Rarest find (In the wild)

[MetalFRO]

Radiant Silvergun (complete) $4

That, right there, is the score of a lifetime.

I don't own that many "rare" games, and most of the ones I do I either picked up as new releases, or bought used before they became known as rare.  Probably my best rare item score is the unlicensed Genesis shmup "Earth Defense" (or "The Earth Defend" if you believe the manual or title screen).  I snagged a CIB copy for something like $5 or $6 about 12 years ago.  I've never seen a copy in the wild since.  Second to that might be a CIB longbox copy of Raiden Project for PS1.  I paid $10 for it, if memory serves.

[Ikariniku]

My rarest find that I picked up is either:

Boxed, mostly complete Power Glove at a garage sale for $3

or

Tengen Tetris, picked up at my local game shop for about market price.

Edit:

RarityGuide.com says that my actual rarest find in the wild is Mega Man 5, picked up from my friend at his yard/moving sale.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

*facepalm* PLEASE don't use RarityGuide.com for a reference for anything. It's terrible, and their attempt at pricing is laughable.

If anything, please use reputable sites like Digit Press or NintendoAge. Digit Press says Tengen Tetris is rarer than Mega Man 5, but that may have been based on older findings. NintendoAge says they're about the same.

[SirPsycho]

Rarity Guide is not really a good guide to rarity. Tengen Tetris is much harder to find than Mega Man V.

[zcrich01]

Rarity Guide is not really a good guide to rarity. Tengen Tetris is much harder to find than Mega Man V.

When I first began collecting, I too fell victim to the absurdity disguised as expertise of rarityguide.com. Then I found pricecharting.com and realized that RG hadn't been updated since the Clinton administration.

[singlebanana]

Even pricecharting can be way off sometimes, but I often still reference it in conjunction with other sites. Your best indicator of price IMO is looking up "sold" listings on eBay and taking an average of those sales. This often shows how much people are willing to pay for an item.

[Ack]

The rarest I have found in the wild is probably Super Turrican 2, though the rarest I own is likely Clayfighter: Sculptor's Cut.

[SirPsycho]

I consider auctions to be a better indicator than a BIN, even though I do BIN myself. The auctions give you a good idea of where a fixed price listing should be to get a better deal. Also most pricing sites never take condition into consideration.

[techwizard]

i usually check price charting first and then compare with ebay sold listings. rarely do i notice a huge difference in price between them, but pricecharting does seem to not quite catch all the copies that sold sometimes which can skew the price a bit. for the most part though it's fairly reliable.

one thing important to know with price charting is that you can look at the list of what auctions they use to get their actual average when you click to the actual game page. i almost never just take the average number they give me, i usually look at their sources too because sometimes the site glitches and only shows the most recent sale when there were quite a few others before it. plus you need to click on each one to get the CIB prices anyway, the main lists only show loose and sealed.

[Crabmaster2000]

I consider auctions to be a better indicator than a BIN, even though I do BIN myself. The auctions give you a good idea of where a fixed price listing should be to get a better deal. Also most pricing sites never take condition into consideration.

I disagree. Auctions are too heavily influenced by time and opportunity. BINs especially ones with Best Offer allow people to take the time to think or budget and negotiate with the seller. I think that offers a much better idea of anything that could be considered a "true" value of an item.

[SirPsycho]

The problem with Best offers is that you can't actually see what the offer was. It just says 'Best Offer Accepted'. To the price sites it'll still list it as a $50 item even if the best offer that was accepted was $30. The auction game is better spent on more expensive games, and its what I've been watching for some games on my Saturn list.

I'll see Shining Wisdom auctions selling for less than $80, almost every one of them, but every BIN is close to or north of $100 and because of the auction prices people rarely bite.

[Ikariniku]

UPDATE: Armed with new knowledge, my rarest game owned/seen is Maxi-15.  I may have seen something more rare in Digital Press' museum cases, but I can't remember specifics.

*facepalm* PLEASE don't use RarityGuide.com for a reference for anything. It's terrible, and their attempt at pricing is laughable.

If anything, please use reputable sites like Digit Press or NintendoAge. Digit Press says Tengen Tetris is rarer than Mega Man 5, but that may have been based on older findings. NintendoAge says they're about the same.

Well, NOW I know. Rarity is hard to nail down definitively, and I was looking for any sort of touchstone with which to make my judgment.  My initial picks were based on current market price, while Rarity Guide reminded me that I had found Mega Man 5 in the wild, as well.  However, even were I just to use my metric of price, determined by Price Charting, the current Price Charting value on Tengen Tetris is below $40!  Zen: Intergalactic Ninja, Baby Boomer, Tagin' Dragon, Death Race, Mega Man, Maxi-15, and Mega Man 5 all outstrip it in price, and all of these I've seen in the wild.  I purchased every one except Tagin' Dragon, and every one of them was seen at my local game shop except Mega Man 1 & 5, which I bought from my friend.

Rarity Guide is not really a good guide to rarity. Tengen Tetris is much harder to find than Mega Man V.

In my own experience, this has not proven to be true.  I've only seen Mega Man 5 once in the wild, at my friend's yard sale.  Yet, I've seen Tengen Tetris both at my local game shop and at Digital Press.  Now, sure, anecdotal evidence is to be taken with a grain of salt, but my own experience would lead me to believe Mega Man 5 (and Maxi-15) are more rare than Tengen Tetris.

[techwizard]

"rarity" is extremely different from city to city. the only things that are truly rare are confirmed cases of low print runs. anything else is just uncommon in my opinion.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

"rarity" is extremely different from city to city. the only things that are truly rare are confirmed cases of low print runs. anything else is just uncommon in my opinion.

"Rarity" = Finding 4 copies of Snow Brothers and Cheetahmen II each within a year, yet only finding 1 copy of World Champ. My area is weird...

[Ack]

"rarity" is extremely different from city to city. the only things that are truly rare are confirmed cases of low print runs. anything else is just uncommon in my opinion.

"Rarity" = Finding 4 copies of Snow Brothers and Cheetahmen II each within a year, yet only finding 1 copy of World Champ. My area is weird...

What is your area?