Sad sight, sad times (short op raid story)
Joe Magiera
stash. I was wrong, he had a GREAT stash. He had over 1,600 games in
storage! The sad part about the full games was that over 95% had been
converted. Every where I looked I saw classic cabinets, unfortunately
all converted. Most with side art painted over. Cliff Hanger,
Robotron, Tempest, Fire Fox, and oh my goodness, even a Cosmic Chasm!
That was sad enough, but read on.
One good thing though is that he didn't throw anything away, meaning
he had all the parts to all the games he converted. Boardsets,
marquees, galore. The op said make a list of what I want and he'd
price things out.
I carefully went through the place (took me over 7 hours), and made my
Christmas wish list. I gave it to the owner to price.
He was taking quite a bit of time and I walked past his office to
sneak a peek to see how he was doing. I saw the following:
Operator/owner with my list on his desk.
In his left hand was the recently released video game price guide.
His right hand was resting on his keyboard as he was online and
looking up e-bay prices.
Sadly, and needless to say, I left empty handed. A long drive wasted.
It even a longer drive back thinking about the great stuff he had
that I unfortunately will never see.
Joe
Kev
What options are left? The only thing I could think of would be to work
closely with the operator, running his e-bay sales for a percentage,
redeemable in games/parts etc based on his 'guidelines'.
Other than that you are stuck waiting for the operator to discover how much
time/effort & headache is required to get those suggested prices. The
warehouse will probably have a mysterious fire before then & he can try
salvaging some of the value based on these 'guidelines' & his records (that
of course weren't lost in the fire).
Kev
"Joe Magiera" <joe.m...@ameritech.com> wrote in message
news:59917789.01100...@posting.google.com...
John in NH
:(
John in NH
~~~
My arcade pics, links & FS/FT stuff (UPDATED 9/07/01):
http://members.aol.com/rushpage2/collection.htm
"If you're not annoyed, you're not paying attention."
RC1.0 c n/n 15/0/cd/tG AWIP/+ 1 xd 0 63% [29sep2001]
Pete Ashdown
>Check back in a year when not one of them has moved.
I agree. Half of getting operators to cooperate with you is persistence.
--
Pneumatic tubes are killing the Internet.
Pete Ashdown pash...@xmission.com ICQ:5717723 Salt Lake City, Utah
XMission Internet Access - http://www.xmission.com - Voice: 801 539 0852
1Ripper
It's hurting a lot of the hobby anymore. No one is willing to give someone
a break, or even a package deal at times. I can fully understand that he
wanted to make sure he didn't take a beating, but eBay is hardly a price
option.
Sad, but it is the future...
Bill
Ted Jackson
>a break, or even a package deal at times. I can fully understand that he
>wanted to make sure he didn't take a beating, but eBay is hardly a price
>option.
Seems to me that the rules of commerce state that something is worth what
someone is willing to pay for an item and what someone else is willing to sell
it for. If someone has 1600 games sitting in a warehouse and needs to unload
them then instead of looking up in a price guide they should be asking
themselves what is it worth to me to reclaim the square footage and get this
stuff out of here that I have absolutely 0 use for. There's an operator here
(yes, it's the same guy in your town too. He operates in every metropolitan
area in the country :) that does the same thing and I just can't convince him
that I won't pay what he's asking and he just sits there and pays some guy to
come in and rearrange his warehouse every other weekend because he doesn't have
enough space to operate. It would be chyeaper for him to just sell me half his
warehouse and be done with it. I'm sure this setiment echos across the land and
into every collectors soul. Sad...
Ted
Buffalo, NY
Webpage:
http://ourworld.cs.com/thedoorjackson/Smedly.htm
VAPS entry: http://www.vaps.org/members/ny/thedoor...@cs.com.html
someotherguy
Richard
Don
>Date: 10/9/2001 7:44 PM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id:
><DFFD858C63C2A0CF.D2687F09...@lp.airnews.net>
>
>Hi Joe! Be sure to thank our good buddy Dan Hower for the price guide! : )
that stupid stupid stupid price guide has done more bad than good....
would this book be in the fiction or nonfiction section of the library
anyway....
why not just write on the first page: "go to www.eBay.com"
Patrick & Melissa Patterson
I knew that horribly inaccurate price guide would do that to the hobby
in a lot of places. A few years ago I dealt in buying and selling a
lot of collectable action figures and other toys and saw the same
thing. If I wanted to pick some stuff off of someone else, they
almost always had one of the price guides in their hand, wanting
90%-100% of what the "value" was. Other dealers would often charge
ABOVE the guide value, "anticipating the next leap in value" as one
would say.
Now the collectable toy world isn't near what it was a few years ago,
just like comic books and sports cards did when price guides became
the bible to some, even though they were usually about as accurate as
a blind man in the bleachers.
I'd say you should wait until that op is desperate to rid himself of
the stuff that he has sold little to none of. One thing I will say
about most arcade game collectors is that they want the best price
they can get, and those who charge and arm and a leg for everything
usually don't get it, especially on parts, as the average home
collector (i.e.-someone who pays $1500 for a Ms. Pac-Man with faded
artwork) doesn't want to deal with boards and stuff.
Sorry it had to happen to you, though. I say we hold a bonfire and
burn all known copies of that damn guide.
A218
>> Operator/owner with my list on his desk.
>> In his left hand was the recently released video game price guide.
>> His right hand was resting on his keyboard as he was online
Try going to see him again with maybe $15k in actual cash - I prefer 50s to
100s because they make a more impressive bundle - and point out that you dont
need a receipt, and that he wont have to ship, and that you are indeed someone
that is worth his time. Damn few ops will turn down a chance to stuff that
kind of tax free cash in their pocket.
If you are East and North of Scranton PA (anywhere in the Northeast in other
words) and want a hand putting a deal like that together, give me a holler
Art
djhurt1
a blue book for arcade machines but it got damned right out of the gate and was never done.
Everyone knew it would drive up prices so ridiculous that it would ruin the hobby. So who
did this price guide and when?
djhurt1
Joe Magiera <joe.m...@ameritech.com> wrote in message
news:59917789.01100...@posting.google.com...
Iron Mike
>
>
> that stupid stupid stupid price guide has done more bad than good....
> would this book be in the fiction or nonfiction section of the library
> anyway....
>
> why not just write on the first page: "go to www.eBay.com"
LOL :)
Looks like the op has mistaken his copy of the paperback version for
the "CARVED-IN-STONE EDITION"(rough outlines & rigid prices).
-Mike
DBT4251
waiting on one to walk in. Hope he trips over one and breaks his neck trying to
rush to the door to let the sucker in. Dean
Mickey Johnson
something out. As soon as you poked around for 7 hours you let the guy know
that this is very important to you. Another thing you need to consider is
the fact that after all these years, he still has all those games, whats
that tell you.... He is in no hurry for the space, or he would rather get a
top dollar selling a few at a time as opposed to moving out a whole bunch.
Its also possible that he really is in no hurry to sell. What I would have
done (not a guarentee that it would have worked), is one of two things.
Offered him a large amount of cash for a large package, with the excuse that
this is a bulk deal, not single retail items (art explained it the best in
his responce). Or be right up front with what high retail is worth, but
show him how much replacement side art/cpos and other items are. I had an
operator freak out when I told him what I spent for tron side art. Show him
how much its going to cost you to make it into what you want. Instead of
holding your cards all to yourself, try and get to know the guy and let hime
know exactly what you plan to do (keep the few classics that mean alot to
you) as opposed to selling everything he gives a deal to you on Ebay. When
I hit a warehouse, the first thing I did was flash the cash to the operator.
But then we spent the next couple of hours talking about why this game was
worth alot, why this one isn't, etc.......... If his prices are high,
don't get dissappointed, just go back and buy the one game that you really
want to have, and don't worry about getting a huge bulk deal. Look at it
this way, if he has 1600 games, there has to be one game in there you really
really want right??
just my .02
--
Mickster
Visit my website and see my arcade!!!
http://mickster.freeservers.com/
"Joe Magiera" <joe.m...@ameritech.com> wrote in message
news:59917789.01100...@posting.google.com...
jammadave
prices on our collections to at least get a more accurate picture of
what the machines go for. Hell, when somebody asks *me* what a game
is worth I look _here_, not eBay, if i don't know. we could
distribute this information to the very same ops and say "look, this
is what real people will pay you RIGHT NOW for your wares" and let
them see that immediate sales are possible...
hell, i only paid $600 for my Ms Pac (450 cash and an 85-90% Gyruss
with a power issue) and that was a year ago when the prices were thru
the roof on them.
just a thought. if one guy paid $50 for a Star Wars and another guy
paid $1500, they'll balance out right?
=0)
dave
Ceg...@webtv.net
made out pretty good. Prices were on target and selection was nice.
a year later i went back to see if anything had changed. the games i
left behind were still there. the bad part was that he had given the
warehouse to his grandson and you know the rest. its a good thing i
cherry picked last year. the only thing worth getting this time was a
rally x mini and some moon patrols but i can live w/ out those.
i also noticed its harder to buy pins. most ops know whats up w/ that.
ronald
A218
>is what real people will pay you RIGHT NOW for your wares" and le
The average operator is not going to be impressed by the fact that he can get
$600 NOW for a Ms Pac - that is simply not signifigant money to an operator
with any kind of decent route.
He is far more likely (and this is voice of experience speaking here) to be
accepting $3000 for 12 of them, complete and working, or, and I liked this one
even better, $9000 for 100 games, including Jousts, Sinistars, Trons, Kiss
Pins, and Ms Pacs (and yes, a LOT of Ameridarts and Trevino's Fighting Golfs
:)
Art