Collecting Lucasarts games

I’d love to have all those big box adventure games, but on eBay they’re like at least $100 on average each if they are in a more or less decent and complete state.

Since I only have Zak, CMI , GF and EMI for the moment, collecting the rest of the boxes will cost me quickly a thousand bucks, which is way more than I’d like to spend on that.

Perhaps it is best to wait another 30 years until the original nostalgic gamers start dying and nobody cares about these old game boxes anylonger?

What’s your strategy?

I doubt they are going to get any cheaper :slight_smile:

But your best bet might be to have a saved search on both craigslist and ebay that sends you an email when a new match pops up, then just wait…

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That’s why I’m still on a limb to open my shrink wrapped box of TWP. Although I am never going to sell it.

If only Fangamer made some facsimile reissues of the classics…the disks can be empty for all I care, I have all the games themselves on CD or GOG/Steam.
Although at the time, I was delighted to get the Lucasarts archives, so I could finally play these <5y old games, now 25 years later I still feel this lacking of not having the individual boxes for MI, MM and Indy.
And of course, I’m looking for the marbled C64 version for MM.

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Same as @besmaller said. Setup a search to get notifications about new items and be patient. Very patient.

I did buy some old games on eBay, and that’s exactly what I did. Be sure to include worldwide items, not just from your own country, as that will somewhat increase your chances. Set yourself a limit and stick to that, especially during auctions. After a while you’ll get an idea for how much stuff will usually go. Then you’ll be able to spot the bargains (i.e. some unsuspecting mom clearing out the attic) and might get lucky. Perhaps you might also be able to pick up two cheap but incomplete offers to combine them into one whole.

For your reference, I bought

  • Indy4 (German, PC 3,5" w/ manual, poster, flyer) for €40
  • Monkey Island 1 (German, Amiga) for €27,50
  • Ultima VII (English w/ cloth map, Fellowship medallion, manual) for €50
  • Ultima VII part two (English, paper map, manual) for €55
  • Ultima cloth map bundle (U6, U7 part 2, U8 and U9) for €47

All of the games with boxes and content in excellent condition. While biding my time (18 months to acquire all of those), I’ve seen quite a few offers go for > €100.

yeah, the amount of Lucasarts games up for sale in Belgium is exactly 0 over the last couple of years - at least when I checked. There’s a lot being traded in Germany, but they’re usually the German boxes and I want the English boxes.
Thanks for the tip to get a notification, I didn’t know you could do those.

There’s currently a MI2 (with hintbook) going for €53, but since it’s shipping from the US I’ll need to add €20 plus import duties. So around €90 in total… On the other hand, that hintbook alone is sold for €30 upwards.
There is also a MI1 (with Adventurer) for around €75 + €40 shipping/taxes
The issue is that the shipping and taxes are already almost as expensive as my budget for the item itself (around €40-€50 depending on the game)

yeah, usually the other collectors start bidding way too high way too soon.
Perhaps one fine day, they all have their collections completed :slight_smile:

Yeah, this grail diary is a real steal if your Indy3 is incomplete. But shipping is in the US only :disappointed_relieved:

I just let Indy Fate of Atlantis slip through my fingers for €15.50
because *beeping* eBay wouldn’t accept my automatic bid of €42.5

why? Because apparently you need to use a comma and not a dot for decimals

WTF?
so sad

Curse of MI bundled with Monkey Madness (MI+MI2) gone for €7.50 - excuse me €7,50- while Escape from MI went for €20,50

It is official: the world has gone t**s up

I have found patience is really key overall to finding good deals, or bidding on eBay.

I set my self an absolute top budget I’m willing to spend on any title in the collection and won’t go over it, once you wait you’ll get lucky.

I also don’t mind going for other systems as well if they are cheaper. For example I have a “Mac” DotT which I got for 30€ (My top budget was 40€)

I have seen it going for over 90€ at the moment which I think is too much

The ones that I think I may never get are:

Maniac
Zak
Labyrinth (part of me doesn’t care about this one)

They are all extortionate prices at the moment… we can only wait and hope for price drops

I have also found it’s worth trying different ebay sites, like:

Ebay . Com
Ebay . De
Ebay . Ca
Ebay . Ie

Etc… the search results often don’t show all international listings, this can help big time finding that deal you’re looking for

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indeed:
mint maniac (C64) luckily not signed or in shrink plastic or it’d be a tenfold

if you’re up to settle for a DIY replica, head over here
Unfortunately a lot of German boxes

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Cool, that´s the first version that still has the word “lust” on the back.

Hm… I hope that Ron hasn’t raised accidentally the prices by telling this anecdote… :thinking:

not accidentally. He probably still has a stock of factory wrapped boxes filled with lust. :money_mouth_face:

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After quite a few lost auctions, including some at 2AM -3AM (mint MM and Loom from the US), I just bought this MI2 (in pretty decent condition and complete) through “buy now”.
Not a real steal, but at least within my budget I set for the MI games.
I guess the scenario where you are lucky enough to be the only one to bid on a mint condition being sold unaware in an attic cleanup is less likely than MI3a ever seeing the light of day.
Plus this one being sold in the EU, I save on shipping and import taxes, but it’s the English version nonetheless (even without the ugly US Gold logo on the front!).
Plus it’s one of the top-3 game boxes I wanted to have, so yay!

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Good find. I sold all my LA boxes back in '98 at a yard sale for $5 a piece. Hindsight.

*takes Delorean to get one day early at your yard sale and offers you $6 a piece*

Of course 1998 was a year when the financial means of the main fan base was still pretty limited. And when people wanted to buy new games rather than collecting then 10-year old games for obsolete systems.

For those interested in any LA boxed game, this seller currently also has 3 X-wing/Tie-fighter boxes for €49 (German only) hereand 4 SW games (also German) for €39 Here

So… there’s this guy in Bayern, Germany selling his complete video game collection, including some (disk/manual only) LFL/LA games. So naturally I check out other objects by the same seller… only to discover he’s also selling off his Playboy and Penthouse collections.
“Die Hefte haben altersbedingte Gebrauchsspuren”
:reyes: :face_vomiting:

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That just means: He has read all interviews. Maybe.

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Of course! Years and years of detailed linguistic studies on those. That’s why the pages got so thin too. Like old parchment, they’re better handled with gloves and tweezers. Indiana Jones-style!
:cowboy_hat_face:

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Where exactly might he be?

True story I once ordered a CD from an amazon market place seller only to have someone ring on my door the next day handing it to me saying he noticed he could save himself mailing it because he was living “practically next door”. Doesn´t happen everyday something like that…

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