Retro Video Game Market EXPOSED!
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
- The graded video game market with Wata and Heritage Auctions has had a light cast upon it in an investigative Karl Jobst video, revealing a seedy underbelly.
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#wata #gamecollecting #retrogames
What do you think about Karl's video? Are you surprised or shocked by the info revealed?
➡Watch Karls video @ruclips.net/video/rvLFEh7V18A/видео.html
Karl's video is very informative. The fact that the people behind the 1980's coin bubble are also behind the 2020's graded game bubble is astonishing!
...not that shocked.
I watched Karl's video earlier this week and I thought he did a fantastic job. I was very pleased to see your appearance near the end giving your thoughts about how these shady operators were abusing our love of retro and trampling on the hobby to make a buck.
You have been taking about this for awhile Par.
Not surprised.
I believe it. All of it.
Yep .. the people grading the games, auctioning the games and buying the games. All the same people
And they’re all slimy scumbags and apparently when he got screwed from the “coin bubble” of the 80’s , we didn’t screw him hard enough.
@@pbailed8007 He probably didn't even get screwed. He's the guy who probably laughed all the way to the bank while everyone else was left holding the bag when it crashed.
@@aceone2156 the problem is much larger than that. I'm a victim of this even though I haven't spent a dime on sealed retro games. I mainly buy games for my casual collection through ebay, sometimes I might throw in double the money for a cib. The result of this market manipulation is that people flood ebay with ridiculous pricing on complete in boxes and even individual cartridges. It's way harder to find affordable retro games now than it was 2 years ago. Obviously I can find them, but it's tedious and more often than not I end up overpaying for a game I want in my collection because I actually want to spend time playing it. The manipulation has made the whole market just insane and it's totally manufactured and not organic. I want to pay market price, not some tycoon's inflated price.
One important note: I state that the coin market has never returned to the heights it experienced in the 1980s. I meant to say it never returned to its heights even counting FOR inflation, not without. It means that even by pure numbers and not taking into account inflation, the 1980s speculative coin bubble prices have never been reached again.
You're so right Pat it's crazy how intertwined everything becomes, I feel like corruption is unavoidable no matter how nobel cause. Do you think we as consumers should still participate in these markets or is that just contributing to the problem?
Correct!
A lot of this coverage over the past year really spoke to me because I'm into coin collecting and familiar with the history and the current market structure, so the business practices in the video game grading immediately jumped out to me as a scam, largely due to lack of population reports and the obvious self-dealing between WATA and HA. PCGS and NGC are not perfect, but the market is more transparent and they do not control the pricing. There are annual/monthly pricing guidelines published based on the market both from the graders and externally, you can go on eBay and look at the history of sold prices, and you get a guess as to not only the graded population, but also the estimation of how many ungraded exist as well.
Its all about getting EVERY bullshit graded. That’s where the big money is.
Topic of the week for next Tuesday.. should WATA rated games now be discredited??!!
The fact that we have a million dollar video game means absolutely nothing. This is 100% correct! Well said, Pat!
especially when people that graded and auctioned this game are also the same that bought the game this has nothing to do with actual real value but rather pure artificially inflationing
look at some rare games, some go for STUPID amounts of money but so many people don't care cause it's a bad game
@@SlipKnoTfreak1456 Hence the reason I have no desire for a Stadium Events😂 It’s an objectively bad game! (Rarity be damned)
@@justsayin4632 DOOD RIGHT?! like fuck that, I'll buy a heap of GOOD GAMES
It's fucking ridiculous like any collectible item that sells overpriced. If I wanna listen to a music album i'm not gonna pay 6 figures, if I wanna play a game i'm not gonna pay 1.5 fucking million...thank god for internet and piracy. I'm always supporting the artist btw if I like the art I'm always paying the artist, they also need to earn a living.
Karl is an absolute legend for this video. Its very well researched, edited and really shows a scummy set of events that is happening in the retro scene.
Also just a great education on how speculation bubbles are formed and manipulated by a very small number of individuals. I loved Karl before but the enormous balls it took to expose these people is legendary. I hope he doesn't get sued.
He's an absolute legend, and always has been.
Never once have I felt that you were out of line, insane, or incorrect in any way whatsoever regarding this artificial inflation of the perceived value of video games. I have always appreciated you and Ian pointing the finger in that direction, because this practice is a gigantic tumor on the collecting community/hobby.
Kudos and respect.
Agreed. I always agreed with them too that the prices never made sense.
Most journalist's in the 21st century aren't doing investigative reporting, they do access journalism which is glorified stenography. It's especially bad in games journalism where most larger websites rely entirely on the marketing dollars game publishers spend. They've been trained to never ask questions, just regurgitate press releases in a more digestible way and when you have an opinion make sure it's neutral or positive. That's not to say there aren't any good games journo's but they are few and far between and usually independent.
So, when stories like what's been happening in sealed graded games comes across their desks, they do what they know. Take it at face value and stay neutral or positive. You never know if heritage or wata or some rich dude involved might spend some ad dollars, you know?
Dude look at afganistan! How was there not more reporting leading up to this disastrous exit? Even here in canada , no reports of the Taliban re emerging. Then its just like bam! Oh yea we got this going on here , but we didnt think it was good enough to report on ?!
@Hamburger Stalker project veritas is a trash outlet for brainwashed suckers. all you have to do is read about who their major donors are and how they operate. people don't go to them to learn anything, they go to have their hairbrained conspiracies verified by manipulative reporting.
@@AnonymousGentooman or maybe a peer review board of sorts with representation from various spots on the political spectrum. Eh... you're right, no perfect way about it. You just have to gather what you feel are three sources with the least bias, with at least two being generally considered slight left or slight right, try to cut through the bull and get a sense of the meat of the story. Maybe hard to do since no one likes to think their own news sources are too biased.
Real news would be dry and sterile. As you said, that doesn't sell and sadly I wonder if people want to be sold more than they want an unbiased opinion. Actually, that's not it and is too cynical. Probably corporate news doesn't care what we want, they just want to sell us. I believe it'll change eventually. It'll have to.
I always thought the first game to hit a million would be some crazy obscure Stadium Events sealed 9.8 WATA A+ type of deal another decade or two. Not regular Mario games, not now.
The auction/graded collusion f-ed up and exposed that the retro game market as a whole is manipulated and prices have been driven up in a similar manner
Agree, I noticed that those auctions were from popular franchises and it's very suspicious that games from very rare consoles like Atari Jaguar or Turbo Grafx CD doesn't reach those prices or make any headline news when a game is sold as only hardcore old time collectors have interest in those console or know it's existence
I can't believe someone would pay 1.5 million for a game that sold over 12 million copies
I know, theres probably thousands of sealed copies out there.
Was waiting for this one! You guys have been calling this out for YEARS!
This is why I still listen to them when so many people give these two crap. They call stuff a lot.
Just stay away from sealed games and graded games, easy. And as a bonus you can play the games.
They're making it harder for people to afford the games
People who are smart will. People who aren't won't. The latter is the problem, as they just fuel these prices.
@@kylemears9356 Thats what Im doing, I'm playing the long game, I'll wait for the crash, which will happen. Then I'll start collecting the games I enjoyed.
Pat, are you telling me that my sealed Pilot Wings 64 isn’t going to sell for $185,000?
Man my wife is gonna be pissed…
Karl did such a good job collating all the evidence. He's really stuck his neck out and we should all be behind him.
Well said mate.
@@mccarthy5825 I mean when the inevitable slander suits come in. I'm still waiting on Billy "the bully" Mitchell's comeuppance. RIP Benjamin Smith!
Good thing is Karl has the support of some game devs if he does get sued to help with money for defense
@@colonless7512 id definitely be putting a few bob into the defence fund for this. I can't stand the fact these rich scumbags are pillaging a beloved hobby to just get richer. It's repulsive.
@@colonless7512 Yep and he has a legal defence Kickstarter from back when Billy was threatening himself and others with frivolous bullshit.
karls video was one of the best youtube docs ive ever watched and blew my mind how much info was just public waiting to be put together and he effing crushed it and them!!
Another thing pointed out in Karl's video is so much of the "value" seems to be tied to the grading which is sketchy at best. He showed one game that basically got a perfect score but you can see an obvious rip in the shrinkwrap
Karl is literally a thousand times smarter than 99 percent of video game “journalists.” I am not surprised at all nobody cared enough until Karl turned his attention to this.
I need a drop board where I can hit a button where Pat says "IANNNN!" and another where Ian says "Big big BIG news!!"
BIG BIG BIG news was read in Ian's voice btw! lol
Rich people ruining things to make even more money, what a big surprise 😑
Most people in the retro game scene knew these auction prices were shady.
Definitely. All this is well known by those who know. But the video is a great resource for having it all presented in one place, clearly and effectively. Great tool for those not in the know as well as those in the know.
The overall high prices of the retro game market in general is shady and questionable. We shouldn't be surprised that this crap has been going on for years with rare games.
Finally this gets exposed, in all the reseller groups everyone keeps saying “get those games graded” they really hyped up and manipulated the market. A great doc as well. I also think RETRO RICK has fallen victim or is in it with them with his latest Mario 3 graded game that he received in weeks when people have been waiting over a year and the game gets a 9.4 kind of how they used pawn stars for their propaganda. kinda fishy and he compares prices only on heritage.
@@realpoopypants may I add that, that video also was made into a raffle were you comment the nostalgia or whatever to win a ps5 kinda made on purpose to hide all the comments questioning any involvement or anything in relation. I’m sure there are but they are buried in all the participant comments.
Karl's video was fantastic, this was a nice companion to it.
Hopefully wata will lose a lot of customers now this has come to light. This story should hit the front pages as fast as possible.
I live in Lancaster PA. Just press play is my local gamestore. The collectors here have been aware of zacks involvement in this behavior for a long time but could never prove it. This was incredibly vindicating.
Think of this, though, if the market crashes, the rest of us can finally afford some of the good shit!
You guys have always given smart, accurate & experienced information as long as I've known you. You guys CLEARLY know this market as well as anyone & there are not many individuals I'd trust more than you when it comes to the video game scene & the happenings within it. Anyone not smart enough to realize this and actually thinks that you're a crazy person when you discuss this stuff is simply too dumb to recognize the truth.
Most of the time ppl are in disagreement with the things you guys say not because they think it isn't true but because it goes against their interests in some way, often over something as petty as it being something they purchased & they vehemently want to defend said purchase. Some ppl are literally blind to the fact that they could ever make a mistake. Those sorts of individuals are honestly not even worth paying attention to.
Pat, time to sell that atari winter games.
Saw his video yesterday and I got to say eventhough I am not shocked about the news because I thought it was shady when the sealed NES Mario went for millions but the fact how Karl went in depth with his theory and backing up with evidence. He really did some amazing research.
Karl's video is amazing. Everyone remotely related to game collection should watch it.
Karl did one heck of a job in his video. Here's hoping they don't go after him after that.
I love his videos about speed runs
Go ahead and go after him
The truth is an absolute defense in any court case brought…… and better than that would be the discovery
New subscriber, learned about you from Karl's video. I'm a video game enthusiast 35 years with an interest in collecting and the rich assholes rolling in to scam honest collectors and suck the life out of the hobby are the worst kinds of leeches. Hope the SEC investigates and the law comes down on them. Great show!
"Wherever there's money, there's corruption. 100% of the time."
-A friend of mine, 2020
My father in law found a sealed NES Mario Bros stashed away in his closet since Christmas 93 when he realized the system bungle he purchased for under the tree had included a Mario/Duck Hunt cart. He didn’t know it was worth anything and just gave it to me to open when we started playing the old NES again. I was shocked! I put it on eBay and after a few auctions received a total of $1000 on auction. This was about 8 years ago. The condition was flawless. Complete with toys r us sticker and all. Seeing these million dollar listings made my stomach drop. Thank god this all came too light. I don’t have to be depressed about it anymore!
I’d bet good money there are at least 100-200 sealed SMB carts out there. Probably more. There’s absolutely no logic behind paying that amount of money for such a common game that they sold so many copies of…except the instant recognizability of “super mario brothers”, the one NES game that every person on the planet knows of. They did it because it was good for news articles to have such a well known game. If it was something obscure (to the average person) like NWC or stadium events, the articles wouldn’t have gained traction.
@@buttguy you’re so right. nailed it.
@@GenerationDown it's the whole "mom digging through boxes in her attic now because her son definitely had that damn mario game" syndrome. That's what makes these articles spread. Hence the insanely pricey mario 3 and mario 64. All Mario games for name recognition.
The tip off was that real collectors don’t buy sealed games, and most could care less about the grading altogether.
I just got a limited run game in the mail today. A lot of people buy them to keep sealed. I opened that box and tore off that seal right away lol. I will say I wanted to get my final fantasy nes graded though, but not with the intention of selling. Other games I don't care. I open and play.
@@TheVoidofNothing11 I’ve got a lot of CIB stuff I’ve owned for 20 years, but i traded off all my sealed stuff a while back simply because i don’t need a game i can’t open and play. If they make s big profit off them, good for them.
@@hellboundTX333 I just don't understand not investing in something with actual equity. Yeah I get the not being able to open and played. I still have a lot of sealed games, but it's all stuff I plan on opening and playing. I had traded all my older console games years ago now I want it all back lol. Especially my SNES and Gensis games.
As a fan of speed running and GOLDENEYE 007 I've followed Karl for a long time.
He's a gifted and talented person. (An absolute legend)
It's great to see him use his powers to do something that may help change the world as we know it for the better.
Karl is a beacon of light in a dark world of collecting.
Same here! Goldeneye speedrunner in my spare time as well, I too have followed karl and his up and coming youtube channel for a long time. He really has been killing it lately.
Same crime as insider trading in my eyes. Should be frog walked to jail!!
I always liked and respected the conversation about these shady market maneuvers made by people. Good looking out for people.
Something smelled fishy the moment a copy of SMB sold for more than a CIB Air Raid.
We need to expose these people on card collecting, damn these collectionist are getting out of hand
The sill bidding has gotten out of way out of control in the card market and unfortunately for TCG's it looks like there's a lot of counterfeiting that is still passing by unnoticed.
I’m glad these crooks are getting exposed.
I'm excited for our neo-liberal regulators to at best fine these crooks a small fraction of the profits they've made & for everything to just go back to trundling along as business as usual!
Market manipulation you say?
This is proof that game journalists need to do actual journalism instead of writing click bait articles and trying to gin up controversy by taking every hot take and trying to politicize everything in gaming...
I "investigated" the collectable scene when it began booming during lockdown and found a FBI action agains Beckett Grading's CEOs in 2019... investigating bribes to state politicians in the companies state; related to legislation allowing banks to give loans on graded collectables...
Wai wha
It's clear that this is a bubble that will burst in a huge way. But it's also going to ruin the vintage/classic gaming market. Because of these ratings and such, people will forever assume their CIB copy of Jekyll and Hyde is worth way more than it actually is. I just hate the idea of collecting games for anything but playing or preservation. I was excited to see Karl's video on the subject and was pleased to see a certain NES Punk make a few appearances.
Let it crash and burn the disgusting greed is out of control.
Imagine buying video games for clout and status loooooooooooooooooooooooool, showing off sealed games for so much pussy bro. Shits a fucking joke now
I say let it burn, I’m sick of the ridiculous prices.
Let it burst, absolutely tank the market and drive out everyone who isn't passionate about the games themselves. Then those of us who do can have fun again without having to break the bank
The hostility Karl received is by means no surprising. Even just going on Twitter and off-handedly mentioning "um, someone needs to explain this a little bit", you'll find plenty of people who will defend the seven figure NES game sales tooth-and-nail, presumably while lighting a cigar with a twenty. What I've seen, between dismissive insults, was a handwaving of "precedence and history" behind these going prices and zero links to back it up.
I have to watch his video, curious to learn more. It's in my queue.
FTC and FBI will take a quick look on this.
The part that mystifies me is that everyone immediately notices how the graded/sealed auction market seems fishy....but they deny or find it hard to believe that this type of price manipulation has been going on in the overall retro video game market over the past 4-5 years with the rapid rise in prices.
The manipulation started when they posted that Yahoo article about Stadium Events years ago.
I appreciate your coverage over the last few years on this topic. Game collectors will continue to collect. Speculators will be caught holding the bag.
Wata the worst thing to happen to this hobby
It makes me smile see my youtube filled up with this... and come full circle between you, Karl and many others
All these game "journalists" are in on it too, I'm sure. Pay em money and they'll say whatever you want, that became extremely obvious over the last 10 years or so.
It’s devastating they abused the video game collectors market and took away the fun for all the collectors. Maybe it’s even worse for all the hard-working honest auction houses, who are passionate doing a job, loving art and everything collectible, cars, comics, coins, antiques,...it’s a smash in the face for everyone!
People wanted to make money from their collections, so they were happy to see others build up the bubble. I saw plenty of people saying they were going to get their games WATA graded and flip them. If they were collectors, then they would have known that the auction prices were bullshit. The week that Mario 64 sold for a record price, I found a mint sealed Mario 64, Banjo- Kazooie, and Kirby: The Crystal Shards in a local classified for like $50 each. And I don't even live in the United States! These are not rare, or difficult to find games, most of them sold in the millions, and many are still being pulled out of basements every week.
Lol you better bought them for that price. They are maybe not rare in general but super rare for that price - if real.
Thank you for speaking out RESPECT. I collect games for the love of gaming and hate this bs activity.
Wow, there needs to be a criminal investigation and prison sentences issued for those found guilty.
Problem is that there is a better than solid chance this is all technically above board because it the US and it's never not shocking what is and isn't legal when it comes to white collar crime.
Coins were and still kind of are big with baby boomers. Gen X, Millenials, and Gen Z should look up that history because that's basically the future of videogame and trading card collecting.
The comic book speculator boom of the early 90's is another one similar to the 80's coin collecting phase. While SOME (not all, just some) comics from the 30's, 40's, 60's, 70's, 80's and even a FEW modern age comics are worth money, the vast majority of comics from the 90's are worthless (with only LESS than a dozen exceptions). During the early 90's, thanks to speculators, comics were artificially ballooning up in prices. Speculators / investors, most of whom didn't even read comics, were artificially increasing the prices of many early 90's comics. Comics that were going for inflated prices during the early 90's ended up plummeting hard in value a few short years later to the point where comics that were being sold for over $100 could then be found in $1 discount boxes. When all of those comics plummeted in price (with a FEW exceptions), I went crazy buying most of them for $1, NOT because I wanted them for investment purposes (I knew they plummeted in prices and were going to remain worthless) but because I wanted to READ them. It was a HORRIBLE time for speculators / investors who had $100 comics which plummeted down below $1, but it was awesome for kids like me at the time who wanted to READ them. Something similar will most likely happen with video game collecting.
Correct, Juan Nunez.
@@johnpenguinthe3rd13
This is how I collected Valiant and Marvel around this time.
I knew something shady was going on with all this, I had a feeling something was also fishy with the grading as well I always go with my gut feelings. Good show Pat and Ian always a joy watching you guys!
One would have to have brain damage to NOT think something shady is going on with all this. It is fairly obvious.
These auctions made it uber obvious some kind of manipulation was going on and I have a feeling the retro game market in general has been affected by these shady practices.
@@mjcook3922 most deff has affected the general retro game market, for games that are so common selling for crazy amounts of money, I’m only buying from actual collectors and video game conventions, I see Pat all the time in Pa at Too Many Games!
You think this is bad, wait til you hear about Beanie Babies
Karl has gone to an insane level with his videos…impressive…
Im a huge fan of his from his Billy Mitchell/Todd Rogers vids they are so well done
Journalists unethically propping people up for alternative motives?!?! I've never seen that before... oh wait 😂😂😂
All Karl's videos are great. They are usually about speed running but he's developed a sideline in in-depth investigations. His stuff on Billy Mitchell is also great.
As for this topic, I was surprised just how deliberate every facet of the market manipulation was. Nothing about this boom was accidental, planned years in advance. I hope the chief architects face punishment and get banned from running companies in the future.
Karl Jobst the absolute LEGEND! :)
Walk into any retro game store and you are almost guaranteed to leave sourly disappointed. Retro game stores are no longer the same as they were 10-15 years ago. Go to a Gamestop in 2003 and there were classic SNES and NES games galore. Nowadays you're lucky if the nearest retro store isn't full of disposable sports games.
So just curious, given that the evidence and avenues for collusion is out in the open, what were you doing on Pawn Stars with your NWC carts?
He was trying to sell them... find out what the market worth is, and a little flex, and get on TV cementing his place in the collector's world. I'd do the same given half the chance.
Here's how I think it works in some people's minds:
Step One: a video game sells for $1,000,000
Step Two: ?????
Step Three: video games stop being blamed for real-world violence
[And more broadly, video games are finally viewed as "real" by certain people, but we're talking Boomers here. Quit trying to get the approval of Boomers & just live your damn life!]
People, WATA games isn't a scam. It's just that a bunch of people who really love retro games- well they don't love them, they collect them.... Anyway, basically those people, just wanted to own 30 copies of the same game sealed for their collection; which is normal behaviour that we all do.
Then, to help everyone already collecting, they shut down Nintendoage, because they had no idea what they were talking about and now everything is transparent.
ANYWAY these people, now with 30 copies of GOLF on the NES sealed want to sell that game that they have loved and cherished for 6 months, for $76k because their company says its worth that and there is no report to say otherwise.
Not fraud. Case closed : )
Dude, that Intellivision Donkey Kong game in 9.8 is selling for $200k now 🥴
karl jobst done done a brilliant video on this
Wata crash on the way. It will be better to crack them games out of those ridiculous plastic cases to raise the value back to normal. The bubble is about to burst. I wasn't a fan of them from the start.
Jim Halperin isn't going against Wall St. this time with their high priced lawyers, that's why they chose to manipulate the video game collecting scene.
It's new and a lot of boomers don't look twice at em.
Jordans are coming soon! Get your Jordan's graded folks! Take them off your feet send them to me and I will grade them! 🤣 I'm a visionary! 💩
These people arent even smart about the games they are choosing to manipulate. The auction with the sm64 also had a gray nwc cart. A game that is legitimately super rare and valuable that you would have a much better chance justifying a massive value increase. Do they choose that game? Of couse they don't. They choose one of the most common games of all time to make the first $1mil game. If you are gonna be a shady conman, you should at least be smart about it.
the best thing gamers can do is to not participating in this WATA scam at all, don't send those people your games never bid for any of those games in auctions and calling out and stop watching people/youtubers that shill for those scammy fraud companies
Thank you for contributing to Karl’s video! I’ll be interested to see the updates on this story!
I guess when you see that dentist collection...big red flag...no one mentions he has not shown that he has any console at all. just games.
I had no idea the same people were involved in the coin bubble in the 80s, my old man was a huge coin collector back then, only to give it up in the 90s, it was kind of sad.
Just using logic, I knew it was a scheme. Nice to have a confirmation of it.
They been doing this for like a decade now. Just look at Wario in Pat's flea market videos. lol
Pat and Ian thank you very much for shining a light on this massive scam. May this mark the end of slabbing retro video games.
I thought I smelled something funny with WATA a year ago... Win All The Auctions
Karl's video was really expertly done. He's a real stand-up guy and I hope that between your efforts and his, some of this shadiness can be brought to light.
Dont buy sealed games goes against gaming
I really dislike cancel culture however canceling sealed games can only be a good thing in my opinion
Rich folks ruined modern games and now they are going back to ruin collecting the old ones.
Petition to get Pokemon Heartgold and Soulsilver for 10 bucks since it isn't a rare game
I second that. I prefer the GBC originals and i still agree with you. lol
My grandmother was big into coin collecting. Even up to 2000 when all the 50 states coins came out and despite the fact that the bubble had long burst but kept saying they'd be worth something. Still not worth shit. But people who "create a market" should be illegal. Coins, video games, the fucking housing market, or trying to make businesses like Gamestop go out of business to make a fortune. And God knows what else I'm forgetting. Enough is enough! To be honest I've always been shocked no laws were ever made to prevent this sort of thing after The Great Depression. Pump up the stock market and create a bubble known as the roaring 20s then obliterate the entire goddamned country. But let's let shitbags who should be behind bars have the legal ability to pull this kind of stuff. It's stupid.
I got into coin-collecting in 1993, when I was 8 and didn't realize there had been a bubble; I didn't go further than collecting random old US and foreign coins that people gave to me, and I just remembered that the guide to coin-collecting that I had was from 1989, just before the peak. I partly got that interest from Dad, who liked to collect the old Eisenhower dollar coins and bicentennial quarters (he turned 18 in 1976, and that may have been the year he started going steady with Mom, while I know they first met in 1975). I always saw the slabbed coins as something aspirational, and the same thing happened with the 50 state quarters; nearly every coin I have that isn't current ordinary US coinage was given to me in 1993, with the main exceptions being the Euro coins I kept from a high-school trip to Spain in 2002, a British decimal penny I found a few years ago, and a few Canadian coins over the years.
I have been telling people this was exactly what was going on for months and months now. Seeing Karl’s video was satisfying since I was going with a gut feeling from what I’d been seeing and not actually doing any research into it. It was pretty obvious this was the situation.
Right thats why Pat keeps his NWC cart in a bank.
Any other trading card collectors scared as fuck after watching this?
Whenever I read newspapers like USA Today back in the day, I would flip to that huge one page ad about precious metals or coin etc. And it was very very obvious push or propaganda or simply an ad. These videos unfortunately are no different and I always felt weird seeing that page in the paper thinking people actually get fooled on them.
They still had commercials even in the 90s. lol
If the market crashes below what it was before the "pump" it's good, cheaper retro games in the end. And the collectors with huge collections who aren't speculating wouldn't care anyways since they just want have good collections and not make a profit. It would make the hobby more accessible to others who haven't gotten in yet.
I want every generation to be able to experience these classics.
wata's response to the video was so weak. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a lot of paper shredding and hard drive erasing going on right now.
Crazy Frank bidding up the auction's 👴
Great exposé! If you were disappointed in the reaction to this story at large by journalism, consider reading Carl Bernstein's 1977 Rolling Stone article "The CIA and the Media". This is not to fully answer all of your questions... just FYI.
Also, Pat and Ian are definitely not crazy.
Unfortunately, there are a LOT of actual collectors who collect specific games because other people want them. Like I don't care about game X but it's rare and expensive, so I want it also because then other collectors will think I'm cool.
We live in a very different age than we did the 1980s, hopefully that means something actually happens.
Fake comps. Comps must be a nightmare for graded games.
What about when Pat himself was on Pawn Stars? Was that to honestly sell the NWC cartridges or to Garner free promotion to pump up their price tags?
iirc the pawn stars producers sought Pat out at the time since it was pretty big news when he got both NWC carts. The people running the show have a history of seeking people out with interesting collections to bring in something neat to show off, throw some whacky offers around, then walk out the door with it without selling. Just something to spice up the episodes with more interesting items.
Good on you guys for staying on top of this!!!
Thanks, Pat & Ian!
Glad I invested in FRANKLIN MINT plates that are gay-run-tea-duh to be great investments.
It's fun to look at how worthless all those Franklin Mint items from the 80s and 90s are now.
This is what we all suspected BUT graded, sealed and unique games will climb into insane prices even without these scammers.
Yes, but now this ruined any "natural" market price progression that existed.
Same thing with sports cards currently
Pats hair was at a strong 80% on the patented "Kane Hair Frizz Level"
Everytime I look on ebay for certain games and I see the prices and I'm like "are you serious?"
Konami and Capcom especially. SHEEEEEEESH