Collection Price/Appraisal?

[madrocsz]

Title says it all, wanting to know if anyone knows an easier way to put a value on your collection, mainly for insurance purposes but also so wife gets off my case about it.

I know that w/ vgpricecharting.com you can do so, but compiling a list is quite tedious
Also, I use game collectorz and I know I can manually input prices but again, thats 1 by 1

Just curious if anyone has attempted to do this with a larger collection or has any suggestions of how I might accomplish this.

[zygmuray]

Im not sure what you have for a collection,

But if you have a system that is pretty close to complete instead of 1 by 1 you could always copy and paste the whole list from video game price charts into an excel speedsheet and just use the "sum function" to get a rough value.


Again this is completely relying on if you have the whole system or close enough to delete the games you dont have.

[shenske]

..... but also so wife gets off my case about it.

Didn't you mention once that your wife works at gamestop?  I'm surprised she'd be on your case about it 

[mojoeskateco]

Title says it all, wanting to know if anyone knows an easier way to put a value on your collection, mainly for insurance purposes but also so wife gets off my case about it.

I know that w/ vgpricecharting.com you can do so, but compiling a list is quite tedious
Also, I use game collectorz and I know I can manually input prices but again, thats 1 by 1

Just curious if anyone has attempted to do this with a larger collection or has any suggestions of how I might accomplish this.

I'm not sure if this is doable but you could try:

1. Export an online price list to excel

2. Export your collection to excel from your collectorz software

3. Use the Vlookup function in excel to match game titles from your collection spreadsheet to the price list spreadsheet

4. Work the Vlookup formula so that when it finds a match with the price list that it looks to the next cell to get the price and inputs that value beside the title on your collection list spreadsheet.

It would be nice of the software updated the prices for you.

Like every time you log in checks a pricing site and updates the values.

The other issue is once you get this working there's so many other things to take into consideration such as completeness, condition, sealed, packaging version (i.e. greatest hits) etc.

I may try the excel thing on my lunch break ... the nerdy accountant in me is getting curious if this could work.

[SnesGuy]

I've just slowly been doing it on game collector pro as I have time. Only have prices in for my consoles and I am at $2,500 (based on selling price)

[mojoeskateco]

So it does work but if there is any difference with the titles between the two sources of info you will be SOL and excel will return an error message.

i.e. I have the Nintendo Age NES in excel to track my NES collecting progress and about 250-300 of the titles don't match .. main reasons being

-"and" instead of "&"
- roman numerals instead of numbers
- comma's, colons, other punctuation
- spacing
- putting "The" at the beginning instead of the end of a title, etc.

That said I could always use another spreadsheet that maps the titles to each other which you'd have to do once and then it would work pretty well.

I might play with it some more on the weekend.

I was able to get the values to show for about half my NES collection in 5 mins so it still saves some time.

Also if the title mapping got done it would be as simple as going back to the pricing site and repasting the new data in at regular intervals which is the key.  If updating one-by-one you would have to go do it over and over as the prices change.

[madrocsz]

..... but also so wife gets off my case about it.

Didn't you mention once that your wife works at gamestop?  I'm surprised she'd be on your case about it 

She isn't a fan of Gamestop, at the time I was managing one and store down street needed an assistant manager so I got her the job. She doesn't mind my collecting she just fears of potential loss as we live in Hurricane alley.

@zygmuray - 1862 games , which I think my list is up to date, so yeah, lot to add. Can see it here http://connect.collectorz.com/users/madrocsz/games/view?filterPlatform&viewType=list

[Seraph Man]

I've never heard of Hurricane Alley before. But as it turns out, I live there too. But, at least where I am, most hurricanes do nothing more than provide excellent kite weather and knock out the power for anywhere from a few hours to a week or two.

Maybe I should try to appraise my collection too. Because I probably just jinxed myself. At least it's not that huge. About 200, give or take.

[madrocsz]

Hurricane Alley = New Orleans

[Seraph Man]

Hurricane Alley = New Orleans

Not according to Wikipedia.

[madrocsz]

Hurricane Alley = New Orleans

Not according to Wikipedia.

sigh, wasnt being literal but we do have hurricane season every year and are quite the target for storms small and large. Can definitely throw wrenches in day to day things

[komodos]

I just use a excel spreadsheet and the value is usually determined on what the cost would be to replace what was lost. Ebay is where I get my prices for this kind of thing since it can very easily be brought up and checked by an insurance agent. Alot of collectors tend to accumulate more than they realize I am sitting at about $8000 to sell and I was shocked I would have said under $2000 if anyone asked because I wasn't properly keeping track. Now that the retro gaming prices are sky rocketing its a real investment now lol

[kylethestyle]

Just found this site.
http://videogames.pricecharting.com/