Ever Have To Part With Your Collection?

[Antimind]

Wondering how many folks have had to sell either bits of or entire collections. How you did it, and how you coped with your decisions.

I'm currently in the process of selling 90% of my collection. I have to because A: we're broke and B: we have no room. I'm keeping some things that I've had since childhood and almost all of my handhelds. Most of my merch too. I'm going to go through all of the stuff at my mom's in January. I'll have exactly one month to pack and send what I'm keeping and sell the rest off. I haven't seen most of it in over 3 years but I'm sure it's going to suck when I start opening up those boxes. When I went through my first round of selling (before moving), it was very hard to part ways with things. Right now it feels like it'll be easy but I know once I'm with all of my stuff it's going to royally suck. Any stories and/or advice would be appriciated.

[Sirgin]

I'm sorry to hear that.

I hope you'll make some good decisions so you keep the stuff that really matters. Sometimes you think you're attached to a whole bunch of games while in fact only a couple are really important.

[Antimind]

I agree 100%. My whole thing is, my dream was to have a room full of games across all platforms. That dream more or less was realized. Some of the stuff I collected I never cared too much about. I just bought it to have it. Just to fill my shelves. My handhelds on the other hand.. I'm already cooking up plans for new shelves in my living room

I will admit that I'm worried that once I start opening up my boxes... My keep stacks will be larger than my sell stacks. That isn't the plan but I'm thinking once I get my hands on my games I won't be able to let go.

[Sirgin]

Whatever you do; do some serious thinking before selling off your entire collection.

You must decide for yourself whether you need the money so desperately that every game sold is necessary, or not.

If you can maybe come up with an amount of money that you need to raise, then calculate how many (and which) games need to be sold, you can prevent from selling off too much.

Always remember that a game will be more expensive the second time you buy it. (Unless you bought it new the first time)
Selling off an entire collection only to buy it back a couple of months later is never a good thing. You'll loose money no matter what.

But if you're certain that collecting games is behind you, then don't hesitate to sell everything. It really depends on whether or not you'll get back into collecting in the not-so-distant future.

I hope that helped a bit.

[Antimind]

Well.. My plan is to sell and do two things with the money. I want to expand my Tales collection and handhelds. I also want to use it to pay bills, buy food, and (hopefully) put some money into a bank account. We're so poor we don't even have a bank account! We choose internet over food. Seriously man. I'm so hungry right now it isn't even funny. We'd all go completely mad without internet though!

I've already decided what all I'm keeping. Like I said before, I'm just worried about what'll happen once my games are in my hands again. I'm hoping someone that's been there, done that will post with how they handled it. I do love games. I just don't have the room nor the money to collect like I once did. I figure sell off the parts of my collection that I can't continue collecting.

I'm a Tales nut and Tales merch doesn't come cheap. I can afford to pick up something new on occasion. The other bonus (and this also applies to handhelds) is that Tales merch doesn't take up too much room. I can't wait to get my handhelds here. I also can't wait to buy more

[Moriya Hanzo]

Yup. Same reason i was about to lose my car and i lost my job. Try not to think about it as much unless someone mentions it.

[modest9797]

I sold some stuff to get enough money for a banjo about a month ago.

[NESman93]

I once sold all my SNES stuff in a yard sale for some extra money.

[logical123]

Not to sound like an ass to gamers in general, but do we (as in gamers) have a hard ass time keeping good with money? I mean, everyone that I know that buys games is broke almost always. Me? Not always. I invest, baby!

Seriously though. I go through phases of horrid money spending, but Internet before food? That's a little, intense, to say the least...

Edit: Post 1500 Woo! 

[jcalder8]

I have sold stuff from my collection before to fund other things and I could do it again if need be. Seriously if you are choosing internet over food sell whatever you can to live. Games just aren't worth it.

I don't think games are any different than any other hobby. It all comes down to balance and keeping your finances in check, now if only I could do as I say

[Paully3433]

IMO, food and survival are more important than anything else. I would sell my collection in 2 seconds if we were that hard up.  My kids and family are more important than getting the next RPG or sports game.

I would do what you need to do to survive and not starve.

[Sirgin]

t all comes down to balance and keeping your finances in check.

Exactly.

There's nothing wrong with chasing your dreams but at some point one must be content with what he/she has. (Atleast in the short-term) If you can't buy more than X number of gamers per month, then don't. It's as simple as that.

And some more advise: Save money, people! Even if it's just a little, try your best to keep some money on your account each month and put it away on a savings account. You never know what hard times may lie ahead. That way, you don't have to sell off your collection when a sudden expense appears.

[Crabmaster2000]

When i was in my teens I over spent regularly. Now that im married and have a child I have myself on a "gaming budget". Its worked wonders. We paid off both my car and my wifes early, own our own home (its only a trailer for now, but no mortage rules!!) and have almost finished our student loans, and Im still been able to put away money for RRSPs for myself, RESPs for my kid and purchase well over 100 games this year.

But i definately went through bad spending times in my past when I purchased games over rent and stupid stuff like that.

[Izret101]

My money was always tight but games were always second to bills.
With my son games are now a 3rd (Aubrey knows she bounces between 3rd/4th place ;-p)

When i moved to texas i sold off a bunch of stuff to fund my trip(mostly NES)
When i moved back from texas i left behind about 200 PC games, 6-10 system boxes, and 15-20 posters because i couldn't afford to ship them or fit them in a vehicle. That hurt because it was a total loss.

I made nothing off of them and i am sure they ended up trashed. They don't get to live on in a collection they just rot away in the trash.

Thats what bugged me the most.
People look for good homes for pets i tried to find them for games.

But my advice is just take a look at what you have.
What are you honestly going to play?
I have been seriously debating selling off all my cart based games. I rarely play them they are more awkward to store and many of them are being rereleased as digital copies(which i hate BTW).

Still got quite a few years ahead of yourself you can always pick up 5 thousand or so shitty NES games in the future And the harder to get ones you might not get again. But they might fetch you some cash now.

Or! sell off everything pretend you still have the games and not the money. Throw the money into a CD/bank/investments and keep up the struggle. Then if something comes up where your are REALLY hard up(E.G. medical issues) you have semiliquid funds.

[Kimoosabi]

I've recently sold off about 80% of my 400+ game collection, and honestly there aren't too many I miss too much. I kept anything of sentimental value to me, I disregarded their future actual value, since I never bought games as an investment. So now I am down to about 40-50 games, and I am sure that number will rise with future releases, however I am far more picky now about what enters my much smaller collection.

The reason I sold was partly for money, not because I was hard up but just because the money could be better spent elsewhere. Also for the amount of space it took up, I had 5 large black bookcases in the living room that made it seem like a giant monolith.

Also, some games just aren't replayable, and I figure there's no point having games I won't play again.