Today, the friend who runs our little neighborhood convenience store (same guy Bobby is fixing the rental house up for) stopped by and dropped off several boxes of vintage video games that are from around the late 90's and are on DC-ROM. Several of them are Star Trek, and we have not actually looked through each box to see what all is there. We have no idea where he got these games from (maybe another rental somewhere ?) but some of them have never even been opened or used. I can look them up and list them on E-bay; but that is a lot of work and picture taking, and then wrapping and shipping when (and if) they sell. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to market and sell these games ? Maybe there are collector websites or something like that ? We are open to suggestions ! !
@Yvonne Smith. I just scoured Ebay to get an idea of interest in PC games. The most interest shown were games like Dungeons and Dragons or any action games. I would bet that the bidders are of the male gender. I really didn't see many bids though among the pages I did look at. I know that it would probably be a pain but I would suggest categorizing the games but if they are all one genre I would list them as one lot. Don't bother with naming them. Dates would be good though e.g. 1990 to 1999; operating system whether Windows or Mac along with the version. Include only the ones that have the original packaging. It's important to also mention that they have not been tested. If possible weigh them in the box to get an idea of the shipping cost which can be estimated through any of these services. (Even a regular scale can give you an idea of the weight.) If anything you can fluff the estimated shipping costs and use as the selling price and utilize the free shipping. As an Ebay buyer myself I would consider this type of item first. Another option is to donate them. If I think of anything else I'll let you know.
I guess that sorting through them is the first thing that I have to do. The boxes are all on the front porch; so I will bring them in and look through them this morning. What I would like to do is find someone here in the Huntsville area who collects these so I don't have to try and ship them anywhere. There are 4-5 good sized boxes of games, and if even half of them are sellable, that is a lot of wrapping and shipping, or one expenssive box if they did sell all together. I am looking online to see what I can find out about possible collectors in this area. If I do end up putting them on ebay, then selling them as groups, like you mention, @Von Jones , is probably the way to go, rather than each one separately. Here is one of the items we have, and this is from a sold listing on ebay; so they actually sold it for this price.
OKAY ! I am making progress on this challenge/opportunity ! I searched on ebay for the vintage games, and ran the search by closest listing, and found a computer shop not far from Huntsville and the owners collect and sell these games on ebay. I called and talked with the lady on the phone, and she and her husband will take the boxes of games and sell them for me on commission. She said that her husband has been into computer games since he was a teenager, so he should kow which ones sell best, and which ones are not worth as much and can be sold as lots rather than as singles. They are coming on Monday to get the boxes of games, and will sort and sell them. Even with these folks taking a commission, if some of the games are valuable, we should make some extra money, and I don't have to try and sort everything out for value and sell it myself.
I have a few of those around too, like Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Lego Island and other games of that ilk. They are in pretty good shape but they have all been open and played with. Son used to like those games when he was 10-15., I have several of those around. I never thought of selling them, but I guess somebody might want them. I think most of them run the best on Windows 95. You would need an old PC to play them.
Good news ! The guy came today and loaded up the boxes of old computer games. Since he is familiar with the games, he said that they look like they are in good condition, and he thinks that some of them should be collectible ones. There were also some decks of cards in there with the games, and when Bobby showed them to the computer guy, he called these "Magic Cards". He said that most of the magic cards are not worth very much; but a few of them are valuable, and some are very collectible. Until he goes through everything, he won't know how much of it is worthwhile; but he sounds very hopeful, so that was exciting to hear. He will do all of the advertising and selling of everything. Once it sells, he will deduct any ebay fees and shipping costs, and we split the rest of the money. I gave him my paypal email; so all he has to do is paypal me the money as he sell things. It will probably be a while before everything is listed and sold; but a little bit of money coming in every so often will be a welcome thing for sure.
Oh good, I'm glad you found someone who would do the legwork, so to speak, and you'll be able to hopefully realize a little profit off of them. I was going to suggest listing them in the Facebook Sales groups. The ones I was using a while back here in my area seem to be pretty dead these days. I think that's due to how Facebook has messed with how people see things, but I've heard groups are still active in other parts of the country, so maybe it's actually due to the local lay offs.
It turns out that the magic cards might be worth good money if there are some of the more unique and rare cards. I looked on Ebay to see what kind of prices was possible, and to my amazement, there was a full collection listed for $65,000 ! ! Now, I know that would be a lot of cards, and include the rare ones; but there were other, smaller collections which were worth into the thousands, and many that were in the hundreds of dollars. Ours was nowhere near a whole collection, but even so, it has given me hopes that we may have some in there that can sell for a good price. The most he has one listed for at this point is $12, and the others are from $5-$8, which is still not bad if enough of them sell. So far, he has not listed any of the games; but he did say that he was going to check thoroughly before listing the games.
I am hoping that at least some of these games sell like he has them listed for ! There is a (rare) Dune game that he just listed for $500, another one for $350, and several in the $50-$80 price range, and well as some that are $10 and under. We are supposed to get half after expenses; so even if he gets less than he is asking (they are all priced OBO), we will have some extra money coming in from them. There were 5-6 boxes of games; so hopefully, he will also find more that are valuable as he goes through them.
How's the sale going? Have you had any luck with buyers? I just went through yet another non-paying bidder/buyer scenario and then wasted time with the 'file a complaint' period where eBay gives the non-payer 5 days to respond/pay. I had one such case in the past where the person actually ponied up for the item, I shipped it, and that was the end of it. This one was a real jerk. He bid, was outbid, then outbid that person who probably would have gone on to pay for the item, then after all of that, didn't pay, and wasted my time. Meanwhile, he bought at least one more item and paid for it. I was not happy with eBay, because despite learning that during the 5-day waiting period he had to respond, they refused to truncate the time period, which tied up my item/money. I hope y'all get a good amount for the games, and any buyers follow through with payment.