All this talk of left Bros and other such variants has me wondering if anyone has recently checked their proverbial pile and been pleasantly surprised to find they have some money sitting in a game they never realized.

My own (and thus far only) case of this was the Link's Awakening I traded away after hype for that popped up. My copy was pretty great condition so I tossed it up totally jokingly asking for $1k. Walked away very happy with a trade valued around $500 or so. The other party happened to have 3 games I've wanted for a while in great condition, so it was a done deal. I think I probably paid like $100 for the Zelda CIB within the last year or two tops, so when it was suddenly worth 5x or so what I paid, it was a no brainer to "trade up" in my mind.

Anyone else with similar stories? I personally have always just been happy with whatever version I land on, as long as it's not player's choice or greatest hits etc. Thus far no other diamonds in my rough, but who knows what the future holds eh?

I have a 'star' code SMB (Mattel). Not sure it's worth much because it's the Canadian version, but still nice. I have a hangtab, 5-screw, circle seal Castlevania with the errored top label. I also have a CIB Link's Awakening 1st print as well. I never really got into the black box games even when I collected so I missed out of a lot of that.

It boggles my mind how all this came about. 6-months ago you'd be lucky to see someone state 1st print outside of 'selects' or 'greatest hits' versions of the games. Now you need like 5 qualifiers to list a CIB SMB and eBay is littered with these crazy listings.

Yes, I found out 9 out of the 27 black boxes I own have stickers. I think 1 or 2 are gloss and the rest are matte. I haven't examined them close enough haha. Two of them have double stickers on top of each other which I've been told was a former rental.

The samurai western and redstar PS2 that i sold you shocked me when I looked up the price.

Some of my 2600 titles are evidently the rarer variants... but aside from the cool factor it isn't much of a value bump for the ones I have.

My Pokémon red that I got for a cheap auction is the first print copy! Had no clue back then just wanted red before it went up

I had a couple NFR Halos and first print Zeldos, both of which were games that immediately sold for too much money early this year.

With the latest increase in prices for first prints, I looked through my collection and discovered I already had the following:
- Super Mario Bros. 3 (left) manual
- Super Mario Bros. (no code) manual
- Super Mario Bros. (fifth print) box
- Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! (non rev-a) box
- Mike Tyson's Punch Out!! (no code) cartridge
- Top Gun (non rev-a) box

I also have a Batman: Return Of The Joker variant which has never been documented. The code on the box is NES-48-USA instead of every single other box I've seen with NES-P48-USA on it.

Only thing I can think of is I got a first run Castlevania, with the oversized label. Not a hugely valuable variant, but kind of cool. Never knew it was special until someone pointed it out.

I have a GBA Video Disney Channel Collection Vol 2 that I got from a random guy for a couple of bucks. The price exploded soon after I got it.

Well I was curious about GameCube titles and apparently everything GameCube is super hot right now. I'm seeing $50 jumps or more on some of the rarer ones. Go go hypergrind is one that stood out. When did that become a $150 game? It was $50 like a year ago

Don't know and don't care. I don't go into collecting for variants and the like. Exceptions being collector's editions. And Zelda games (like Majora's Mask, holo and not holo. Or the NES gold or not). I just love Zelda enough to do that.

But past those exceptions...eh.

I'm not even too interested in getting NFR games. If I happen upon them (which I have with my only two NFR games) for cheap I'll grab them but I'm not actively after those.

The reason I'm not interested is money wise...it would just be too much to go after every variant. Also time...would take forever. And finally I'm already crazy going for full sets...I don't need to branch out and go off the deep end for variants lol.

I never bothered with variants, a tape is a tape. I had players choice , black label, cdn , USA jp, pal, sticker sealed no sticker. They all played the same either way so I never cared. Just bought the cheapest copy every time. Way too much work to be fussy about stuff that doesn't matter.

Yeah but I mean more like, stuff you have just out of chance. Not that you'd go out of your way for a rare variant, cuz neither do I. I mean more like, you wake up one day and realize your hamster actually has super powers, except in video game form.

Eh, it's been over $100 for well over a year now.

Well, actually, I checked the PC chart and it's been over $100 for a year as of September 2018 haha. But it hasn't been $50 for a looong time.

Everything on GC is expensive, haven't ya heard?

Weird. I guess it's been a minute since I last checked lol. Pokemon box has really shot up too. Same with fire emblem path of radiance

I’ve probably sold like 4 Cib copies of fire emblem path of radiance lol I’m owed!!! 
 

No pleasant surprises in my collection. My SMB3 is "right bros." My copies of Mega Man 1 an Mike Tyson's Punch Out are both 3 screw. 🤷‍♂️

Ehhh...first thing to come to mind is Futurama for the PS2. I bought it new as a kid since I love Futurama, and I've kept it since then. Hard to believe it's a $100 game these days lol.

Other then that nothing comes to mind. I mean I have a Chinese version of Kirby's Dream Land on the GB. I think it's supposedly "rare". Another thing I bought it as a kid...this time at a Gamestop in the early 90s. Used, cart only. But I've kept it in great shape. I don't think it's worth much unless you're after variants...

It still boggles my mind that there's a $10 Pac-Man variant for 2600.
 

I've had a Sonic the Hedgehog blackbox Genesis CIB without the "Not For Resale". Not sure if it's desirable or not with this hype, and frankly haven't even bothered to look at it and identify if it's first print run.

I haven't been paying attention to the variant craze, so I guess I still don't know what might be lying around. Not that I have a lot of early NES stuff. I'll have to get around to looking at some point. The only games that I know would be first print would be the things that I bought on day one. Pokemon Red/Blue come to mind, and my copy of Link's Awakening is likely early. Not sure, and I probably wouldn't sell them anyways.

The one pleasant surprise that I was somewhat surprised to discover was TMNT: Manhattan Missions for the IBM. I bought it as a kid at a closeout store, and it is hard to even say why. I didn't own a computer, but the box looked neat and I am guessing that it was cheap (no price sticker, thank goodness, since I tend to leave them on!). No recent sold listings on eBay, and one is listed at $225. I think when I checked last year (for the first time), some had sold for a bit over $100. Very random, and quite the shocker. I probably need to look up the other big box PC stuff that I have at some point...

Lol I'll take one for $50. That's fair right?

Reason:

https://gamevaluenow.com/playstation-2-ps2/samurai-western?g... GVN jump

MJR video -




 

That's really annoying because I had Go Go Hypergrind sitting on eBay like 2 years ago for months. I think someone finally bought it for like $8

 
Several of these went for $150+ on Ebay awhile back but I think the hype finally died back down to comparably sane levels