Game Collecting Tip #2: Buy the Keys First

Collecting retro games is a pretty new hobby. To see into the future, we can look at older collecting hobbies, like coin collecting. There are a lot of similarities, but one huge difference – coin collecting was huge when your grandpa was a kid. And his grandpa too. Years have been spent analyzing the hobby and making sense of market trends. We can take some common advice and adapt it to game collecting to get ahead of the pack. One such axiom is: buy the keys first.

One of the most widely loved coin designs is the Morgan dollar. It’s a large coin made out of bright, lustrous silver. They weren’t used in commerce very often, so beautiful uncirculated examples are readily available. Many collectors decide to collect every available date of them. An average Morgan is affordable, somewhere between 30 and 100 dollars each.

A lot of collectors knock out the easy-to-find dates, but then they run into a problem.

The 1893 dollar coin from San Francisco, in okay condition, goes for over $5,000.

Individual dates that are extremely rare and valuable are known as ‘key dates’. They’re keys to the series. If you tell another coin collector that you completed a collection, all they’ll really care to see is the key dates.

So why do coin collectors say “buy the keys first”? The reasoning is, key date coins increase in value much faster than more common ones as more people compete to buy them to complete their collections. Completing a Morgan dollar collection can take decades. If you wait until the very end to buy that 1893-S, you might find that the price has increased by a huge amount, and it’s no longer affordable.

In fact, let’s look at some real numbers. In the past ten years, the value of a low end mint condition 1893-S dollar coin has increased from $80,000 up to $120,000, which is an increase of 50%. Coins are rated on a scale of 1-70.

	60	63	64	65
2006	$80,000	$120,000	$300,000	$450,000
2016	$120,000	$225,000	$350,000	$650,000

In contrast, let’s look at a much more common issue from the same series, the 1900 dated coin:

	MS-60	MS-63	MS-64	MS-65
2006	$35	$50	$65	$210
2016	$50	$65	$80	$170

Yes, this date also increased, but not only by 30%. And dealing with lower numbers makes that impact significantly less. Buying the 1900 first may have saved $15… But it also cost $40,000.

Game collecting has keys as well. ClayFighter: Sculpter’s Cut, for example, regularly sells for $300-500 loose. A boxed copy can go up to about $2,000, based on condition. As time goes on, more of the dusty attic copies of this game will fall into collectors’ hands. It will be harder to cherrypick a deal from someone who doesn’t know what it’s worth. And with the collector base growing, more people will be competing to buy the ones that are still available. That’s a good recipe for prices going through the roof.

On the other hand, NFL Blitz is very common. It’s a fun game, and worth owning. But it’s worth less than ten dollars. If you waited until the very end of your collection to buy it, and the price went crazy and doubled in that time… You’re only out a few bucks.

Buying the keys first is also a good way to reconsider the collection you’ve started. So you love 16-bit RPGs. You decide to collect every last one that came out on the SNES. Unfortunately, Earthbound is part of that set. That means that you’re going to have to pony up around $500-700 for a clean, complete copy. Is that something that you’re willing to do? If so, do it now.

Otherwise, now it’s the time to modify the ‘rules’ of your collection. Maybe you don’t need every RPG.

Maybe it’s just Square-developed games. Maybe it’s games from certain years. Maybe it’s only games with sequels. Maybe it’s only games that you had as a kid, or played at a friend’s house.

The easy thing to do is just collect everything except that one key game. But in 10 years, will you be happy with it? Or will you look at your shelf and only notice that one gaping hole?

Well too bad. Earthbound is worth $1,500 complete now.

Buying keys only

If the rare games increase in price fastest, then why not just fill your collection exclusively with keys, like Campus Challenge, Nintendo World Championships, Air Raid, Little Samson, and The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, then just play all your favorite games on an EverDrive or emulator?

As a way to make money, it might pay off. Using rare games as an investment vehicle is really risky, but if you’re in a financial position where you wouldn’t be sunk if you lost them all, then it’s your call. Nobody knows where the market will go.

But the secret to being satisfied with your collection is to actually like the stuff that you collect. If you have to spend months or years saving up to buy a game that you don’t care about and won’t ever play, your enthusiasm will die out pretty quickly. That $30,000 shelf of expensive games will just look like a waste of time.

Be balanced. Make smart decisions, but have fun. Your goal is to enjoy yourself and put yourself in a good position when it comes time to sell, not run a store.