcoleiro1]

Ok, let me say this about rarity, and again this is something I would like a discussion on.

From my point of view , a game should be judged based on it's global rarity. Yes the Internet is probably the only way we could really judge this with a uniform ruler so to speak. Yes some countries may not deliver outside there country , but games are still there and count IMHO - ie if you want the game, there are buyer proxies you can use. Even 50% of games from ebay US dont ship OS - do we not count these? of course we do.

Judging rarity is never going to be perfect, but global rarity is the only way to go . Rarity based on a country just doesn't make sense. How on earth would you even go about rating rarity at all if your going to be stuck on this per country thing - it just doesn't work.

When I search for a game, I search ebay globally, that means all the ebay country sites , I also search yahoo japan and the other japanese sites, I also check some other global sites. I also use translation facilities if I need to or buyer proxies. I know a lot of people do the same, as I see them and compete sometimes against them on these foreign sites.

When I rate a games rarity , its based on how often a month/year on average it pops up in any of the places I mentioned above. That said games like Bandai Zaxxon will appear about twice a month on Japan auctions, 2-3 a month elsewhere say. It does differ per country, but its the aggregate in all places that I use to judge it's rarity. I do that for all games I'm after. I have never based rarity on one particular country.

As I said before collecting is global - ie so should rarity ratings be.

[Rik]

Yeah, I definitely agree with you that we should come up with a single rarity for each game... Based on something. I think the reason it's never been tackled before is just because of the reasons I have given (not trying to use those as an excuse not to do it).

For me, Game A is hard to find, locally or online, so I'd give it an ER rarity. Then someone says 'No, I can find those every weekend at local boot sales, it's fairly common'. So I just never went further with it, and just left it labeled FO.

That usually ends the conversations. I think we've needed someone like you to just keep saying 'Do it, damn it!'

Regardless of the nit-pickyness of domestic vs foreign, I think most of us do have a pretty good idea if a game is rare or not in many cases, even if someone can find it locally easily. Hell, if that's the case, listed as really rare might encourage them to buy them locally and sell them on eBay, thus getting them into the hands of the collectors that want them.

I honestly haven't looked at the FAQ in a while anyway... Maybe it's time to go through it a little (the FAQs themselves), and get some of the rarities updated.

[blanka]

Yes, some are funny

[Rik]

You have a _Gakken_ branded Crazy Kong? If you have an extra, I'd love to have one... Does it actually have a Gakken logo on it? I don't think I've seen one with the logo (at least on the front of the game), so I was never sure if they ever released it like that.

Obviously the info is out of date since we know the batteries and what-not (and, actually, the version of the FAQ on the website is a little out of date... I'll have to upload the latest), but I still don't see the Gakken version very often. It's usually CGL or 'generic' (no logo). Gakken released games usually have their name on the little sticker. (I'm not sure the one photographed on my site is technically a Gakken version).

This is a perfect example though: There are none on eBay in the US (even looking at history), there's _ONE_ on eBay in Australia (and it doesn't actually say Gakken, so could have been released by another company. It's just the 'generic' Crazy Kong). And none forsale on the Netherlands Ebay...

And yet, apparently, if you are _in_ the Netherlands, you can stock pile them...

So it's still IR++ in the US, sounds like it's CO (common) in the Netherlands, but still pretty rare on the internet... So what do we rate it?

Also, if you have this game boxed with Gakken's name on it, please send me a picture of the box! Never seen that...

[blue6demon]

I think the hobby is ok, sold some games lately and it's pretty obvious that people are interested, they're not hard to sell.

Personally i had to have some fast cash and sold some VFD's but still buying LED's, just gonna concentrate on those in the near future, so i'm still in big time.

As for the rarity guide, we should discuss this indeed, but not on a forum, a more instant kind of conversation would be great !

Pat
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Keep on playing... no matter what !

[blanka]