Mystique NIB titles

[Toraborakid]

Hi, It's been awhile since i been on atariage but i had to come on to get some input form the community about a MAJOR purchase that i am throwing around that seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

 

Here is some background, I work at Englishtown flea market on the weekends mainly to kill some time, but I was approached by one of my fellow vendors who also sells video game but nothing older then xbox 360 about an offer someone made to him and needed an opinion on, so i checked out this offer and low and behold the holy grail, a guy who does clean-outs of whorehouses and alike had come into posession of 1500 pieces of Mystique titles, such as custers revenge, bachelor party and alike basically every title this company had published ALL SHRINK WRAPPED BOXES with little wear on it. so he showed us the pics of this haul and to be honest i was skeptical to say the least, so i asked this guy to bring 1 of each title so i can take a look at it > The next day he did just that and from what i can tell it looks legit, so i asked if i can buy the samples,he replied NO, he wants to sell them as  a whole lot in one big deal, SO i say ok how much? He replies about 15k. Now being that is a tough nut i asked this guy if he could possibly split it up if i bought say 1500 worth at a time, he said NO, he then stated that he did NOT want to ruin the value of these titles, for if he sold them off in that way it would create competition between vendors. So my question going forward to all of you is: How would u approach this deal? What are your thoughts? Opinions, Pleas share them.

 

[Swami]

 

 

[+sixersfan105]

Assuming all of this is true (I find it odd than a whorehouse would have pallets of Mystique Atari games, but I digress), seems to me he's better off selling them one by one on eBay or similar. Not sure of anyone who would drop that kind of coin for that entire lot, but I could be wrong. 

[CapitanClassic]

If you go by the prices on VideoGamePriceChart, these games might be worth as much as $100+ each.

 

The problem is going to be how to unload 1500 copies? If you check the sales numbers, these games sell maybe 1-2 copies per month. Are there really over a thousand people who want a NIB copy of a game made for a system that is over 40 years old? 
 

At the current rate, let’s say you could sell 5 per month. It would take you 25 years to unload all 1500 copies. You also are going to need to store the games somewhere (and possibly insure them, as most home owners policies don’t cover “collectibles” for more than $2000 without an additional rider in the policy specifically covering the collectibles.) The return on investment wouldn’t be bad if it keeps that  rate, ($100 for each $10 per game), but since the market will eventually be flooded with these 1500 copies, and the people most interested in owning them will be slowly dying off, I don’t know if you will actually make back your investment.

 

If you do decide to buy them, be sure to meet in a dark alley and carry all the money in cash.

[CPUWIZ]

19 minutes ago, sixersfan105 said:

I find it odd than a whorehouse would have pallets of Mystique Atari games

 

[CPUWIZ]

I believe Rick already went through 1 or 2 palletes of these, that is why I changed his custom status back then (Atari Porn King). LOL

[+x=usr(1536)]

25 minutes ago, sixersfan105 said:

I find it odd than a whorehouse would have pallets of Mystique Atari games, but I digress

 

I don't know where you grew up, but all the whorehouses I went to as a kid back in the '80s had nothing but pallets of Mystique games laying about everywhere.

Edited November 18, 2020 by x=usr(1536)

[Steverd]

Seems to be selling $150-200 a piece on eBay sometimes,

BUT this would quickly drop to $100 or lower in few a months if more than a few shows up showed up.

 

Custer's Revenge has been selling for $114 - $150
Bachlor's Party Blue box is around $80-100

 

BUT if you got a few super nice boxes, then you could send to Wata games to get graded maybe.,

 

[Toraborakid]

2 hours ago, Swami said:

 

 

My thoughts exactly, but the thing is that the vendor in question when doing some background on him is legit. That's why i am Not discrediting him outright but yea, there is something more to this..That is why i am asking around and doing some research first. But good point though thanks.

2 hours ago, sixersfan105 said:

Assuming all of this is true (I find it odd than a whorehouse would have pallets of Mystique Atari games, but I digress), seems to me he's better off selling them one by one on eBay or similar. Not sure of anyone who would drop that kind of coin for that entire lot, but I could be wrong. 

Sorry, my bad i meant warehouse, ANYWAY, me and another vendor asked him the same thing, he replies he does not want to be bothered. Keep in mind this guy deals in large quantity's of merchandise so it is kinda small potatoes to him.

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 hours ago, Toraborakid said:

Hi, It's been awhile since i been on atariage but i had to come on to get some input form the community about a MAJOR purchase that i am throwing around that seems like a once in a lifetime opportunity.

 

Remember the saying about if something seems too good to be true, it probably is?  Here're the reservations I have about the scenario you're describing:

 

2 hours ago, Toraborakid said:

Here is some background, I work at Englishtown flea market on the weekends mainly to kill some time, but I was approached by one of my fellow vendors who also sells video game but nothing older then xbox 360 about an offer someone made to him and needed an opinion on, so i checked out this offer and low and behold the holy grail, a guy who does clean-outs of whorehouses and alike had come into posession of 1500 pieces of Mystique titles, such as custers revenge, bachelor party and alike basically every title this company had published ALL SHRINK WRAPPED BOXES with little wear on it.

 

Reservation number one: why is someone in possession of all of this trying to offload it at a flea market?  There are better places (and I'm not thinking eBay, though it is an option) for doing this.  It's doubtful that they don't know how to use the Internet in this day and age, particularly given what their business does, to find buyers.

 

2 hours ago, Toraborakid said:

so he showed us the pics of this haul and to be honest i was skeptical to say the least,

 

Good.  Keep your head screwed on while looking into this.  Here's why:

 

2 hours ago, Toraborakid said:

so i asked this guy to bring 1 of each title so i can take a look at it > The next day he did just that and from what i can tell it looks legit, so i asked if i can buy the samples,he replied NO, he wants to sell them as  a whole lot in one big deal, SO i say ok how much? He replies about 15k.

 

Did he let you open the boxes?

 

If so, were you permitted to inspect the cartridge and / or insert it into a machine to make sure that it matched what the box and label claimed it was?

 

Were you allowed to do this for the other 1499 cartridges?

 

Here's the thing: if he won't let you look in the boxes - all of them - you don't know what you're buying.  Sure, there could be 1500 Mystique cartridges in them, but there could equally easily be 1500 pieces of wood.  Yes, this is an obvious point, but it's the one that all of this hinges on: you (or anyone else) has no way of knowing if he ran off the packages last Tuesday.

 

2 hours ago, Toraborakid said:

Now being that is a tough nut i asked this guy if he could possibly split it up if i bought say 1500 worth at a time, he said NO, he then stated that he did NOT want to ruin the value of these titles, for if he sold them off in that way it would create competition between vendors.

 

That's a load of crap.  No matter how it's handled, that volume of cartridges entering the market is going to negatively affect the values of ones already out there - one vendor or a hundred, it's all the same.

 

What's interesting to me is that he's playing the 'I know what they're worth' card.  This tells me two things: a) he's already looked into online pricing; b) he also knows that a glut of them on the market will lower values, so is looking to get out on the high end and leave someone else holding the bag for the difference once they start selling them.

 

2 hours ago, Toraborakid said:

So my question going forward to all of you is: How would u approach this deal? What are your thoughts? Opinions, Pleas share them.

 

I'd ask to inspect 100% of what he has before purchasing.  That would have to include being able to pick out three titles at random, open them, and test them; you take the financial hit for those three and keep them once opened.  Get every bit of info on him you can, so that if it does turn out to be a swindle you can at least give the cops solid info to start tracking him down.  Also, find out everything you can about where those games were stored and try to determine if there's any way there may have been a possible connection with Mystique, distributors, or retailers who may have carried their products.

 

Finally, $15K is out of the question.  If I were in your shoes, I'd offer 30% of average retail per game.  He's basically acting as a wholesaler in this instance, so needs to offer wholesale, not retail, pricing.

 

With all of that said, however, this has a distinct aroma of fish.  Rather than letting it be a case of, "trust but verify," my suggestion would be to verify, verify, and verify again before even thinking of buying these games.  Not saying that it's not possible that it is legitimate, but see also my first response above.

[Toraborakid]

Everyone here makes some good points i went over with other video game vendors and for the most part almost all in agreement with it, to try to move this would create a HUGE price drop which in turn would scumbag anyone who currently ownes copies of these games and that's not cool. Not to mention that it's a tough nut moneywise.

 

[Toraborakid]

1 minute ago, x=usr(1536) said:

 

Remember the saying about if something seems too good to be true, it probably is?  Here're the reservations I have about the scenario you're describing:

 

 

Reservation number one: why is someone in possession of all of this trying to offload it at a flea market?  There are better places (and I'm not thinking eBay, though it is an option) for doing this.  It's doubtful that they don't know how to use the Internet in this day and age, particularly given what their business does, to find buyers.

 

 

Good.  Keep your head screwed on while looking into this.  Here's why:

 

 

Did he let you open the boxes?

 

If so, were you permitted to inspect the cartridge and / or insert it into a machine to make sure that it matched what the box and label claimed it was?

 

Were you allowed to do this for the other 1499 cartridges?

 

Here's the thing: if he won't let you look in the boxes - all of them - you don't know what you're buying.  Sure, there could be 1500 Mystique cartridges in them, but there could equally easily be 1500 pieces of wood.  Yes, this is an obvious point, but it's the one that all of this hinges on: you (or anyone else) has no way of knowing if he ran off the packages last Tuesday.

 

 

That's a load of crap.  No matter how it's handled, that volume of cartridges entering the market is going to negatively affect the values of ones already out there - one vendor or a hundred, it's all the same.

 

What's interesting to me is that he's playing the 'I know what they're worth' card.  This tells me two things: a) he's already looked into online pricing; b) he also knows that a glut of them on the market will lower values, so is looking to get out on the high end and leave someone else holding the bag for the difference once they start selling them.

 

 

I'd ask to inspect 100% of what he has before purchasing.  That would have to include being able to pick out three titles at random, open them, and test them; you take the financial hit for those three and keep them once opened.  Get every bit of info on him you can, so that if it does turn out to be a swindle you can at least give the cops solid info to start tracking him down.  Also, find out everything you can about where those games were stored and try to determine if there's any way there may have been a possible connection with Mystique, distributors, or retailers who may have carried their products.

 

Finally, $15K is out of the question.  If I were in your shoes, I'd offer 30% of average retail per game.  He's basically acting as a wholesaler in this instance, so needs to offer wholesale, not retail, pricing.

 

With all of that said, however, this has a distinct aroma of fish.  Rather than letting it be a case of, "trust but verify," my suggestion would be to verify, verify, and verify again before even thinking of buying these games.  Not saying that it's not possible that it is legitimate, but see also my first response above.

Yea, it would take some effort to verify this whole thing no doubt, there are alot of hurdles to this to overcome, if i made this guy a serious offer i would have to go through more shit then i am willing to. but the feedback here is excellent here to say the least.

 

But i did find out the warehouse it was found was in whiteplains NY. Dunno if that helps anyone much.

 

[CPUWIZ]

16 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

What's interesting to me is that he's playing the 'I know what they're worth' card.  This tells me two things: a) he's already looked into online pricing; b) he also knows that a glut of them on the market will lower values, so is looking to get out on the high end and leave someone else holding the bag for the difference once they start selling them.

 

100% agreed.

 

18 minutes ago, x=usr(1536) said:

With all of that said, however, this has a distinct aroma of fish.  Rather than letting it be a case of, "trust but verify," my suggestion would be to verify, verify, and verify again before even thinking of buying these games.  Not saying that it's not possible that it is legitimate, but see also my first response above.

 

Too much time and effort, I would pass, especially because it smells bad.

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

Too much time and effort, I would pass, especially because it smells bad.

And call everyone in the area that I even remotely thought this guy might try to get in touch with and let them know what's going on.

 

It'll be interesting to see if a) there's an uptick in these titles turning up in the usual places over the next couple of months, and b) if we see an uptick in threads shortly thereafter asking how much a rare Mystique title that had a packaging error involving a bar of soap is worth once it's opened.

[Shawn]

Large amounts of these games have been found and sold before. Not 1500 copies but larger amounts at least a couple cases worth. As recent as last year a fella was unloading them at $30 to $50 each on ebay for a while in various states of new condition. Some mint, some crushed boxed. He stopped, then came back and did another blast of sales before he must have either sold out or held off on selling more of them till a later date.

[+Andrew Davie]

35 minutes ago, Toraborakid said:

Sorry, my bad i meant warehouse, ANYWAY, 

Visions of explanations to your partner about why "whorehouse" was top of your auto-correct list....

[BIGHMW]

17 hours ago, Steverd said:

Seems to be selling $150-200 a piece on eBay sometimes,

BUT this would quickly drop to $100 or lower in few a months if more than a few shows up showed up.

 

Custer's Revenge has been selling for $114 - $150
Bachlor's Party Blue box is around $80-100

 

BUT if you got a few super nice boxes, then you could send to Wata games to get graded maybe.,

 

What about Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em? (am I allowed to say that?) Nobody ever mentions that one.

[R.Cade]

Well, 1500 copies at $10 each. That's not that bad. It's a risk, but you could make good money if you can sell all 1500 in a decent amount of time. It would flood the market, for sure. Basically anyone that still collects would be able to get NIB for a bargain compared to current pricing.

 

 

[Shawn]

26 minutes ago, R.Cade said:

Well, 1500 copies at $10 each. That's not that bad. It's a risk, but you could make good money if you can sell all 1500 in a decent amount of time. It would flood the market, for sure. Basically anyone that still collects would be able to get NIB for a bargain compared to current pricing.

 

 

 

Assuming it's 500 of each (which it's likely not) of the 3 main NTSC titles, I don't think you could quickly find that many people to buy them at a price anyone would be happy with as a seller looking for a return on a $15k investment. I could easily see someone getting stuck trying to break even on a pile of leftovers by the time you sell a few hundred sets at most. The market would flood and not recover for years before you could sell them for a decent amount again when offering up 500 copies of 3 mid range rarity titles. Best thing going for them is they are naughty games. The novelty of that never wears off. 

 

With all the risk involved I wouldn't see this as a wise purchase for anything more than $5k to $7k tops.

[R.Cade]

6 minutes ago, Shawn said:

 

Assuming it's 500 of each (which it's likely not) of the 3 main NTSC titles, I don't think you could quickly find that many people to buy them at a price anyone would be happy with as a seller looking for a return on a $15k investment. I could easily see someone getting stuck trying to break even on a pile of leftovers by the time you sell a few hundred sets at most. The market would flood and not recover for years before you could sell them for a decent amount again when offering up 500 copies of 3 mid range rarity titles. Best thing going for them is they are naughty games. The novelty of that never wears off. 

 

With all the risk involved I wouldn't see this as a wise purchase for anything more than $5k to $7k tops.

Well, consider this. How many collectors would buy the boxed complete "trilogy" set for $99? You don't think 500 over a year or two?

 

You break even at 166 sets sold in this example.

Edited November 18, 2020 by R.Cade

[gilsaluki]

I wonder if women would purchase these titles? Hummm?   Think that a married man's wife would be happy with those titles in their homes?   Hummm?

[Steverd]

23 minutes ago, R.Cade said:

Well, consider this. How many collectors would buy the boxed complete "trilogy" set for $99? You don't think 500 over a year or two?

 

You break even at 166 sets sold in this example.

YEP - I would buy the trilogy for $99 and more than one set at that price.

 

[Shawn]

42 minutes ago, R.Cade said:

Well, consider this. How many collectors would buy the boxed complete "trilogy" set for $99? You don't think 500 over a year or two?

 

You break even at 166 sets sold in this example.

 

I could see that working as long as there actually is 500 of each to sell in lots of 3. I think it would take longer than 2 years though cause most people who want these games already have them. Then you gotta wonder that condition they are in. They could be mint, or they could be trashed.

[Tavi]

I would have to echo a few others here and say that the value of these titles is going to nosedive as soon as it comes out that there are hundreds of NOS available.

People will still buy them to play or collect, so the demand will still be there but I seriously doubt you would be able to sell them for anything close to their current pricing. Pallets of these titles is an instant market glut just waiting to happen, the scarcity factor would be lost.

I imagine this is why this person wants to sell the entire stock in one shot. Once the titles start flowing out into the market, the value of any remaining stock is going to seriously decrease.

15K is a sizable investment, and you are certainly getting a pig in a poke as you have no idea the condition of the majority of the stock being bought.

If it's all mint, you could do quite well, but there is certainly some very sizable risk factors that for the money involved I would not be terribly comfortable with.

...but if you do go for it, you can put me down for one of the 'Trilogy' sets as well :D

[R.Cade]

11 minutes ago, Tavi said:

I would have to echo a few others here and say that the value of these titles is going to nosedive as soon as it comes out that there are hundreds of NOS available.

People will still buy them to play or collect, so the demand will still be there but I seriously doubt you would be able to sell them for anything close to their current pricing. Pallets of these titles is an instant market glut just waiting to happen, the scarcity factor would be lost.

I imagine this is why this person wants to sell the entire stock in one shot. Once the titles start flowing out into the market, the value of any remaining stock is going to seriously decrease.

15K is a sizable investment, and you are certainly getting a pig in a poke as you have no idea the condition of the majority of the stock being bought.

If it's all mint, you could do quite well, but there is certainly some very sizable risk factors that for the money involved I would not be terribly comfortable with.

...but if you do go for it, you can put me down for one of the 'Trilogy' sets as well

Sure, naturally they would all need to be complete and in good condition. No inspection, no sale, or price will reflect what I *can* inspect.