A Sad Collectors story and food for though.

[gurpswoo1]

The floods in Austrailia are truely awful, even more so was the loss of belonging of a Retro game collector. I will ofcourse admit that physical objects can no way be compared to the loss of lives in the disaster, it's still a sad story.

Vintage Gaming Collection Washed Away In Aussie Floods
Over the past week, large areas of Australia's eastern seaboard have been ravaged by floods. Billions of dollars worth of damage has been done, and sitting quietly amidst that tally is this man's retro gaming hardware collection.

Aussie collector NFG's house in Queensland was among those affected, flood waters getting into his home and destroying many of his personal belongings. Among those belongings was an amazing collection of retro gaming hardware, once a glittering array of the medium's past, now a worthless pile of mud-soaked plastic and chipboards (and rare Nintendo hanafuda cards).

PC-Engines, old Sega consoles, Neo Geos, Spectrums, FM Town Martys, old Nintendo Game & Watch handhelds...all gone. You can check out the damage in the gallery below.

The floods so far have cost twenty lives, with grave fears for dozens more still reported missing. To give you an idea of the scale of the disaster, late last week the total area of the state of Queensland lying underwater was larger than that of Germany and France put together.

[Gallery @ NFG]

Check out the full story and pictures from Kotaku


This does bring up a big and important question, home insurance policies do not cover our games and items, in fact any collectable goods require special insurance. The maximum cover would be the retail price of new games and not the value of goods on ebay. Older games would be considered nothing.

It doesn't have to be a natural disaster, it could be fire or theft.

So has anyone considered this and taken any precautions, some of us have items worth in the thousands region.

[Mandingo]

Aw man, that sucks, but at least the guy ended up unharmed.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

It's something I have been researching for a number of years, only to be told the same as you - Collectible items have to have special insurance and aren't covered under standard home insurance

The thing is, especially for the likes of me and you, many of our collectible games are still in sealed condition. Now a lot of these are worth much more than their original RRP now, especially some older games like SNES or N64 etc, but like you say, where the insurance company is concerned these are worth peanuts, despite the fact that some can be worth hundreds of Pounds!

Newer games can be insured under an old for new policy, where they will pay out the cost to purchase a new copy of a game currently available. Unfortunately, it's impossible trying to get through to these people that sealed retro games are technically still brand new, and the cost of replacing them with a like for like item is much more than what they believe - That's even if you COULD find another in the same condition! I can safely say that a vast majority of my sealed games are possibly one of a kind and the last surviving sealed copy, so these would be irreplaceable


I would really want an itemised insurance policy, where each item is given an estimated value, and I pay a percentage of that for insurance. Even if you only insured a select minority of your collection, say items over £50, then that would at least be a little peace of mind that your rarer and more valuable games are insured for what they are worth, rather than the pittance that some copy of Shrek 2 for GameCube is worth...

Obviously if I have twenty or so sealed N64 games which are each worth over £100 each, i'd be keen to insure them for the price that it would cost me to replace them in the same condition, rather than the cost of a cart only copy on eBay!

I personally believe that these sort of things should be insured for their current market resale value. Eg, I know that a sealed copy of Paper Mario for the N64 is worth between £400-£600, so therefore i'd want to insure it for that much in the same way that you would a family heirloom or antique. Why should a collectible video game be any different? If you had a painting or vase or other trinket lying around the house which was worth that much, you'd be keen to add it to the home insurance, so why not your collection? The condition, age, and availability of certain things is sometimes what makes them valuable, be it an antique, work of art, vintage teapot, or a retro video game kept in pristne condition


If a fire or flood ravished my home, I would lose more than my collection. I would lose my investment for the future, but not only that, I would have lost ten years of my life which I spent collecting these things, not to mention the money I had spent.

I can completely sympathise with the Australian guy who had his entire collection wasted by the recent floods. I can personally say that I would not have the courage to sift through my destroyed belongings and see the devestation, and it would honestly break me more than anything! It would be heart wrenching, so I think this guy has a lot of guts to do what he's done and to sort through the wreckage and post pictures of it up on the internet! I hope he gets some kind of compensation for his efforts, as he was just a normal guy like you or I who was happy collecting and had it all taken away from him through no fault of his own!

[Mandingo]

I have an idea: let's put our collections in one giant jiffy bag. Hey, some companies out there find it to be adequate protection, so we should too!

[gurpswoo1]

I have an idea: let's put our collections in one giant jiffy bag. Hey, some companies out there find it to be adequate protection, so we should too!

Play.com strikes again.

My collection isn't in the same league as twisted but I'm still concerned about what I would get in a claim.

I have been told by the insurance company that I need to mark the items that are high value in order to able to make a claim.

They will not be covered by the normal claim process if not mention seperately. However I get games all the time and constantly updated the list at the insurance company will likely increase the premium to sky high levels.

Has anyone tried specialist collector's insurance? Like the the ones for Stamps and Toy figures which there is already a large market for.

[Mandingo]

Originally Posted by gurpswoo1

However I get games all the time and constantly updated the list at the insurance company will likely increase the premium to sky high levels.

Good point, and I think Gemini Phoenix was correct in saying that it's probably best to select and itemize what's most valuable in our collections:

Originally Posted by Gemini-Phoenix

-Even if you only insured a select minority of your collection, say items over £50, then that would at least be a little peace of mind that your rarer and more valuable games are insured for what they are worth, rather than the pittance that some copy of Shrek 2 for GameCube is worth...

[twistedsymphony]

That article is heartbreaking... this is a really good discussion though.

I consider my collection to be fairly small potatoes .... at least in terms of what would happen in a disaster I think there are other more valuable items I'd be more concerned about.

My car is heavily modified and I have special insurance on it to reflect those modifications, obviously my premium is higher as a result...

---------------

I know most of you aren't in the US but a quick Google search turned this up:
http://www.collectinsure.com/

[gurpswoo1]

I know most of you aren't in the US but a quick Google search turned this up:
http://www.collectinsure.com/
__________________

interesting, I just use the quotation system for a $10,000 value and fire and theft protection. Total premium is $61 a year. That's not bad.

know to find one in the uk.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

Originally Posted by gurpswoo1

I have been told by the insurance company that I need to mark the items that are high value in order to able to make a claim.

They will not be covered by the normal claim process if not mention seperately. However I get games all the time and constantly updated the list at the insurance company will likely increase the premium to sky high levels.

That's all well and good for the small time collector, or for someone who only has a few dozen VGA graded games, but for someone like myself it is near impossible! I have at least 200 games in my collection which are worth £100+ with a good quarter to a third of my collection worth over £50 (At least!) - How do they expect me to mark each and every high value item? It becomes a chore in itself!

Has anyone tried specialist collector's insurance? Like the the ones for Stamps and Toy figures which there is already a large market for.

Is there such a thing? If so, then I would definitely consider it. After all, if such insurance exists for stamps and toys (Star Wars mint on their card I presume?), then there's no reason why it shouldn't also apply to games

I wonder - How do you insure a collection of stamps? Obviously if they burn in a fire, does the insurance company pay for you to obtain them all over again? Would you have to list each and every stamp you owned?

[twistedsymphony]

Originally Posted by Gemini-Phoenix

Is there such a thing? If so, then I would definitely consider it. After all, if such insurance exists for stamps and toys (Star Wars mint on their card I presume?), then there's no reason why it shouldn't also apply to games

I wonder - How do you insure a collection of stamps? Obviously if they burn in a fire, does the insurance company pay for you to obtain them all over again? Would you have to list each and every stamp you owned?

check the link I posted a few posts up... it's a US based collector's insurance and they even help you value your collection.

Originally Posted by gurpswoo1

interesting, I just use the quotation system for a $10,000 value and fire and theft protection. Total premium is $61 a year. That's not bad.

know to find one in the uk.

I would contact them anyway... it's possible that since it's a non-standard type insurance they might be able to insure in other countries, or they might know of a similar business in the UK that they could refer you to.