World 2-2: Sega CD Complete Collection

I hit a collectors milestone this month and to celebrate the feat I made a video to go along with this post. I am stepping outside of doing my standard post which would normally address some general aspect of collecting and not be system specific, but as I said this is a milestone and I am celebrating . First Video is my full collection, Second is the rare titles and Variants for the system.

My feat as the title of this post says, is completing my Sega CD collection. I have been chipping away at Sega CD for about 2 years, it started with me just wanting Shining Force CD, then I picked up a few lots with other titles and before I knew it I had 50ish Sega CD games. When I realized that I was 1/3 of the way, I went with my typical collecting strategy, find the rare and expensive games first and then pick up the filler.

While that strategy seems pretty sound it was tougher then I thought. Sega CD collecting is harder then it appears, this is due to the fact that so many of the games that are rare aren't really known to be rare. An example of this is the game Radical Rex, only some of the Sega CD collectors know that Radical Rex is tough to find, and your average rare title collector has no idea. This means that when collectors run across it, they don't value it and may not even pick it up, which in turn makes the game even harder to find. Over a 1 year span I counted 3 Radical Rex complete copies popping up on eBay, two of them sold before I even noticed and 1 I was outbid on. I eventually found my copy on a forum I am a part of, but not before I created several threads stating that I was looking for. These threads made more people aware of how rare the game was and now the price on the game has spiked. In the last month I have seen 4 copies of Radical Rex appear on eBay, each one selling for more than the last, with the exception of this one at 199, a price a year and a half ago I would have said was out of line. The last 3 copies I saw sold went for $60, $80 and $133, and that makes $199 seem a lot less crazy, even Digit Press has adjusted the rarity of this game to a 6, which is more rare then Snatcher even though Snatcher routinely fetches $150. To make a long point short; Sega CD is full of titles that are rare but unknown and not sought after which makes finding them tough.

In the end I wound up finding all the filler and searching for the last few rare titles I need. The last two titles I acquired were Colors of Modern Rock, and ESPN NBA Hangtime. Both of these titles are listed at rarity 5 from Digit Press Online Rarity Guide, but I would say ESPN NBA Hangtime is probably more like a 6 or even a 7 as I have seen less of them than Radical Rex or The Space Adventure.

I think that many people write off Sega CD or think that its easy to complete if you just throw money at it. It was far more difficult then I anticipated, and a bit more expensive. The cases for Sega CD games are terrible, they crack and break if you look at them wrong, the discs themselves are fragile, and very easy to scratch and make unplayable. The Cardboard Box titles are usually trashed, finding a mint copy of even the common titles is a feat. Rarity scales will never reflect the difficulty of finding nice Cardboard Box titles. The Sega CD also has a dearth of variants for such a small library.

The list of every Sega CD game and all of its Variants and Misc stuff can be found here, it is by far the best list I know of. The best part of this list is that we actively work on it to ensure its accuracy and add any new found oddities or variants. The list also has a few pictures that will be a boon to any collector.

Full Link http://www.segaage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=42&threadid=43034

I am really thrilled to have finished this set, I had help from a few friends and forums members, I am now just a few variants away from completing my variant set.

Thank you for Reading/Watching, my next post will feature websites and tools I use to help me collect and organize. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask.

~Johnny~