When someone wants to know the value of an old game, console, or accessory

[Flojomojo]

I didn't make this, but I agree with it. The true value is whatever the market will bear.

 

https://i.imgur.com/cjACKcO.gifv

 

[+KylJoy]

Yep. Also, use the Ebay Flipper tools web site (don't have the link handy) to see the actual "sold for" price for items that were listed with "best offer" as an option.

[spacecadet]

I agree. Sometimes people either get a crazy deal, or they look at how things were 20 years ago and think that's the "true value" of something. But no, the true value is the average price something goes for today - that's it. Sure, those crazy deals get figured into that, and sometimes you can even find one of those yourself. But most of the time, you're going to pay something close to the current average - and that is the current value.

 

Things change, and the value of any collectible item goes up and down. There's no use denying the current reality.

 

That said, there's also no reason not to try to get a deal on something. But you have to be realistic, and know that that's what you're doing and that it might not happen.

[Omega-TI]

I routinely get PM inquiries from "NEW" members who have NEVER posted a single public message on AtariAge, but yet give me a long list of stuff they want me to price out for them. Excuse me? I don't know you from Adam, but you want me to DONATE how much of my time to doing your research so you can just sell the stuff and disappear?

 

A couple of times it turned out to be the same guy using different names over a year apart, then I found out he had ripped people off. So no, unless you are an ACTIVE member of the community, and have done more in your public messages other than buying or selling, I just delete the PM message thread unanswered.

[carlsson]

I agree with the animated GIF, except that I would consider sold BIN items too, not only auctions.

[80s_Atari_Guy]

The problem with auctions is that they're so damn random, so BIN items interest me more.

Just as a example, I see 3 Sinclair QL computers, all boxed and in similar condition, yet 1 goes for £130 ($168), one goes for £95 ($123), and the last goes for £77 ($100). So do you take the average from all 3 ? Do you go for the most you can get ($168) ?

So, I can see why newbies to retro gear get confused. And ebay doesn't help because ebay tries to fill in your price based on what one recently sold for. So, someone finding a QL in their loft will price it for $168 because ebay says it recently sold for $168. This drives up prices, because the next one might sell for $175, and the next for $200.

[Flojomojo]

It's in eBay's interest for prices to rise, since they take a cut of everything. People will pay what they want to pay, though.

[80s_Atari_Guy]

It's none of ebay's business how much you price your hardware, because that leads down a very dangerous path. If I list my car on Autotrader, Autotrader doesn't automatically fill in and tell me what it's worth and what I should be selling it for. Same for Gumtree, and SellMyRetro, they don't tell me what I should be pricing my hardware for.

 

 

 

People will pay what they want to pay, though.

 

I'm not seeing this. I'm seeing people pay mental prices for common hardware and software. I suspect, the rabid collector who has to have everything will pay whatever the seller wants. The amateur, will pay what they think are the going rates, based on what one or two recently sold for. While the rest, will wait it out and hope something comes up at prices that reflect what they're selling. Obviously, Country to Country, will differ depending on their own markets.

[Flojomojo]

Let me rephrase: When I go shopping, I will pay what I think is a fair price, regardless of the going rate. If it's too high, I'll do without, or choose a different item.

[youxia]

I do check some ebay listings as a first port of call of course, and it mostly reflects the items value - but what about some inflated bubbles? I've read stuff about obsessive speculectors who can raise prices by conducting orchestrated actions, buyouts or campaigns. Does that actually happen? Apart from obvious scalping such as Pier Solar or SNES Classic.

[John Stamos Mullet]

I agree. Sometimes people either get a crazy deal, or they look at how things were 20 years ago and think that's the "true value" of something. But no, the true value is the average price something goes for today - that's it. Sure, those crazy deals get figured into that, and sometimes you can even find one of those yourself. But most of the time, you're going to pay something close to the current average - and that is the current value.

 

Things change, and the value of any collectible item goes up and down. There's no use denying the current reality.

 

That said, there's also no reason not to try to get a deal on something. But you have to be realistic, and know that that's what you're doing and that it might not happen.

The current average for auctions and the current average for unsold buy it now listings is WAY different though. Most people, especialyl local retro game stores/dealers just use those ridiculous buy it now prices as their standard. That's why most of them go out of business pretty quickly.

[80s_Atari_Guy]

There are some with multiple accounts who bid on their own items to up the price. When they "Win" their own auction they relist it, along with the same excuse of "Relisted due to time waster, or fake account". A lot of these are easy to spot because the auction is listed as private, so bidders are kept private.

I'm sure there are a lot more dubious things going on, on ebay, but I doubt ebay care. It's going to take a rival auction site to show up, or a mass protest by either sellers or buyers, to get ebay's attention.

 

Until then, this is only going to get worse. Empty boxes, now go for the same price entire systems went for just a few years ago.

 

I avoid things like "Rare", and "[email protected]@k". I also avoid systems, even badly yellowed, packaged in a plastic bag to make it look better than what it is. There are lots of misleading "New Old Stock" adverts, where you can clearly see usage, in the uploaded pictures.

Edited July 19, 2018 by 80s_Atari_Guy

[Omega-TI]

I've seen it all. I even got taken once with a "stock photo", the item received was not the item pictured. Heck, once I saw a guy using one of MY PHOTOS in one of his auctions. I gave him a nasty gram on that one, he ignored me and kept the auction item up. After that incedent I go through the extra trouble of adding "Omega" to my uploaded photos.

 

One guy was listing the same item over and over again, trying to drive the price up. I refused to go over a certain amount, finally after the 5th or 6th try he gave up and I won the auction... for less than what I bid the first time around.

 

I have a take it or leave it attitude when it comes to auctions. I refuse to 'fall in love' with an item. If the cost to benefit ratio is low, so are my bids.

 

Some call be cheap, but I prefer thrifty.

 

Oh yeah, it's not ebay, but don't you love those PM's out of the blue with a member offering to sell you something for $59.00 that you can get for FREE?

[HoshiChiri]

I do check some ebay listings as a first port of call of course, and it mostly reflects the items value - but what about some inflated bubbles? I've read stuff about obsessive speculectors who can raise prices by conducting orchestrated actions, buyouts or campaigns. Does that actually happen? Apart from obvious scalping such as Pier Solar or SNES Classic.

 

Eh, maybe? It'd be pretty hard to control the entire market on most games- and bubbles happen sometimes for other reasons too (see damn near any game AVGN covers right after the video releases.) Think about the position they put themselves into as well- after buying all the copies & raising prices, they have to sell all the copies. What if demand is less than they speculated, even for the price they did their buyout at? Now they're losing money- and this is assuming other sellers don't just re-fill the marketplace they just emptied- remember, there's literally thousands of most any game in existence- the amount of effort to truly control the market is staggering.

 

I usually do what the GIF shows, but I leave BIN in the list, and I sort both by lowest price sold & recent price sold. It helps you see if there's a more consistent range for the prices, or if it has jumped or fallen recently. it makes it easier to tell what's a good price or not. It's good to keep the time of year in mind too- I find spring is a good time to do online hunts. People have finished their holiday shopping & spent their holiday money, but still have their holiday bills. Plus, we tend to emphasize cleaning things out in spring, and the time to save for summer trips is starting. November is generally to be avoided, as you'll get caught up with all the holiday buyers who could care less about going rates and just need to prove their love with physical goods. (Unless you're after something rare enough to not even turn up online often. Then the rush of sellers looking to capitalize on holiday sales is now in your favor- more sellers means a better chance of someone with what you want.)

[+Gemintronic]

What I don't understand is there are re-seller groups who would know better. You go asking that stuff in a retro gamer / collector section and you're going to get those salty over paying exorbitant prices.

[spacecadet]

The current average for auctions and the current average for unsold buy it now listings is WAY different though. Most people, especialyl local retro game stores/dealers just use those ridiculous buy it now prices as their standard. That's why most of them go out of business pretty quickly.

 

That's why you look at "sold" listings, not running listings. It seems like a lot of people are getting off track here, or are missing the original point. The GIF Flojomojo linked to shows using "sold" listings of auctions specifically, and there's a reason for that. Those are prices people actually paid in competition with other buyers. The prices people actually pay = that item's current value. It doesn't matter if *you* (the royal "you", not you specifically) think it's inflated. Somebody else didn't, and that person bought it.

 

Even looking at sold BIN listings (vs. auctions) can be a little misleading because as often as people overprice BIN listings, they underprice them too. If somebody prices something at $100 and sells it, it's just as likely that thing would have sold for $150 or even $200. One way to judge that is by how quickly the item sold. If it sold within minutes, then it was probably drastically underpriced. Even selling something within a day or two of posting a BIN means it was probably a bit underpriced. There aren't a huge number of people looking for most older video game items, so it usually takes longer than that to sell anything that's priced appropriately.

 

Somebody else asked what you do if you see three drastically different prices for the same item in the sold listings. Well, assuming they're all auction listings, if there are really only three I'd probably look to see what the differences were in each listing. There's almost always something that obviously affects value. But if it's something with a *lot* of sold listings, I'd probably just average them. But just remember that that gives you an average price for an average listing; a particularly nice or particularly trashed example will have its value affected accordingly. Just because a heavy sixer Atari 2600 averages $150 in the sold listings doesn't mean you should expect to pay that price for one that's MIB. (You can always search for an item in approximately the same condition/completeness as one you're interested in.)

 

But the main point is that the true value of anything is the price someone's willing to pay. That's it. None of these things have any intrinsic value, it's all just what someone's willing to pay at a given time. And sellers can be suckers and buyers can be hustlers just as the reverse. I've seen buyers plenty of times tell a seller that something's only worth $20 when I've seen that thing sell for $100, and the seller goes along with it. That's not the buyer getting the "true value", that's the seller being suckered by a hustler. That's no more fair than when sellers try to jack up the price on something beyond what even the sold listings suggest.

[John Stamos Mullet]

Well - I tend to look at it from both the long and short view of it though. Just because someone was willing to overpay for a given item once, doesn't mean the expected regular value of that item is now automatically inflated to match, just like if someone buys something under market value, that doesn't mean anyone should expect to only have to pay that lower price regularly either.

 

What concerns me more is what is good for the market as a whole. If everyone overprices their items with inflated BIN prices, and then people just start buying them at that price because there's little other choice, it sets a standard that isn't necessarily dictated by the buyer, but by the sellers. Just because some people will adapt to that market doesn't mean it's good for the market or fair to consumers. There is a point where it goes from being high demand to ridiculous extortion. It also prices a large segment of potential buyers out of the market.

 

For instance:

 

I bought my house 5 years ago. We bought it about $50k under market value, because we got lucky. We were already living in the house as renters, and the owner needed to sell to pay off a divorce, and offered it to us first, lower than he was going to put it on the market for, because sales costs were reduced (no realtor, no broker, etc). We understood we were getting a great deal, so we jumped at it. We got lucky. The following year, the neighbor next door sold theirs on the market, and it sold for roughly what ours should have sold for on-market (about 50K more than we paid), The year after that - the house two doors down sold a bit above that one, but less than they originally asked. They were asking too high. It finally sold at about $75k less than their initial ask. All of these sales are within reason.

 

Two years ago the unoccupied house next to ours on the other side, which has been unoccupied for close to 20 years because of probate hell, was bought by a contractor off auction, completely renovated, and put on the market. His asking price was $300,000 more than we bought ours for 2 years prior. Our house is larger than his by 400sq feet, with a nicer lot, and similar fixtures, etcs. This renovated house has sat on the market for a year and a half now without a single offer. I spoke to the guy who bought it, and suggested his asking price was too high, given the size and recent sales. He was belligerent about it, telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, and that he'll easily make what he's asking because it's a good area with great schools, and "there are $7 million dollar homes right down the street" which is sort of true, but they aren't 1,100sq ft ranch houses, they are 4,000sq ft 6 bedroom mansions on the beach - same town, not really the same area.

 

Point being - this guy is actually hurting the market, because it dissuades buyers from the area, and dissuades potential sellers from listing at a fair price because it skews the market dis-proportionally.

[Flojomojo]

None of these things have any intrinsic value, it's all just what someone's willing to pay at a given time.

 

Modern "social MMOs" have taught me that if I collect enough Combat cartridges, I can fuse them to make an Asteroids cartridge, and if I get enough of those, I can craft them into a Yars' Revenge. Not true?

 

@mullet -- that's how markets are supposed to work. If there's truly a short supply, it makes sense for prices to go up. If someone is just marking things up to be an asshole, they'll be undercut by people who price things lower.

 

Of course your developer friend is screwing up the local housing market for the people living there, but that's gentrification for you.

[jhd]

Point being - this guy is actually hurting the market, because it dissuades buyers from the area, and dissuades potential sellers from listing at a fair price because it skews the market dis-proportionally.

 

The real estate market can be impacted the opposite way, too.

 

Until last Fall, I owned a house in another city. Based on what we had originally paid, and the renovations/upgrades that were done, the house was "worth" about $200K.

 

For various reasons, there was a glut of properties on the market -- easily 5 or 6 houses on the same street were for sale at the very same time. All of these houses were going for below $200K, some less than $150K. We had to drop the price significantly to even get an offer.

 

We ultimately sold the house for some ~20% less than what we had paid for it just a decade before.

 

If we had held out for what the house is "worth", it would still be on the market today.

 

Sadly, our situation was not an exception -- I reviewed the data the house sales in the neighbourhood for the previous three years, and there was a distinctive downward trend.