Just wondering if you guys can offer some tips on what to search for on eBay to find stuff that nobody else would find normally (if that makes sense). How do you guys set up your searches, and what are you generally looking for in an auction that makes it stand out from the rest?

I look at auctions all the time, but never seem to find any of the cool stuff that you guys post regularly!

There are a lot of things you can do, but one of the best is to search for the game name itself, without the system name, in quote as in:

"Stadium Events"

If that starts to return other words you don't want, simply add a dash to it, as in:

"Stadium Events" -tickets -seating

Click here to see the results:

http://search.ebay.com/search/...ss=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1

BTW, the following auction is dishonest, as the seller has intentionally covered the "B" on the cart, showing that it's a PAL version:

http://cgi.ebay.com/NES-Ninten...meZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

He doesn't state that it's the PAL version either. The easiest way to tell is the seal -- the NTSC version has a gold clear seal, not the white oval seal.

Another way to search is to use NES (OR) NINTENDO, as I would use with the game Chubby Cherub. Since there are some items that are unrelated to gaming that have those two words, I'd use the following:

"Chubby Cherub" (nes,nintendo)

The parens are used to create a logical OR grouping -- it translates to "Show me all listings that have the exact match of 'Chubby Cherub' and either the word 'NES' OR the word 'Nintendo'".

Click here to see the results:

http://search.ebay.com/search/...ss=&fsop=1%26fsoo%3D1

And one of my favorites is to search for NES without the word Nintendo:

nes -nintendo

You'll get a ton of results, but if you add a few more restrictions, you can find some great stuff:

nes -nintendo -n64 -64 -gba -gameboy -ds -snes -"Super NES" -"Super Nintendo" -fc -famicom

Click here to see the results:

http://search.ebay.com/search/...ntrypage=search&fgtp=

Hope that helps

-Dain

Wow. There are a lot of things in your post that I didn't even know you could do!

Thanks!

One thing I plan on doing (LOL, eventually) is to add precise searches on each game page to find ebay results. I'm not talking about those lousy ones you see on other sites where they send ebay the full title, but more like custom searches that take into account certain word combinations to find more obscure listings. For example, have you ever tried to find the game Volleyball, but just the one released by Nintendo? It's a pain unless you create a nice custom search filter.

-Dain

Thanks, Dain...you're gonna make it tougher for all of us to find the good deals.

LOL, I thought I just made it easier!

-Dain

damn, I didn't even know all that stuff, pretty good to know though. I could have saved myself a lot of time over the years, lol.
~~NGD

is there a way to exclude all the ebay stores while searching.....

Sort of, but not in the search string itself. If you go to their advanced search (you can do a normal search, then click advanced to keep your filters in tact), then choose the "Exclude" drop-down option for "From specific sellers", you can omit up to ten sellers in that field. Nothing against DKOldies or DiscountGames, but most of my saved searches have them omitted simply because they use stock photos, and they seldom have anything abnormally rare when I'm looking for hidden treasures.

-Dain

no to mention their prices are out of wack

Well, that's debateable, but they're likely doing this as a full-time job. $.01 game w/$5.99 shipping seems outrageous, but after being a seller for a while, you can't make *any* profit unless you receive nearly $5 for a single transaction (if you accept PayPal, which you almost have to these days). I actually purchased a ton of $.01 games when DK had the shipping at $3.99(?) for the first games and $2.99 each additional. I would watch the big auctions he'd purchase, then time it to look once he sold them. I got a bunch of semi-rare games for essentially $3 each. Not too bad, really. As far as DiscountGames, I've picked up some items from time-to-time that were a steal, like a DK Jr. Math manual for $4.99. But overall, most great deals are going to come from sellers that don't know what they have (or don't care).

-Dain

Another thing to keep in mind with ebay searching is to add options for possible misspellings and transposed letters. Example:

(dreamcast, "dream cast", dreemcast, draemcast)

...and so on. Every once in a while you get lucky with a misspelling that the seller didn't catch. Most people miss those auctions, so the prices stay lower.

Yeah, that's actually how I got my Chubby Cherub box -- it was mislisted as "Cubby Cherub" I believe

-Dain

stores are ok til you run into these kind of space wasting auctions

http://cgi.ebay.com/bee-52-BRA...VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com/Perfect-Da...3QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem