Game Collecting - How high would you go?

[PeterJ]

I recently joined the 'Sinclair for Sale' group on Facebook, and was genuinely amazed to see the prices that some titles went for. A recent auction for Darkman by the Hit Squad ended up selling for £475!

If you are a game collector, I would be really interested to know what is the most you have paid for a game (don't worry, I won't tell your other half!), and what drives you to spend such large sums of money. Also, do you play them or are they just for display?

[spider]

I know a couple of people who have collected every variant they could of JSW and MM, for all platforms and I've seen on FB a couple of Ultimate 'big box' collections too.


My own view: Without sounding erm "mean" , my absolute "top limit" would be its original retail price -not- counting any inflation. That seems sensible to me, if its more then sorry no.

I do think its the collection factor though as in "display items" , which is fair enough as they do look nice on display, and ultimately "each to their own"

This from someone who saved hard as a teenager to pay a eye watering (at that time) 22.99 or so for G.A.C and 14.99 for Laser Basic plus a few 9.99 games as well over time. No I did not have a lot of ££ a few lunches was missed to do this! Plus it was over a fair few years.

[HEXdidnt]

I'm baffled by this... I might almost understand the original 'big box' version of a game going for a high price, but the budget re-release?

When it comes to so-called 'collectable' games, I tend to avoid them these days - most of them are available to emulators. I've got a few games in my console collection that are now considered 'collectable', which I bought at full price upon their original release (maybe a few imports were a little over the odds)... But I would not be inclined to buy any at today's prices, because I'm not that kind of collector. I'd want to play the games, not worship them, and I'm more inclined to trust CDs and cartridges than I am magnetic tape or disks.

As far as the Spectrum goes, my most prized possession is a copy of Elite, complete with the novella, poster, LensLok, etc. in pretty good condition, which I found in one of the second hand shops in Notting Hill Gate, back when I worked in the area. It was in a locked cabinet, and I could only see that the label said "40". Would have been perfectly happy to pay £40 for it... but when the shop assistant got it out of the cabinet to ring it up, he pretty much facepalmed, because it turned out to be 40p.

[PeterJ]

My absolute "top limit" would be its original retail price -not- counting any inflation. That seems sensible to me, if its more then sorry no.

I'm with you there @spider. I do collect Spectrum books, but my limit is 2x cover price.

[PeterJ]

Would have been perfectly happy to pay £40 for it... but when the shop assistant got it out of the cabinet to ring it up, he pretty much facepalmed, because it turned out to be 40p.

That's a true bargain!

[StooB]

I'm baffled by this... I might almost understand the original 'big box' version of a game going for a high price, but the budget re-release?

It was released in the middle of 1993 and is one of the last commercial releases for the Spectrum.

[AndyC]

I'm baffled by this... I might almost understand the original 'big box' version of a game going for a high price, but the budget re-release?

The Hit Squad games were individually numbered, so there are collectors out for a complete set even more than other brands. And obviously the really crap games nobody liked are harder to get hold of, leaving a very obvious gap in a numbered collection.

[Lee Bee]

I'm sure that for many serious collectors it's about genuinely wanting to get hold of that missing piece of the collection.

But there's another sector of society who really just get a kick out of spending big money just for the sake of it. The item itself is almost inconsequential; buying it gives them a sense of self-satisfaction and personal achievement. A prime example of such insanity was the NTF industry, which has now finally crumbled, with their complete worthlessness being acknowledged. (The proverbial emperor being acknowledged as naked.)

Collecting can be terrific fun. But, as they say: "When the fun stops, stop". Before dishing out big cash for an item, we we do well to consider if it will really bring us true happiness in any meaningful way after the purchase. One can go outside and freely derive immense joy from the beauty of nature. Go for a walk, smell the flowers, stroke a dog, and one's collection of expensive items may seem relatively hollow!

[Daveysloan]

I wouldn't call myself a collector, but I do have a lot of Spectrum games. Personally I wouldn't pay any more than 2 or 3 quid for a game unless it was something I really wanted.

What baffles me is when folk buy sealed games, never seen the appeal, I like to test & play every single tape I get.

[Pegaz]

I stopped buying classic original games several years ago, when the prices started going wild and royal mail raised the overseas postage.
Up to that point I had paid the most BBC Elite and Flight Simulator II (C64), about £10, then Knight Lore (Spectrum) and Atic Atac (BBC), about 5 or 6 pounds.
Everything else (mostly for the Spectrum), was under £5.
I'm not a real collector, just bought the games I wanted the most, it's a small collection (under 40 titles), but quite enough for nostalgic moments.

[oO cozy Oo]

I would`nt pay the prices, even back in the day I would photo copy the inlays from my friends games ( black and white) looked like crap

[R-Tape]

I haven't bought anything in a while, but I got most of my tapes pretty cheap. Granted many were from job lots and anything special in there was a lucky break. I don't think I've paid more than a tenner for any individual cassette, and most were below a fiver. The most expensive tapes I own are the special modern era releases from Monument Microgames, and they were less than £15 all in I think. Those, and the tapes of free modern games that I've printed my own inlays and commited to tape are the ones I'm most proud of

One can go outside and freely derive immense joy from the beauty of nature. Go for a walk, smell the flowers, stroke a dog, and one's collection of expensive items may seem relatively hollow!

Well you say that, but those Ultimate boxes...



Edit 'more than'

[redballoon]

I stopped collecting years ago, it was becoming to expensive and I was running out of space to store them all. Back then, the most I had ever spent on a game was £25 for Ocean’s Battle Command, though I also got US Gold’s Heavy Metal.

At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, April 2020, in actual fact, through sheer boredom, I decided to try and collect all Codemasters ZX Spectrum UK releases. I still had my large collection from previously but strangely I only had a couple of Codemasters games. Without doing any research, I started hunting the games down and as time went by I soon found out that some of them were going for an extortionate amount. What was I going to do with this Codemasters collection? I’m not going to play some of them as, quite frankly, they’re rubbish, but I am going to display them.

For a couple of them, I paid in the £80s. I may have even went into the early 90 pounds. I refuse to go over 100 pound though. That leaves me with only 3 left to collect to complete this collection; DJ Puff and The CD Game Pack. What I do enjoy with this, though, was and is the hunt to find the rarer releases, though I dread to think just how much I’ve spent on carrying this out.

I’m not collecting ever again, though.

[blucey]

I stopped collecting games a long time ago and I'm glad I did. Back then there were deals to be had but now everyone knows the price of everything. There's no fun in it anymore.

Selling my collection was the best thing I did. It freed up money that is still earning me money because I invested it and it freed up space which ultimately let me downsize the house. I'm working on retiring early which is a lot better than having Darkman on cassette for some baffling reason.

[PQR]

My collection of Spectrum games is rather small, but over time I did manage to collect all the classic Ultimate cardboard boxed games. I probably paid around 20 Euros per title for those.

The most I've ever spent was the full collection of 10 Interface II cartridges. Completely boxed, with instructions, and rubber skirts. Can’t remember the exact price anymore, but it was somewhere around 450 quid.

I’m considering selling parts of my collection to free up space though.

[Pegaz]

My collection of Spectrum games is rather small, but over time I did manage to collect all the classic Ultimate cardboard boxed games. I probably paid around 20 Euros per title for those.

This is very similar to my case, except that I bought them at lower prices, about 5 pounds per title, mostly between 2008-2012.
I wanted to have all the Ultimate games from the Stamper brothers era and I managed to do that with one exception - I didn't want to pay £20-30 for the Pentagram as I didn't think it was worth that much.
The rest, I managed to collect, including all the cardboard editions: Cookie, Jet Pac, PSSST, Tranz Am, Lunar Jetman, Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, Knight Lore, Alien 8, Night Shade and Gunfright.
I didn't even consider buying the last three titles from the US Gold era, mainly because they're bad, overpriced and don't have that Ultimate original flavor.
I thought about getting all the Beyond Games, but I ended up with only a couple of my favorite titles.
For every other Spectrum titles I focused through two criteria, to get the greatest legendary hits and/or the ones I like the most.

[PROSM]

My collection is relatively large at around 80 tapes, though 70 of those are from a job lot that I bought back in 2019 for about £30. The others have been purchased over the years from traders' stalls at NERG. I think the most I've ever spent on any game was £5 for Chip's Challenge, complete with box and instruction manual. The next highest price would probably be £3 each for Survival, Computer Scrabble and, erhm, Make-a-Chip.

To be honest, I've been thinking recently of selling off most of my tapes. I hardly use the real Spectrum these days, as I don't have the space to set it up permanently, and the emulator is just a click away. After getting the computer set up, the extra hassle of connecting and adjusting the tape recorder is seldom outweighed by the enjoyment of playing games from the original media.

Perhaps that's due in part to me having been born long after the Spectrum ceased to be a viable commercial platform - I haven't got the personal connection to that era which most people here have. For me, the Spectrum is exciting because of the hardware: squeezing every last drop of performance from the sacred trio of the Z80, the ULA and the 48K of RAM has held my interest for years now. How I load my code into the machine is of secondary importance.

[PeterJ]

Thanks for all the fascinating replies. Keep the coming!

[flatduckrecords]

The Hit Squad games were individually numbered, so there are collectors out for a complete set even more than other brands. And obviously the really crap games nobody liked are harder to get hold of, leaving a very obvious gap in a numbered collection.

Yeah I think that creates a really strong psychological itch that drives the desirability (and prices) up. I'm sure the publishers knew what they were doing back then, but I wonder if they ever imagined the same sales trick would still be influencing the collectors' market 30-odd years later! It seems to be very strong with the Hit Squad games in particular.

And is it a bit cynical to suggest that Codies made the numbering on the "Cartoon Time" series so prominent for the same reason?

I'm not really much of a collector but I did give in to patching a few holes in my Your Sinclair covertape assortment; though I never paid more than a couple of quid each.

[Ralf]

I have a quite "specialized" collection of Spectrum software coming from Poland. Some of them are really rare but I have no idea how much they are worth today. After all, something is worth as much as someone is going to pay for it

About 15 years ago it was actually possible to hunt for such little treasures on online auctions. Today it mostly dried out. I guess many of these titles were released only in small numbers and anybody who wanted to clear his basement did it already. So I very rarely buy something today.

I have also a few UK titles but nothing rare and expensive, just some popular games that I like and wanted to have physically.

I don't remember the biggest amount of cash that I payed for a single cassette. Actually I bought most of them in lots. And the prices in Polish zlotys from 2015 won't tell you much anyway

I guess the most expensive ones were something like a dinner in an average restaurant. Decide yourself if it's much.

I've been thinking of selling it all as currently it's just gathering dust. I guess I became too lazy with emulators.

On the other hand "it doesn't ask for food", as we say in Poland. It may lay, wait for better times and it doesn't cost me anything to keep it.

[Morkin]

About £20 has been my limit, and only for a very limited number of items (about a fiver seems right for a Speccy game I'd want to own and play). Also I'd noticed the majority of games that go for stupid prices seem to be rare-and-crap, not rare-and-good (no Ultimate-related pun intended).

About a decade ago I was bitten by the nostalgia bug - I had a bit more disposable income back then, so ended up trawling eBay for a Speccy, shortly followed by a small collection of games over the next couple of years. I've got maybe 90 tapes I think.

Similar to others, my prize possession is a copy of Elite with all the box trimmings, novella, Lenslok, poster etc. in decent condition.

In hindsight I realised I was collecting some titles just for the sake of it though... I mean, I do still like firing up games like Pssst! or Manic Miner but I don't know what I was thinking buying things like text adventures. They're a PITA as you need a tape to save your progress. And getting past the Lenslok with Elite is hard enough

...Or perhaps it'd be easier to save onto Microdrive? (Starts searching for Microdrives on eBay)

[Nitrowing]

I did splurge once on a large collection of games because Pentagram was hidden in there
In all, I have about 100 games but they're purely for display and I've no intention of "collecting"

[Pegaz]

I did splurge once on a large collection of games because Pentagram was hidden in there
In all, I have about 100 games but they're purely for display and I've no intention of "collecting"

This is truly a feast for the eyes.

[Nitrowing]

This is truly a feast for the eyes.

Oh, there's a bit of "stuff" going on in my living room

[Andre Leao]

I have thousands of tapes, due to my obsession in finding and sharing MIAs. I don't spend to much on individual titles, unless they are not preserved yet. But I have some priceless items on my collection. Some tapes are unique and I own the only copy available. I reckon it would achieve very high prices on the markey, but I don't pretend to sell it.