What is the most unexpectedly rare thing in your collection?

[NeoMyGeos]

By this I mean besides obvious things like limited edition system variants or the like. I mean things you have in your collection that you were possibly surprised to learn was actually very valuable.

In my case it's Felix the Cat on NES: I bought it for 20 bucks at a mom and pop store like four years ago; and I recently learned that on eBay it's going up to 100 bucks easy

[Bear78]

The most recent one for me would be Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ on the DS.  I picked it up a while back after hearing it was a bit of a hidden gem.  Think I paid maybe $20 for it CIB and now it's around $100.  Same story for Drone Tactics for the DS also.

[Nacho3]

I have a copy of Street Fighter Zero 3 on the Saturn that I bought from ebay many years ago. I only bought it because I went through a faze where I was buying a bunch of Japan only releases and got a lot for super cheap. It goes for over $200 now and I probably paid less than $100 for a bunch of games.

[amace04]

R-Type III on the SNES.   I have no idea how I got it.  I suspect I got it from when I fixed a couple systems for a guy.   Guy had 2 SNES a NES and a Genesis, none worked.   If I fixed him a SNES and NES, I could keep the second SNES and the Genesis, with all Genesis games.  I got a couple SNES games, I suspect that was one of them.

[NeoMyGeos]

I've been truly buckling down and organizing my collection and I've come across a few more:

Megaman 8 for the Sega Saturn CIB: I can't remember WHEN I got it, but I got it for roughly 80 bucks some time ago. I look now and it's shot up to nearly 300 bucks!

Mario Party CIB: I got it for about 30 bucks, and now it's around 80 bucks

Makes me wish I had cleaned out my mom and pop store back when I had more money to spare.

Still! I'm extremely satisfied with what I have

[Tech13]

I was given a CD-I with Link: The Faces of Evil for free back in 1999.

[SegaNomadman]

Mine isn't a game or system, but I bought an old action figure of E-102 Gamma from Sonic Adventure from a used game shop  (along with Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Big) for about $6. I went home to see what toy line they were from and it turns out that Gamma can go for around a hundred bucks on eBay. Of course, I won't be selling mine but I never knew that this figure was that rare!

[NeoMyGeos]

Mine isn't a game or system, but I bought an old action figure of E-102 Gamma from Sonic Adventure from a used game shop  (along with Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, and Big) for about $6. I went home to see what toy line they were from and it turns out that Gamma can go for around a hundred bucks on eBay. Of course, I won't be selling mine but I never knew that this figure was that rare!

I used to have one of those back when it first came out! I miss it

[Megatron]

Back around 4 years ago I found a CIB copy of Hagane for SNES.  I paid about $350 or so for it, which was around going rate at the time.  Now clearly I know this is a rare/expensive game...but when I looked at eBay recently, it's selling for around a thousand dollars now. So I was a bit shocked to see it go up in value that quickly.

[wiggy]

I was given a CD-I with Link: The Faces of Evil for free back in 1999.

That’s about what they were worth in ‘99 

[Tech13]

I was given a CD-I with Link: The Faces of Evil for free back in 1999.

That’s about what they were worth in ‘99 

Yea back then I worked for GameXchange and the owner did not even want it.

[redsox2012]

Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for the original Xbox.  I bought this around 10 years ago for $10 because I love the Outrun games.  Turns out the Xbox version was produced in very small quantities, and now goes for over $100 complete.

[SegaNomadman]

I used to have one of those back when it first came out! I miss it

Who knows, maybe I have yours! 

[wiggy]

I was given a CD-I with Link: The Faces of Evil for free back in 1999.

That’s about what they were worth in ‘99 

Yea back then I worked for GameXchange and the owner did not even want it.

Ha!  I can relate to that...

I recall us having literally a pile of 3DO consoles in the back of the Record Exchange store that I managed at the time.  That store was used to hold old, unsalable and defective consoles that were "waiting for repair."  The truth is that no console was ever sent out to be repaired, and I eventually asked the owners of the chain if I could have a crack at repairing them.  They considered them basically write-offs/garbage otherwise, so they let me have at it.  I got a LOT of consoles out of that little side job.  A number went back into inventory, but I was able to keep a large number of them, since they weren't of any value anyway, even in perfect working order.  I had 2-3 of each version of the 3DO at one point, and a LOT of games.  Numerous copies of all 3 Zelda titles.  I eventually gave them to fellow gamer friends, and then sold my personal copies shortly after graduating college in order to pay bills (at which point they had accrued a bit of value [2007]).

[Togs8896]

StarCraft 64. Got it new when I was a kid and played the crap out of it. I still have the box, manual, and inserts for it and recently found out the set goes for $150ish. Not the largest amount of money, but I was definitely surprised.