Collection Direction

Hi, I've been on and off acquiring things for my collection for a while now. There has been absolutely no focus to the collecting aside from what's cheap. I never budget out money for collecting, it's just whenever I find something cool. I happen to live in an area with a few retro and import stores, so I rarely have to shop online for things.

I've recently (the last couple weeks) been looking at early '80s stuff heavily on the net, as the rarity of everything is pretty well defined, and scales extremely well. Popularity of items does not figure as strongly into price, and even the really high rarity software doesn't seem to be expensive (there's a local store that had a rarity 8 2600 game for $40).

Anyways, I've completely missed the subject so far, but I've got two questions:

Who here collects with goals and targets in mind? Who collects like I've been, just whatever for whatever, whenever? Anyone jump ship from one side to the other? What did you prefer?

What about investments in presentation, tools, et cetera? A nice bookshelf, custom storage stand, sweet system mod, high end camera? Any suggestions, or absolute lifesavers?

I'm tempted to crosspost this on a few collectors forums, but I doubt I will. You guys seem to cover the entire spectrum of collecting, while most other forums often skew heavily towards early gen stuff.

Yeah, it's a scatterbrained topic, but I just spent the last few hours cleaning, and as you can imagine, that's when I started thinking about a lot of this stuff.

 

I am currently collecting without direction or thought to budget.
Whenever I see something I want I go for it and try to get it at the
best price possible -- And will go to great lengths to make sure I get
it as cheap as possible. I do put a priority on Resident Evil / Biohazard as
it's my passion but it's not the [sole] direction.

I'm mostly going for things from my youth. Games and systems that I've
always wanted, thought were cool or had at one point and got rid of (for some stupid reason).
I'm big on going for complete items that are in the best shape I can find.
That's not to say I won't take a loose or crushed box Chrono Trigger if
the price was right. I also like to obtain boxes for loose items I have to
try and complete them.

Right now the majority of my collection is stored neatly on an "industrial"
chrome shelf (From Sam's) which is pretty large and has nice plastic inlays
to keep things from falling through. I'm actually out of space as the rest of
my stuff is in the closest sadly. When I move I will probably get some IKEA
stuff I've had my eyes on to hold everything.

 

I can totally understand your point-of-view. For many years I would simply check the change in my pockets and if I had enough I would purchase whatever 'cheap' items were on offer. The various car boot sales, junk shops, independent retail stores, second-hand shops, thrift stores or local adverts threw up a massive array of retro equipment on a regular basis for very little money (and effort).
Then one day 'retro' became cool, the prices all shifted upwards, the sellers would invariably haggle and / or stick the units on eBay.
I'll be honest and admit I cashed in. Given that prior to the retro thing becoming suddenly popular I had been regularly picking up consoles & old computers for no more than a few £ here or there. I had amassed a silly amount and I sold the vast majority of them off, making a killing!
They might not have been all minty fresh, but most were boxed, all worked and they had all been completely cleaned up or repaired.
It wasn't until I sold off this collection of consoles (of all types and ages) that I became more focused and stumbled across development material.
For a time development material was ignored and the prices were low, but guess what.... it started getting popular too!
More recently I have re-discovered arcade material. This was something I was a fan of as a kid and never thought for a second I'd own anything along those lines.
It's amazing when you find someone really focused and collecting in a particular direction. Seeing someone's obsession all laid out is fascinating, especially when people feel they must collect everything as factory sealed. I just couldn't do that on several levels. Firstly, I would have to open the packets. Secondly, I have no 'one' thing I am so into that I must have it all.

As with all these things there are people who are prepared to invest far more time, money, effort, sweat, tears and knowledge than the next man. Having a small collection of various unrelated items is equally valid in my eyes to the larger collections you sometimes see on here. The smaller collections tend to be used and very personal whilst larger collections (by definition) tend to be more like museums as nobody can get round all those consoles!

 

I'm also one of those who mainly picks up cheap stuff, only paying more than £10 for games I really want to play (current generation stuff, mostly).

Having said that, I do have a few goals - see my "'Strike" collection, for example (trying to collect all kinds of Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, etc, games and items) - although the only goal for that is "as much stuff as I can find". I'm also working my way through collecting Sega Master System games (I currently have 475) and N-Gage games (I really like that machine).

I was originally just buying any cheap SMS games I found, then I became interested in all the variations of the games and started buying them to collect rather than to play.

Presentation is something I used to put effort in to; I bought a few "Billy" bookcases from Krapea and had everything ordered by system, then alphabetically. It looked tidy and was easy to find games when I wanted to play them.

Recently, however, I've run out of space for bookcases, so loads of games are in boxes/stacks on the floor - the games on the shelves are all out of their ordering and are double stacked. Time to stop buying games. Maybe.

 

Well, from about... 2002-2006 I was hardcore into Saturn collecting (prior to that I wasn't really "collecting", just buying good games as they came out). And really, I did a pretty nice job of it (especially considering I had 0 access to Yahoo Japan and virtually 0 contacts in Japan) amassing 32 systems (including 2 Navis) and over 500 games. And really, having a certain focus worked fairly well. There were a couple of times I would spread out and check something else out for a minute (PC-Engine Duo, PC-FX, Genesis) but I always wound up going back to the Saturn shortly thereafter. My primary goal off the jump was getting a complete US collection (which I did in no time with virtually no problems). After that... eh... it got a bit random. I never intend to get all the Japanese releases, but I certainly want everything thats either fairly decent and/or accessible to a non-nihongo speaking individual such as myself. I would also snatch up anything worth more than $50, and would be sure to grab anything that came out in Europe for it that didn't come out in the US.

So in the end, I had 245 US games (probably a bit more though since I do have doubles), about 30 something PAL games, and a little over 200 Japanese games (primarily shmups and fighters).

Originally, I set off to collect all the 2D shooters on the Saturn (which I do intend to finish up in '08), and even made a little website to go along with it (it might be in my sig, if not its http://www.angelfire.com/al2/jp), and that was pretty cool since apparently a decent amount of people go there. Sadly, I kinda forgot about the site for awhile and quit updating it. Even worse, I've sold a few titles I had bought so I gotta buy those again. But eh, it is what it is.

For storage, once I get out of college I plan on having a room in my house dedicated to the Saturn collection. I don't have anywhere near enough room in my apartment to house it, so for the moment its split in two, with most of it (30 systems, most peripherals, 300+ games) at my parents' house and the rest at my apartment for my enjoyment.

At any rate, while it lasted I really enjoyed it. Having a particular direction for collecting was a lot of fun, and really helped me appreciate the system a bit more (though it was already my all time favorite console ever, and this will never change). Unfortunately, I fell on hard times in '07 and I haven't recovered enough yet to where I can jump back in the game (which is a shame, because people keep offering me stuff I wa-... no, need!). But one day I will finish, and make a Saturn website to go along with it or something, and then probably turn my focus back to the PC-Engine Duo.

 

I suppose collecting for me never has been "collecting" in my eyes...I just have held on to all my consoles and video games throughout the years and now it seems I have a "collection". I never tried for anything specific in the past because my focus was never on collecting. My focus was on obataining and playing the games I wanted. If anything, the only specific things I have tried to obtain off and on are dev/pirate related, but considering that, I only have a Wideboy64 AGB Debug with GBA, a PS2 DTL and a V64Jr....I got these because they were interesting to me and I would use them. Now all of a sudden I have over 20 consoles and a couple hundred games. I suppose I have been amassing a collection of shmups, but I don't feel like I need every single one for a certain system...I just get what I want to play. The latest obsession for me has been a Sigma supergun and my "collection" of PCBs (all 2 of them lol). If funds allow over the next few years I would like to collect shmup PCBs, but only the games I truly want to invest a lot of time in (it better be that way considering they cost of hundreds of dollars per game).

 

I've been a big sega fan for a while, so I decided that I would try to collect every single one of their systems. In about a week, I realized that this would be much harder than I though, with all of these super rare systems like the teradrive and hi saturn navi going for really high prices. So, I decided to narrow my collection's goal to just saturn stuff... and currently I've been buying whatever cheap games that interest me from around the web. (my first addition to my new saturn collection was Panzer Dragoon Saga... which I am proud of )

 

I collect exclusively PlayStation stuff. I used to collect all handheld gaming systems as well, but got out of that and sold them all (around 35 units). My collection started with buying a local PS and then a local PS2, then a Jap PSone to play import games, then US units for the same reason, next thing I've got around seven units and I thought why not try to collect them all.

I have a fairly strict criteria and targets (units of every colour released, all new, plus the accessories they launched with, but not every SKU) but inevitably you collect things that don't fit. I've collected a lot of dev gear sort of as an aside, but of course getting this new is very expensive (not to mention very difficult) so my dev stuff is second hand and not always complete. This causes me some significant angst, as it doesn't really "fit" into the goal of the rest of the collection. I've been toying with selling all my dev gear for a while now. My PSP collection (24 units now) is very complete and I've also thought about narrowing it down to just collecting PSPs, as it's getting expensive buying new PS3 colours each time they are released. I'm a bit of a believer, for better or worse, that if I'm not going to collect every colour, I might as well not collect any.

Now that I'm nearing the goal of having every colour PS released (only one PS2 and one PSP remaining), I find myself branching out. I now have every colour official PS controller released, and am thinking about collecting every colour official memory cards. It never ends...!!!

Dave.

 

Awesome stories guys, keep them coming.

Aypok, did you see the Strike article in Retro Gamer a few months ago? Some awesome stuff in there.

sequent_blender, do you know what is up with those weird new PS2 controllers? I saw them at Target, they are in the official Sony yellow plastic, but are clearly not the Dualshock 2. I looked them up on target's store, and I think it's this ("Force 2" controller)

Collecting devsystems scares me. Seems like there could be a lot of legal issues there. It seems like there could even be legal issues talking about there being legal issues.

Anyone collect a lot of non-gaming stuff? I've sort of got a Magic collection (mostly draft leftovers), but I think I'm going to sell that off and transfer the "investment" to video games.

 

They're made by Katana and are "officially licenced" but are not genuine Sony.

Dave.

 

I beginning seriously collecting video game around 1999. At that time I was seeking to get as much games possible for Nintendo/Atari/SEGA system's (and getting all system from those company, add-on included btw). I was also at the same time trying to complete my Zelda collection with one edition of each games from Nintendo.

I soon realized that my collection was going nowhere, since that at this time I didn't have much money to buy new system. So I drooped the idea to start collecting SEGA Stuff and I concentrate myself on getting all "must have" game and some other that I just liked to play when I was younger for system I already owned at this time (Atari 2600,NES,SNES,N64).

Once I got my first credit card I started buying my games on ebay. Later I begined to get Japaneses only stuff on yahoo japan too. So now I have a lot of stuff and I added myself a little "rule" for keeping a reasonable size to my collection witch is that everything most stand on one bookshelf. If I can't show it off and play with it, them this item must go. For me storing stuff that no one can see and that I don't use doesn't make sens. So I prefer to sold them.

So since my Atari Stuff can enter my bookshelf anymore since I've got my 64DD and iQue stuff, I'm going to sell everything this summer. So now I only collect Nintendo stuff. I will also start selling bad third party game I got when as was still buying big bundle of cheap stuff. I will try to only keep good third third party games and all nintendo related one. Also, if I can find a WideBoy64 AGB I will sell my gamecube since with my wii I can play my NGC game. I only use my NGC for playing GBA game actualy. Removing the NGC will give my some space

Also my Zelda collection have a lot evolved since I started it back in 1999. Once I've got one edition of all games I started to try getting all edition in every format, now that I almost completed this, I'm now trying to get every regional release. Since I should complete that pretty soon too, I'm beginning to be interested in buying demo/not for resale stuff and some goodies also.

So for me having goal is a way to keep my collection to a resonable size. And also to not waste to much money

 

I started seriously collecting when I was around 13, I have been playing video games since I was a young child, but as I got older I got the notion to start collecting. Though being as young as I was I didn't have much money, and I still don't now. I'm 19 now and in college now. I manage to still work on my collection atleast once a month, but alot of the high end stuff I can only afford in the summer.

My main focus is Sega anything, I grew up with Sega consoles. I mainly collect for the Sega Saturn, buying all kinds of imports and other games I remember I wanted when I was younger. My big goals are to have all of the Sega systems, and all of the games I find interesting/rare. Nowdays I have about 20 consoles and around 300-500ish games in total (A vast majority of that being import games that I missed out on, on the Sega Saturn).

I tend to just browse around the internet, garage sales, goodwills, retro stores, and so on for stuff to add to my collection. Another big goal I have is to own a Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast kiosk, but I can't really do that until I move out of my apartment after college. So basically, I collect Sega things, things from my past, things I love, and just general rare stuff. (I really want to start collecting more dev stuff, but I seem to always be short on cash when I encounter something of that nature.)

I also think having a nice camera and some nice storage can really help as well. I myself have a glass Ikea cabnet, some glass shelfing, and two big spinning shelf units. It isnt the best due to all the dust I get in my apartment, but it does okay.

As for cameras, my main camera is a Nikon D40, digital SLR. Having a nice SLR can really bring out alot of good pictures of your collection, especially of consoles. I think its something to consider down the line though unless you already enjoy photography like myself.

 

You sound just like me! (but older)

 

I did indeed - it was very interesting.

 

You say this, yet it was a garage sale last year (Barc0dio will back me up on this one) where the PS1 10millionth edition (boxed), Playstation wine, and boxed PS2 LE turned up at $15 the lot!

Never underestimate the importance of the garage! If I had a garage sale, you'd change your opinion lol. :icon_bigg

 

Assembler, I was talking to the guy who runs the collectable game and toy store near where I work the other day, and he mentioned something very similar, but was talking about the toy market, and specifically things from the '80s / early '90s. The more rare newer stuff will be in higher quantities NIB in the future for whatever, because most collection hobbies are so well organized due to the internet now.

I'm not in it for the monetary investment, but I totally see where people are coming from.

Figure0fTragedy, a nice camera is on my list of things to get eventually, especially because I hang out with a lot of artists (even though I'm a programmer), and they've all got nice cameras.

Reading about you college collectors takes me back. Somehow, with almost no income and no free time, I was able to get a bunch of cool stuff. Nothing outlandish, but it's surprising what you end up able to scrounge up.

How much time do you guys devote to scouring garage sales, pawn shops, et cetera? This is a hobby in and of itself, and a ton of fun if you have the time to devote to it, but I really don't. The most I do is check a couple of the local import / classic stores, craigslist, and a few places online once every couple weeks.

As you guys can probably guess, I'm treating this thread as the world's slowest IRC. I don't spend nearly the time I used to on the internet, but it's still handy with talking to people with the same semi-obscure interests.

 

I don't have an income at the moment so I'm pretty much left to scour
garage sales, pawn shops, flea markets, good will and ebay.

I check ebay every night before bed. Have a about 16 saved search filters
that would touch on just about anything video game related that pops up
within 50 miles of me.

Lots of great deals to be had when people let you do local pickup off ebay.

 

for software, i just try and get all the "good/great" games for each console. i'm not super big on collecting hardware. i don't really have goals. my collecting habits change all the time.