AES collecting back in the day

[Yagyu Jubei]

Unlike today, that was not actually the norm. Besides, up until recently collecting games as investments was a pretty fucking terrible idea. Even now, very few titles are worth more than their original SRP if you take into account inflation.

You beat me to it. I was just about to talk about value vs. pace of inflation. Dog Tag SS2 was $299 MSRP in 1994. In 2015 dollars, that's about $485. No way anyone should be paying that much today. However, some carts are far outpacing inflation, bigger than gold and other investments. Like you said, collecting AES now as an investment choice is extremely stupid (buy high to sell higher?). OG collectors from launch day have the best position to sell for a substantial profit because they got in on the ground floor in a market that has now exploded. I don't see the market crashing anytime soon and if it does and I can complete my collection for cheap, then so be it. I paid at or below fair market value for almost all of my AES carts, so I am satisfied with my collection.