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SNES Game Collecting (Tips, discussion, and info for like minded collectors)

Timu

Member
Oh my god...I just found TMNT IV Turtles in Time for 30 bucks at Play N Trade. I had to look hard for a minute to see if I wasn't seeing things, and I wasn't, it just says 29.99. I was like WTF, how is this possible. If I didn't already own the game I would had picked that up in a heartbeat.
 
Oh, wait, that's with the box? I thought it was cart-only. $75 for cart-only Super Metroid would exemplify how out-of-control this hobby's gotten, but I see I misread.
 

Leonsito

Member
I'll be in LA and SanFrancisco in a couple of months, any place to get some retro games that won't require me to donate some organs?
 

D.Lo

Member
Well I just got got the cheapest complete copy of Akumajou Dracula XX I have seen in ten years. Pretty nice condition too.

Bargains still happen!
 

D.Lo

Member
Oh ha ha very funny.

It's still a solid game even thought nowhere near as good as PCE Dracula X. And usually costs hundreds of dollars.
 

Bar81

Member
$200+, has been for ages. Can get for $100 on Yahoo, but outside Japan need to add forwarding fees etc.

Like most SFC, price varies a lot with condition although the first one is pretty ridiculous. Unlike other SFC games, it doesn't seem to have gone too crazy relatively speaking, but it seems that closer to $200 is the going price.
 

MikeRahl

Member
Does anyone have any idea why Nosferatu is so expensive?

I have a copy Complete in Box and the wife isn't letting me get a Wii U without getting rid of some games and this seems like a good candidate to start working towards that.
 

Sword Familiar

178% of NeoGAF posters don't understand statistics

Preview_zpsbelfnn3n.jpg
 

Olly88

Member
Do NTSC SNES boards fit in Super Famicom game shells? Just been thinking that for some Super Famicom games that require English (and/or are too expensive for complete PAL/American copies) I could keep an eye out for cheap American cart only copies and then buy a complete Super Famicom copy and swap the insides.
 
Do NTSC SNES boards fit in Super Famicom game shells? Just been thinking that for some Super Famicom games that require English (and are too expensive for complete PAL/American copies) I could keep an eye out for cheap American cart only copies and then buy a complete Super Famicom copy and swap the insides.
Yeah they fit.
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Oh my god...I just found TMNT IV Turtles in Time for 30 bucks at Play N Trade. I had to look hard for a minute to see if I wasn't seeing things, and I wasn't, it just says 29.99. I was like WTF, how is this possible. If I didn't already own the game I would had picked that up in a heartbeat.

You should have bought this and sold it to a gaffer! A great deal for sure.
 

Jaeger

Member
Saw a Street Fighter Turbo box at a local store and the owner wanted $17 dollars for it. It wasn't in that great of condition to begin with. No way was I paying almost $20 for just a box to a common game.
 
So I have an opportunity to buy a particularly expensive SNES cart for a ridiculously good price -- if it's real. It's through local Craigslist of all places, though it wasn't via a direct posting. I've ordered a screwdriver set to crack open the cart and check the PCB. I'll be taking a look on my payday next week and buying if it's genuine (and if he still has it).

More details later. Don't wanna jinx it.
 
Well, like I said it wasn't actually listed on CL. We did a different deal on some NES carts and when we met he shows me this SNES game and says he got from a flea market in a neighboring state. Then two days afterward he texts me again asking if I want to buy this other game for what he paid for it. I asked if he'd hold it to my payday and he said he would. Also gives me time to get those screwdrivers in.

It's quite the odd situation but the NES carts were all good and he says he is a longtime collector selling off his stuff. Had a little baby and wife/lady in the car with him so it would seem like time of life to be selling this stuff. I'll definitely post the result here one way or another...
 

Teknoman

Member
Does anyone have any idea why Nosferatu is so expensive?

I have a copy Complete in Box and the wife isn't letting me get a Wii U without getting rid of some games and this seems like a good candidate to start working towards that.

It used to be cheap not so long ago...or at least relatively cheap.
 

RexRogers

Neo Member
It used to be cheap not so long ago...or at least relatively cheap.

It's basically doubled in price from when I bought it exactly a year ago for $40. Gameplay-wise, it's not even that great. Clunky as hell controls. Blackthorne is another game in the same vein that's done much better.
 

Rongolian

Banned
I guess? Honestly I've never looked at the inside of one, but yeah it doesn't look like its been tampered with.

Your copy looks good to me!

As a bit of a public service, here are some easy ways to confirm fakes:


FAKE: Here you can see the obviously soldered board on the bottom right, this is always an indication of a fake.


FAKE: Any soldered wires are a dead giveaway for a fake (or intentionally modified) game.


FAKE: Vertical orientation of the chips is an indication of a fabricated board, and definitely fake. (I mean it even has the address of the guy who fabricated it) :p


FAKE: Maybe the most "legit" looking of the lot, this is given away by the wrong coloring of the board, no Nintendo branding, and 3rd party chip manufactures


FAKE: "Glob-top" marks as can be seen on the left of this board were never used in SNES cartridge manufacturing (except for early Star Fox carts as shown below)


LEGIT: Surprisingly, this is a legit board, just an uncommon configuration only found in early Star Fox games. Another tip that this one is legitimate is that it has the "breaks" between the middle cartridge pins and the two smaller outer cartridge pins. These "breaks" are often found in SNES games that require special chips, seen below


LEGIT: A later StarFox board, a Super Mario RPG board, and a Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island board, all legitimate and all use special enhancement chips.



Hope this helps some folks who are trying to spot fakes! Be careful out there, RetroGAF.
 
Your copy looks good to me!

As a bit of a public service, here are some easy ways to confirm fakes:



FAKE: Here you can see the obviously soldered board on the bottom right, this is always an indication of a fake.



FAKE: Any soldered wires are a dead giveaway for a fake (or intentionally modified) game.



FAKE: Vertical orientation of the chips is an indication of a fabricated board, and definitely fake. (I mean it even has the address of the guy who fabricated it) :p



FAKE: Maybe the most "legit" looking of the lot, this is given away by the wrong coloring of the board, no Nintendo branding, and 3rd party chip manufactures



FAKE: "Glob-top" marks as can be seen on the left of this board were never used in SNES cartridge manufacturing (except for early Star Fox carts as shown below)



LEGIT: Surprisingly, this is a legit board, just an uncommon configuration only found in early Star Fox games. Another tip that this one is legitimate is that it has the "breaks" between the middle cartridge pins and the two smaller outer cartridge pins. These "breaks" are often found in SNES games that require special chips, seen below



LEGIT: A later StarFox board, a Super Mario RPG board, and a Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island board, all legitimate and all use special enhancement chips.



Hope this helps some folks who are trying to spot fakes! Be careful out there, RetroGAF.

Thank you, this is a really helpful post! Maybe we could get this in the OP?
 
If you poke around in the thread we've kicked around that very conversation a number of times. There is no one reason. It's a combination of a few long-standing reasons: 16-bit games are still great today and not as hard to go back to as 8-bit; many franchise-defining games like Super Metroid and FF6; lots of stone-cold classics; arguably Nintendo's peak era. Combine that with the fact that people who grew up with 8- and 16-bit games now have disposable income and their own places, YouTube retro reviewers espousing these games, the eBay/Price Charting effect and speculators.

I did some math in the recent GameStop thread based on PC numbers. SNES prices overall have gone up 145% in the last five years and are up 40% in the last two years alone.

Bottom line: SNES games have long been in demand and known to hold their value. The Internet is now just amplifying that to a new level.
 
If you poke around in the thread we've kicked around that very conversation a number of times. There is no one reason. It's a combination of a few long-standing reasons: 16-bit games are still great today and not as hard to go back to as 8-bit; many franchise-defining games like Super Metroid and FF6; lots of stone-cold classics; arguably Nintendo's peak era. Combine that with the fact that people who grew up with 8- and 16-bit games now have disposable income and their own places, YouTube retro reviewers espousing these games, the eBay/Price Charting effect and speculators.

I did some math in the recent GameStop thread based on PC numbers. SNES prices overall have gone up 145% in the last five years and are up 40% in the last two years alone.

Bottom line: SNES games have long been in demand and known to hold their value. The Internet is now just amplifying that to a new level.

Yeah, it's just incredible because even things like secret of evermore that I remember being like $30-$40 for CIB are like $100 now. I guess I'll just wind up not collecting any. Most I sold so I could get CIB in box years ago and got sidetracked by collecting PS1 and Saturn games and now they're just so expensive, especially for cart only now. Just weird to see these jump so much compared to other systems and the rereleasing of PS1 games seemed to wreak havoc on prices, the SNES games seem completely unphased. Just interesting how it seems immune to everything currently.
 
Your copy looks good to me!

As a bit of a public service, here are some easy ways to confirm fakes:



FAKE: Here you can see the obviously soldered board on the bottom right, this is always an indication of a fake.



FAKE: Any soldered wires are a dead giveaway for a fake (or intentionally modified) game.



FAKE: Vertical orientation of the chips is an indication of a fabricated board, and definitely fake. (I mean it even has the address of the guy who fabricated it) :p



FAKE: Maybe the most "legit" looking of the lot, this is given away by the wrong coloring of the board, no Nintendo branding, and 3rd party chip manufactures



FAKE: "Glob-top" marks as can be seen on the left of this board were never used in SNES cartridge manufacturing (except for early Star Fox carts as shown below)



LEGIT: Surprisingly, this is a legit board, just an uncommon configuration only found in early Star Fox games. Another tip that this one is legitimate is that it has the "breaks" between the middle cartridge pins and the two smaller outer cartridge pins. These "breaks" are often found in SNES games that require special chips, seen below



LEGIT: A later StarFox board, a Super Mario RPG board, and a Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island board, all legitimate and all use special enhancement chips.



Hope this helps some folks who are trying to spot fakes! Be careful out there, RetroGAF.

Great post here! It's also worth mentioning that any board with an EPROM is a certain fake. I think a few 2nd-gen console games (Atari 2600 and such) use EPROMs, but certainly nothing \from Nintendo, Sega, etc. would ever have one of those on anything beyond a development board. (For those who don't know, those are the chips with a little 'window' in the middle -- that is the top is not solid. Some are seen in the pictures in the quoted post. Usually the window is taped over, because EPROMs can be erased by light, but one of them in the pics is revealed.
 

Type_Raver

Member
I've finally had time to unpack some boxes and setup the man cave, the collection of games and Lego's from my childhood days as well as recent pickups for the gaming collection. Heres a snapshot of the section of shelves for my Nintendo games games over the generations.

a>


Cropped out of view above the area, are the Nintendo consoles. Cropped out of view below are the 80s-90s Lego sets.
 
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