How To Sell A Video Game Collection

As far as I’m concerned, there are four ways to sell a video game collection which you lovingly assembled over the years.

1. Locally. Either to a fellow collector, a reseller or for $0.03 trade credit towards a 360 Elite at your favorite chain superstore.

2. Via Forums. Post lists on DigitPress, AtariAge, NintendoWorld, etc.

3. Part it out via eBay. This will most likely fetch you the best prices, but does require a considerable amount of work. It’s also how I intend to unload my boxed/complete NES game collection (stay tuned for auction link next week).

4. Post it in a bulk lot via eBay. This is a problem for two reasons. One, you get a lot less than market value. These only so many people out there who will drop several grand on stuff to either pad their own collection, or to resell. To get them bidding, they’ve got to be getting quite a deal. My major concern however if with shipping and payment.

I fear getting ripped off. I can only imagine the pain of selling your pride and joy, then seeing no profit whatsoever. I don’t trust Paypal, and would want payment only by Cashier Cheque, or Cash. That means no one in hell is going to bid on my auction.

Anyways, if you do consider selling a collection the last way, here’s one thing to keep in mind. Please go through the effort of listing your games. No one cares if you have 72 N64 controllers and 59 PS1 AV Hookups. WE WANT TO SEE THE GAMES!

Here are the two auctions that prompted this post.

The first sold for a respectable $1,725.00. Nothing utterly spectacular, but a decent collection nonetheless. More focus on hardware in my opinion, and a little light on the games.

He DID however, list the games he had, and post nice clear picture like this:

For every bunch of items, he had nice clear pictures like that. You knew EXACTLY what you were getting.

The second auction however, is my case in point of how NOT to list a collection.

There’s a BIN of $18,000 with no option to bid, but Best Offers available. To me, this means he’s not serious about selling. He wants a high price, which is going to turn of resellers and collectors alike. Either that, or he really juist wants to know what he *could* get.

Secondly, he doesn’t list ANY games, and only some hardware. Yes he does say:

Email me for a complete list of all systems, games, and accessories.The list is on an Excel spreadsheet with every type of console on its own worksheet with their games and accessories listed out.

But why not tell us some of the highlights? Or even make that statement in large bold font, instead of the tiny, tiny text it is? This is just a bad auction overall. If you’re going to try to get $10,000+ from me, put a little effort in.

Get emotional. Tug at my heartstrings. Getting married? Can’t afford a ring or a honeymoon? Need to go back to collage? Adopting a third world orphan? Let me know. Make me want to give you my money.

Make me greedy. Got 100 games in there that sell for $100 each? That’s my money back! I can make huge profit reselling eh? I’m sold!

*YAWN*

This auction is just plain boring.

Ok, the pic looks cool. I’ll give you that. But cool looking pics of tons of games are a dime a dozen. Give us something more.