Turbo Gouging on Ebay ( r.i.p. - gouging much )

[SMF]

The only thing epic about this collection is the number of photos taken.  It's a nice collection, filled with goodies, but it ain't worth no $3800.  Collection includes:

Hardware: a pair of TG-16s, TurboExpress (boxed), TurboBooster+ (boxed), 'Express AC Adapter (boxed), huey converter, TurboPad (boxed), TurboTap (boxed), and loose pairs of TurboPads and TurboTaps.
 
Boxed TG Games: Aeroblasters, Air Zonk, Alien Crush, Bloody Wolf, Bomberman '93, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk 3, Bravoman, Chew Man Fu, Devil's Crush, Dungeon Explorer, Falcon, Fantasy Zone, Final Lap Twin, Gunboat, Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Klax, Legendary Axe, Military Madness, Neutopia II, New Adventure Island, Ninja Spirit, Parasol Stars, R-Type, Shockman, Silent Debuggers, Soldier Blade, Sommer Assault, Tricky Kick, Victory Run, World Sports Competition

Cased TG Games: Battle Royale, Blazing Lazers, Bonk's Revenge, Boxy Boy, Cybercore, Galaga '90, Ghost Manor (huey only), JJ & Jeff, Keith Courage, Legendary Axe 2, Order of the Griffon, Ordyne, Power Golf, Psychosis, Sonic Spike, Space Harrier, Splatterhouse, Super Star Soldier (no case), Talespin, Turrican, TV Sports Basketball (no case), TV Sports Football, World Class Baseball

Cased PCE Games: Altered Beast, Bomberman '94, Darius Plus, Download, Image Fight, Parodius, Street Fighter II, Thunderblade, Yu Yu Hakusho

I bid $1 Bob...........

[Sadler]

I actually offered him a fair amount, $1000. Despite my claims to the contrary, I wouldn't mind having boxes for some of those games, and I don't have Soldier Blade and some of the hardware. I even offered him $150 for just Soldier Blade. Anyway, seems like a nice enough guy, if misguided. Here was his response:

Dear [redacted],

I really appreciate the offer on the tg16 lot. I have come to find out that I am asking a bit much and might reduce it to $2800 asking, but I have received numerous offers for well over $2000 and yours is the lowest i'm sorry to say. Soldier blade also has an offer of $300 and $250 from people so that game wouldn't work either for you. I just wanted to let you know.

[jperryss]

Here was his response:

Surprisingly reasonable.

Still can't believe I'm seeing $200+ for Soldier Blade though.

[NightWolve]

id paint the whole thing black,.....anyone know whats wrong with this card?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Parasol-Stars-Turbo-Graphx-16-DEFECTIVE-read-/320729712329?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item4aacfb06c9#ht_1404wt_648

You should know that they can permanently break and cleaning the contacts is no guarantee it'll work 100% after that... When I first opened up my new Turbo Express in 1993 and plugged in "Bloody Wolf," I could feel how tight the contact pins within the unit were because I had to push the card in pretty hard, and then pulling it back out wasn't easy either. But the game didn't load, so I would pull it out, maybe clean it and try it again, still no dice. Then I tried another game and that worked, but when I went to try "Bloody Wolf" on my TG-16, same thing, it no longer worked at all! That's when I realized my fiddling around with factory tight contact pins had destroyed the HuCard for good...

The only thing epic about this collection is the number of photos taken.  It's a nice collection, filled with goodies, but it ain't worth no $3800.  Collection includes:

Pfffft. These f'ing guys think that they got a pot of gold now... I should send him my patented $5 offer.

[Sadler]

Here was his response:

Surprisingly reasonable.

Still can't believe I'm seeing $200+ for Soldier Blade though.

He really seems like a good guy. I let him know about this thread, he said he was trying to sign up for an account to respond. He also asked that I post this, so here you go:

Haha, thanks for informing me. I went and found that thread. I didn't even know a site like that existed. I find it funny to be featured that way and a little flattering. Go ahead and keep my comments. I have tried to register to say something myself, but if you want you can pass along the message that I am an experienced seller with his own online store, but not so much with tg 16 and the market data is scarce so that's why I put it up as a large lot with offer ability. I'm not stone cold about getting $3800 that's just pie in the sky eccentric rich collector price from the data I could get on the games and hardware. However consistent offers in the $2000-2500 range have shown me that is most likely the sweet spot for pricing and i'm going to change the asking price to reflect that after I wait to see if a deal i'm working on privately will work.

$2K-2500 is too much given what I'd like out of the lot, but it's way more reasonable than $3800.

[Bernie]

The guy seems really down Earth.  I got a nice response from him too.  Seems he really didnt know the exact worth of some of this stuff, and is easy to work with.  I let him know if he decided to break it up, I would certainly be game for a lot of the games he had.  Hopefully he will get accepted in here before he breaks it up on eBay, so we can get some good stuffs.    Either way, a lot of common games to some good ones I'd love to have.  I let him know that most of us dont have the money to drop all at once on a big collection, and that it MAY be easier for him if broken up.  

[NightWolve]

Is it me or are you guys going soft on gouging all of a sudden with the "Wow, he seems to be a REALLY REALLY nice guy! So down to earth, man, I've never met anyone quite like him..." Heh-heh. Reminder: Right out of the batter's box, he wanted almost $4000!!! He's someone that's already well aware of how eBay has driven up the prices of NEC games/systems and wanted to take FULL advantage of that! Being nice and considering taking off about a thousand doesn't impress me all that much...

Sorry nlivadit, baldguyvideogames has turned down your offer of US $5.00. Make another offer before the item ends.

   

OK, so, you guys play the good cop, and I'll play the bad cop, how's that ?

[Mathius]

At this point I don't think if even "nice guy" seller here asked a reasonable $800 for everything it make any difference in the long run. Some fool eBay gouger would snatch it right up, throw everything in dust covers, and ask $10k. I am just sitting back and waiting on this bubble to burst (which it will). That's our only hope at this point. If there are any eBay store owners out there who are only out for teh monies and are reading this? ....."Thanks for ruining everything a$$holes!" 

[bartre]

I am just sitting back and waiting on this bubble to burst (which it will)

either that or the TG will end up like the neo geo, pretty much only collected by the super hardcore who have loads of money for games.
realistically, i'm doing the same, i've bought exactly 1 game for the turbo since march, and that was ninja ryukenden (thanks again samurai ghost)

[SMF]

I honestly dont think the bubble will burst, We are at a point now where we wanna show our kids what we played growing up and wanna share the joy with them. Im just glad i was enjoying the Turbo when it came out in its heyday and loving everything about it.

The rare games are gonna be rare 20 years from now, I dont see how a game like Dynastic Hero is gonna come down to $30 after it tops out at say $400. Reason being look at the rare NES games hell Genesis has a few rare ones. Those sell for top dollar to people that think video games are the new age stocks and bonds.

Baseball cards are not what they once was, But if you have a MJ Rookie card youll still get top dollar for it, Same thing with Comic books. Action Comic goes for over a million. I hate to say it but 20 years from now we might be saying DAM I WISH I GRABBED MAGICAL CHASE WHEN IT WAS $1000. Now it sells for $6000 lol.

[PikachuWarrior]

That's with any collectible. Nothing lasts forever. Components break down, items get lost, damaged in a fire/flood/disaster, natural occurrences happen in other words, which drives up the remaining stock further up to meet any demand that may come its way.

So put all your TG/CD/PCE games in an ice vault or someplace deep in a mountain for safe keeping!

[Bernie]

Is it me or are you guys going soft on gouging all of a sudden with the "Wow, he seems to be a REALLY REALLY nice guy! So down to earth, man, I've never met anyone quite like him..." Heh-heh. Reminder: Right out of the batter's box, he wanted almost $4000!!! He's someone that's already well aware of how eBay has driven up the prices of NEC games/systems and wanted to take FULL advantage of that! Being nice and considering taking off about a thousand doesn't impress me all that much...

Sorry nlivadit, baldguyvideogames has turned down your offer of US $5.00. Make another offer before the item ends.

   

OK, so, you guys play the good cop, and I'll play the bad cop, how's that ?

lol.  I do see your point.  However, in my last email from him.  He basically told me he has no knowledge of Turbo anything, and had used his only resource available to price it, which happened to be eBay.  ugh.. So, according to him, he was gouging without intent basically.     I guess we will see in the long run how that turns out.  I think we appear soft, due to the responses we are getting from him.  He appears very open to input and suggestions thus far.

[Black Tiger]

The only thing epic about this collection is the number of photos taken.  It's a nice collection, filled with goodies, but it ain't worth no $3800.  Collection includes:

Hardware: a pair of TG-16s, TurboExpress (boxed), TurboBooster+ (boxed), 'Express AC Adapter
(boxed), huey converter, TurboPad (boxed), TurboTap (boxed), and loose pairs of TurboPads and TurboTaps.
 
Boxed TG Games: Aeroblasters, Air Zonk, Alien Crush, Bloody Wolf, Bomberman '93, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk 3, Bravoman, Chew Man Fu, Devil's Crush, Dungeon Explorer, Falcon, Fantasy Zone, Final Lap Twin, Gunboat, Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, Klax, Legendary Axe, Military Madness, Neutopia II, New Adventure Island, Ninja Spirit, Parasol Stars, R-Type, Shockman, Silent Debuggers, Soldier Blade, Sommer Assault, Tricky Kick, Victory Run, World Sports Competition

Cased TG Games: Battle Royale, Blazing Lazers, Bonk's Revenge, Boxy Boy, Cybercore, Galaga '90, Ghost Manor (huey only), JJ & Jeff, Keith Courage, Legendary Axe 2, Order of the Griffon, Ordyne, Power Golf, Psychosis, Sonic Spike, Space Harrier, Splatterhouse, Super Star Soldier (no case), Talespin, Turrican, TV Sports Basketball (no case), TV Sports Football, World Class Baseball

Cased PCE Games: Altered Beast, Bomberman '94, Darius Plus, Download, Image Fight, Parodius, Street Fighter II, Thunderblade, Yu Yu Hakusho

Not including more of a discount for such a large lot, I added it up to around $1200.

[Mathius]

I honestly dont think the bubble will burst, We are at a point now where we wanna show our kids what we played growing up and wanna share the joy with them. Im just glad i was enjoying the Turbo when it came out in its heyday and loving everything about it.

The rare games are gonna be rare 20 years from now, I dont see how a game like Dynastic Hero is gonna come down to $30 after it tops out at say $400. Reason being look at the rare NES games hell Genesis has a few rare ones. Those sell for top dollar to people that think video games are the new age stocks and bonds.

Baseball cards are not what they once was, But if you have a MJ Rookie card youll still get top dollar for it, Same thing with Comic books. Action Comic goes for over a million. I hate to say it but 20 years from now we might be saying DAM I WISH I GRABBED MAGICAL CHASE WHEN IT WAS $1000. Now it sells for $6000 lol.

I see what you are saying. I believe though that the crowd is going to begin to thin out in a few years with demand for these games going down with them. Sure I don't see Magical Chase being affordable again, but I don't see going and staying at a ludicrous price points.

There are two types of retro gamer around at this point. The guy feeling nostalgic for his old consoles, for his youth, and starts to collect. Then there are the truly hardcore (for lack of a better term) who have a true passion for older consoles and games. It is the latter that I see remaining after those who just want to return their youth get their fill. Again, I don't see Dynastic Hero going into the proverbial bargain bin, but demand will fall eventually when the communities shake off all their excess weight.

[Black Tiger]

I honestly dont think the bubble will burst, We are at a point now where we wanna show our kids what we played growing up and wanna share the joy with them. Im just glad i was enjoying the Turbo when it came out in its heyday and loving everything about it.

The rare games are gonna be rare 20 years from now, I dont see how a game like Dynastic Hero is gonna come down to $30 after it tops out at say $400. Reason being look at the rare NES games hell Genesis has a few rare ones. Those sell for top dollar to people that think video games are the new age stocks and bonds.

Baseball cards are not what they once was, But if you have a MJ Rookie card youll still get top dollar for it, Same thing with Comic books. Action Comic goes for over a million. I hate to say it but 20 years from now we might be saying DAM I WISH I GRABBED MAGICAL CHASE WHEN IT WAS $1000. Now it sells for $6000 lol.

I see what you are saying. I believe though that the crowd is going to begin to thin out in a few years with demand for these games going down with them. Sure I don't see Magical Chase being affordable again, but I don't see going and staying at a ludicrous price points.

There are two types of retro gamer around at this point. The guy feeling nostalgic for his old consoles, for his youth, and starts to collect. Then there are the truly hardcore (for lack of a better term) who have a true passion for older consoles and games. It is the latter that I see remaining after those who just want to return their youth get their fill. Again, I don't see Dynastic Hero going into the proverbial bargain bin, but demand will fall eventually when the communities shake off all their excess weight.

Keep in mind that this isn't a natural or stable market, where prices gradually built up to regular levels. There continues to be two extremes in high and low BIN listings and auctions for supposedly expensive games continue to end at low or reasonable prices. The people actively manipulating the market to reap as much profit as they can as fast as they can before it crashes, purposely avoid listing auctions because of this. If these games truly are as genuinely valuable as those who only pay attention to high asking prices think, then why doesn't every seller only do auctions and then also start them at only 99 cents?