Buddy at the game shop explained the 'schrodingers card' meme and it finally clicked

I was at Dice Dojo last Friday waiting for a Magic tournament to start and this guy Dave pulls out a binder with a card that had a big crease right through the middle. He goes 'this is either a $5 beater or a $200 misprint, you gotta grade it to know.' He called it Schrodingers card. I laughed but then he showed me two listings on eBay that looked exactly the same, one sold for $12 and one for $180, and the only difference was the grader's label. That made me realize how many of those 'is this rare?' posts I see online are actually just people hoping someone will tell them they hit gold. Have you ever had a beat up item that turned out to be worth way more than you thought?

3 comments

3 Comments

aaronclark28d ago

Bought a scratched up PS1 copy of Klonoa for $3 at a garage sale thinking it was worthless, sold it on eBay for $80 after realizing it was actually worth something. Guess my garbage picking skills are better than my card grading eye, lol.

the_avery26d ago

Ha, nice flip! But here's the thing nobody's mentioning - Klonoa is one of those games where the PAL version is actually rarer than the NTSC one in some cases. If you had a blue label or a specific pressing, that thing could've gone for way more than $80 even scratched up. I saw a beat to hell PAL copy with a cracked case go for like $150 last year just because it had the original manual still in it. Might be worth checking what region you grabbed, could've left some serious cash on the table there lol.

hugoh5528d ago

Maybe it's just me but I bet that scratched up copy cleaned up better than people think. Old PS1 discs are super forgiving if you hit them with a little toothpaste or plastic polish. I've resold a few beat up games and half the time the scratches are just in the label layer, not the data side. So you probably made way more than $80 if you had buffed it out first.