“Friend of mine received this sealed and graded original copy of Pokémon Yellow,” Kick said. “U.S. Customs: Broke the acrylic case, ripped and discarded the seal, [and] sliced the front of the box off. Maybe they weren’t fans of Wata Games?”
Wata Games is an independent company that grades and certifies games for collectors. Chances are you’ll encounter Wata Games if you’re looking for high-quality, mint copies of old games. The company was responsible for grading and certifying The_Master_Of_Unlocking’s copy, giving it an A+ rating and a score of 9.2. According to Wata Games’ website, the game is in “exceptional condition” and worth $3,800. Or it was until U.S. Customs came through and decimated the certification.
“So…either they hated the battery inside the cartridge…or they thought it’d contain drugs or something,” one tweeter suggested in Kick’s mentions. “Can U.S. Customs just destroy things without recourse,” asked another tweeter, with many others demanding consequences against the agency.
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this is what @Awoo is referring to. the valuations are manufactured and speculative in both cases.
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the other person replied with an explanation of why they're different. this sub-thread is about why you should still be upset. analogies are still useful in that context.
Exactly, it's completely artificial. They've taken a collector's market and intentionally distorted it into the analog equivalent of NFTs.
The value of these was created by them, and it is then held up by other people trading them purely through speculation. The entire market is commodity speculation rather than genuine interest in memorabilia. These people claiming it's about memorabilia and memories of childhood are full of shit, if it were they wouldn't want the extra-special-ultra-expensive-inflated one. It's all NFT brain.
specifically, its hypercommodification, where things are completely stripped of their use-value. with NFTs, they never had them. with this kind of speculative collectable, they once had use-value but even that has been taken away (by the collector who removes it from the hands of someone who might use it and instead hordes it in an unopened package, hoping it's more valuable in the future after all usable copies have been destroyed).