EDIT: HOW TO BID ON HERITAGE -- Reference Page and FAQs:

https://comics.ha.com/c/ref/web-tips.zx?ic=Tab-BidBuy-AllBid...

Hey NAer's,

We're excited to announce that starting this December, Heritage Auctions will be debuting video game auctions by accepting consignments of Wata certified games. Credibility, authenticity, and transparency matters. That is why Heritage Auctions, the world’s largest collectible auctioneer, joined forces with Wata Games to set the standards in video game collecting. What exactly does this mean for collectors?

Buyers: access to high-end games that almost exclusively sell privately are now going to begin selling publicly through the world’s most trusted platform for buying collectibles and using Heritage’s state-of-the-art bidding platform “Heritage Live.” New games will be auctioned every week starting in the Comic Books category with no minimum bids or reserves, as well as many high-end items in the Signature Auctions in February. 

Sellers: get exposure to the massive bidding pool of over 1,000,000 registered bidders and serious collectors that dwarves eBay. Each week Heritage’s comic book auctions realize nearly $400,000 and the Signature Auctions that occur every three months regularly surpass $8 million. While our community here is a wonderful tight-knit group of collectors, there are many more collectors out there who use Heritage but aren’t on NintendoAge, as well as collectors who have been interested in video games but never found the opportunity to jump in head-first. Now’s their chance!


For our community here on NA, we’re exclusively opening this opportunity to be a part of this exciting campaign and the elevation of the video game hobby to a legitimized appreciation of art and history. That doesn’t mean just getting to bid — it also means that we’re accepting consignments from you. Heritage makes the consignment process completely hassle-free and is willing to work with any and all collectors who reach out to them. If you’re interested in consigning you can either reach out to us (if you don’t know where else to find us just email [email protected]).

Or, to get touch with Heritage directly, you can reach out to Matt Griffin at:

[email protected]
or by phone at: 214.409.1694

If you're unfamiliar with Heritage Auctions, you can always visit their site at https://www.ha.com/... for more information or ask any questions here.


Consignment deadlines for the weekly auctions December-February are coming up so if you’re interested be sure to get in touch with us soon! If you have some really high-value items you’re thinking of consigning, deadlines for the February signature auctions are January 1.

Consigned items that you can expect to see in the auctions will be shared through our newsletter, Heritage's emails, and here in this thread. We will be sharing them in the weeks and days leading up to the auctions, so keep your eyes peeled! If you haven't signed up for our newsletter but want to stay in the loop, just sign up at watagames.com and check the "newsletter" box here: https://www.watagames.com/join...


As always you can reach out to us with any questions in this thread or by email/phone.

Wow, absolutely HUGE deal, congratufuckinlations!!!

I think I might be interested in auctioning off a few things, just to see how this goes. I will reach out.

Damn, very cool, good job! I'm sure I have nothing worth auctioning, especially seeing as I'm in Canada, but good luck with this!

Wow, HA is big time. I'm definitely looking in to this.

yeah...
So eBay claims they have over 170 million active users. Care to explain how one million "dwarves" 170+ million?

I'm not a fan of eBay, they need competition. Perhaps HA will be that. However, how much do they charge? Also I believe you have to have a threshold before selling with them, so those $5 loose carts are a no-go which frankly is good!

I tell you.......... this proves Video Games has a way to hit the mainstream as a viable collectible but its well on the way. I am excited to see this partnership and trust it will flourish. It's time for the industry to "graduate" to the next level.

I toured their site and signed up. Thanks for the heads up.

I just signed up for curiosity. My question will be if they will only accept WATA graded games or it can also be raw sealed games? Im assuming they will have to evaluate your copy based on their standards. Really looking forward to this.

I believe with comics they will submit the games to CGC for grading for you prior to auction and then subtract the grading fee from the end results. 
Not all comics are graded. HA does sell a few cheaper lots and items that can not be graded like bound volumes etc. 
 

You would have to watch a few HA auctions to understand. 
HA is a collection of the better material without the junk. Each auction is an event.

The risk of being scammed on eBay as buyer or seller is greater so you see material you just don’t see on eBay all at once in a focused auction.  

eBay will always be good for some things like those $3 carts and broken systems etc. 


 

I can't wait eBay favors scammers over honest sellers.

Congrats deniz keep doing big things!

Congratulations on the partnership! Really great that collectors can buy worry free through a service like Heritage Auctions.

Nice work.

Congrats Wata, this is fantastic news!

Keep up the good work Mr. Kahn and Mr. Thrower!

I should've definitely qualified this better and understand how it sounds misleading. The one million refers to serious collectors. As Adam says below:
 
Of course you are right that eBay's user base overall dwarves Heritage's, but in the same way that you won't find someone spending millions on fine art browsing eBay for some new pieces, you typically won't see high-end collectibles in established markets like Comics selling for hundreds of thousands or millions on eBay. Naturally there are some exceptions, such as the Action Comics and Wonder Woman comics that sold for tremendous amounts, but these were partially publicity stunts that are considered outliers. The vast majority of high-end sales for coins, comics, cards, and most other collectibles occur on Heritage and most of the bidders/watchers do not really spend any time on eBay unlike you and me. 
 
Part of what fuels that should answer the second part of your question--Heritage does have a threshold for their items for both their weekly and Signature auctions; therefore most of the items are only quality and desirable items, which is also why 99% of them are certified. Some cheaper items slip through but this is the norm. They also charge higher fees than eBay, but buyers and sellers are more than willing to accept them due to the access they get to a bidding pool of exclusively interested collectors. Further, buyer's premiums are always built into the auction sell price so that when you're bidding you know exactly what you're going to pay. Sellers fees in certain instances can be negotiated depending on what the consigner consigns, with very high-end or large volume consignments allowing for more flexibility.

Thanks for bringing up that clarifying point, hope this answers your questions! 

Thanks Adam, spot on answer. Heritage does auction off raw books every once in awhile, but typically they are for lots or items that aren't suited for certification. Like Adam said they offer consigners to front the certification costs so that you're not paying anything out of pocket, which is especially relevant when the certification costs add up significantly. Same thing will apply for video games.

 

And as community members and collectors that love this hobby, that's exactly what we're working to do. It's about time video games are elevated to that level of art and history that other collectibles have. Part of what's stopping that is that new collectors from the outside looking in see too many barriers when they go on eBay, for example. From repros to variants to lacking standards...the barriers and time it takes to educate themselves deters them rather than encourages. Wata eliminates a portion of the barriers, while Heritage removes the rest. 
 

That's more or less what I figured, but always good to hear it specifically laid out. It will be interesting to see how this goes. Good luck to all!

 

I spoke to Matt Griffin today at Heritage, really nice guy. I think I'm going to get a few protos authenticated via WATA and sent for the weekly auctions and then maybe throw one or two into the bigger one in February.

Let's see how this goes!

Congrats WATA! Can't wait to see Nick Cage bidding on an NWC to go along with his action #1

Perhaps if he needs a new hobby as he sold off his comic collection. 

https://www.cbr.com/nicolas-cages-copy-of-action-comics-1-se...
 

I feel the same way, I am ery excited to see where this goes and the impact it has on the scene. 

 

There are so many few posts on this topic. I feel as almost this was a bad guesstimate for HA and NA on selling stuff.  

^how so?

I've got a couple things going into the February sale. Fingers crossed

has there been an auction yet or when is the first one going to take place?