The Collector's Quest

By Johnny, Tyler, & Stephan

What's The Collector's Quest about?

Listen to the Collector's Quest Podcast! Your resource for topics on game collecting, information, news, sets, variants, etc. If you collect retro games, or any video games, give us a listen!

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LAST EPISODE

Collector's Edition 2: Funk...

01.31.2023

A primer to give the ground work on how to collect Funko Pops. Listen to the Dialogue Alley Podcast where we go into detail about Harry Potter Funko Pop collecting. https://www.dialoguealley.com/podcast

The Collector's Quest episodes:

01.31.2023 Collector's Edition 2: Funko Pop Primer in Conjunction with The Dialogue Alley Podcast A primer to give the ground work on how to collect Funko Pops. Listen to the Dialogue Alley Podcast where we go into detail about Harry Potter Funko Pop collecting. https://www.dialoguealley.com/podcast
01.23.2023 CQ 213 - Collecting Mail Order Exclusives We're talking about games and merch you could only acquire via the antiquated, arcane, annoying process of sending away for it by mail, you know like the way your grandma used to order things from magazines.
01.09.2023 CQ 212 - What Was Cool to Collect in the Mid 2000s? We're looking back at how and what COOL GUYS collected 15-20 years ago when we both started collecting. Before anyone cared about Hagane, Left Bros, and the yet-to-be-found sticker sealed Mario, everyone simply knew that unlicensed NES porn games would ...
12.24.2022 CQ 211 - What Happened and What Did We Collect in 2022? We're looking at how we did in 2022. Did we achieve goals? Did we fail with bad purchases? Did we FOMO? What happened in the market? If you don't care how we're personally doing as collectors this probably isn't the ...
12.10.2022 CQ 210 - So you want to collect... Nintendo Wii Wii wish you a Merry Christmas with a marathon length episode about perhaps the most popular, least collectible Nintendo console. Does it perhaps have more depth than you originally thought?? Or is it basically the small pile of games people ...
11.27.2022 CQ 209 - Ten SNES Games We'd Start Our Collections With In a world where collecting for disc-based consoles is more popular than ever, we're going back to basics to discuss in our opinion the ten most collectible CIB SNES games, major variants, and some other cool games besides.
11.12.2022 CQ 208 - CQ Holiday Gift Guide 2022 Check the notes below for a list of most things we discuss --> BOOKS: The JRPG Book ($50) HardcoreGaming101 Books (~$25) Game Engine Black Blook series ($35) The Making of Prince of Persia ($23) Video Game History in 64 Objects ...
11.06.2022 CQ 207 - Retro Game Collecting is Dead Oh baby that clickbait. We're talking about the tastes, preferences, and shifting demographics of the game collecting scene and perhaps how "retro game conventions" would be better titled "video game conventions". Also, unrelated, the sealed market is a dumpster fire ...
10.25.2022 CQ 206 - So You Want To Collect Halloween Games #5 Current Gen Games What a horrible night to have a curse, Tyler is ill so Johnny goes it alone and talks about modern horror / spooky games you can collect that might be collectible in the future. Do You Like FMV and Limited ...
10.11.2022 CQ 205 - Too Many Horror Movie Games from the '70s to '90s We're talking about the history of horror movie licensed games, going back to Atari's Shark Jaws in 1975, a rip off of Jaws they weren't able to actually get the legal rights to. We're also talking about Magic's crazy new ...
09.25.2022 CQ 204 - Price History is BS CQ takes on the basic laws of economic supply and demand, surely we will win this fight. People are paying too high or too low prices for some things just because Pricecharting says so. Too many collectible video games of ...
09.13.2022 CQ 203 - Collecting Games From Dead Genres No genre is truly dead, but some genres are kind of dead, at least in the modern gaming landscape. We're talking about collecting some of the earliest and most prototypical examples of games from genres like rail shooters, point and ...
09.01.2022 CQ 202 - Collecting 6 Rare Dinosaur Games That're Totally Cretaceous! We promise it's not just JP: Operation Genesis and Dino Park Tycoon. There's good stuff! Note that if the episode title no longer includes the phrase "Totally Cretaceous!", Johnny went and edited the episode title. -Tyler
08.21.2022 CQ 201 - Reconsidering the List of 677 NES Games We are going through the standard, sacred 677+91 list of US NES games and reconsidering some DOES IT COUNT situations using new constraints. Everyone get ready to delete Punch-Out!! features Mr. Dream from your lists!
08.02.2022 CQ 200 - The History of Our Collecting Goals The three of us all started as garbage men and set collectors but we're talking about how our collecting mindset and what we've chased after has changed over time.
07.20.2022 CQ 199 - We're Making Less-Bad Collecting Lists Ever the CQ topic, we're talking about organizing game list data, how hard it is to do, defining criteria, and letting your database be flexible with your changing opinions. Is it me, or is just the concept of a simple ...
07.02.2022 CQ 198 - 10 NES Games To Start Your Collection With We're talking about the ten NES games each of us would buy if we were starting over from zero and how much we would budget for them. No price limits, no compromises. We got a big insurance payout and we're ...
06.21.2022 CQ 197 - Enjoying Collecting Games More We're just talking about cutting back on mindlessly hunting auctions and opening those packages for 5 seconds of dopamine and talking about how to enjoy collecting more... without just buying endless amounts of more stuff.
06.04.2022 CQ 196 - Ranking The 8 Most Collectible Consoles Straight from the metaverse of clickable episode titles, we're ranking some of the most collectible consoles based on the quality of their libraries, price of games, value proposition, and how cool they are to collect. What's the best console to ...
05.17.2022 CQ 195 - Is "THE BUBBLE" Bursting? Time to Buy?? Guys, it's finally happening. The bubble is bursting! By that, we mean average prices across the board are at all time highs BUT there are some games that have seen significant decreases this year. We're talking about the market and ...
05.04.2022 CQ 194 - So You Want To Collect Sega CD Me and Johnny are both big Sega CD fans and collectors so we're talking about the US Sega CD set! All the fancy hardware, the most expensive and interesting games, and of course Working Designs: the expensive little pink badge ...
04.20.2022 CQ 193 - What Are The Full Set Killers? We're talking about the games the prevent people from completing their sets or even the games that prevent people from trying to collect a set to begin with. From bona fide checklist-ruiners like Stadium Events to fuzzier games in other ...
04.02.2022 CQ 192? - So... Does Anyone Want To Collect R-Zone? what.
03.29.2022 CQ 191 - Collecting Games Because You Can't Emulate Them We're talking about games that are hard to emulate, an aspect that makes something both a challenge to preserve and more valuable to physically own in your collection. It's everything from strange controls like a 720° arcade cabinet to peripherals ...
03.18.2022 CQ 190 - Twenty Types of Game Collectors We're talking about different archetypes of game collectors from investors to hoarders to plain old nostalgia gamers. Make sure to slot yourself into a single group and argue about details in the comments! I'm just kidding, we don't really have ...
03.01.2022 CQ 189 - The History (and present) of Collector's Editions We're looking back at some of the earliest games we could find that were called special editions, collector's editions, or limited editions to see when games stopped being media to deliver joy and started being junk to put on shelves. ...
02.13.2022 CQ 188 - The Worst Parts of Collecting Games Game collecting is rough. We're all quitting! Not really, but we're spending the episode talking about some of the challenges or just bad aspects of the hobby, like I don't know, how it can take over your entire life, your ...
01.30.2022 CQ 187 - The Surprising Collectability of... the Wii U? Does anyone remember the Wii U? People are out there spending $1000s for certain Wii U games. Some games have doubled in price since late 2021. SINCE LATE 2021. Since no one has talked about it in 4 years, we're ...
01.16.2022 CQ 186 - Physical Games in the Upcoming Post-Physical Media World What will game companies to try to sell us to put on shelves once console physical media truly dies? Download codes with tchotchkes, some weird NFT thing, nothing at all? We're also talking about how companies like Konami are fleecing ...
01.03.2022 CQ 185 - 2021: The Craziest Year in Game Collecting We're looking back at the year where many games doubled in price... again, continuing trends from 2020, best, worst, and shameful buys, best and worst trends, and probably more because this show is very long.
12.14.2021 Nightmare On My Shelf Nightmare On My Shelf by Johnny, Tyler, & Stephan
12.12.2021 CQ 184 - Obscure Games That Came with Presents! For the holiday season, we're talking about a bunch of games that came with pack-in toys, books, and novelties, the collectibility of these types of games on N64, and if there's a modern day equivalent to game collecting knick knacker ...
12.03.2021 CQ 183 - Anything Interesting in that Wata Pop Report? As a Hanukkah gift to the people desperate for any scrap of info from Wata games, they dropped the report of at least what sealed NES games they've graded. We're going through it to find any surprises and talking about ...
11.26.2021 CQ 182 - Collecting 10/10 Games for $10 Each For this year's Black Friday blowout we're focused on some interesting, popular, and historic complete in box games you can get for ten whole bucks! If you're only focused on the trendiest games, the best stuff may seem unaffordable so ...
11.15.2021 CQ 181 - Are the "Holy Grails" Even Worth It? We're talking about what the GRAILS are. Do people still overuse the term. Is it worth even saving up for them? Why don't we have the discipline to get them?
10.31.2021 CQ 180 - Collecting the History of Survival Horror Happy Halloween! We're talking about collecting the history of survival horror from pre-Resident Evil obscure computer games, to the game that changed the genre forever in the 2000s, to RE1 itself!
10.18.2021 CQ 179 - Collecting 13 Halloween Games for 2021 Number 7 is so spooky you might pass out!! It's our annual Halloween game collecting episode, with some of our most obscure and interesting picks yet. Have you been waiting for the first episode where we talk about a Dragon ...
10.05.2021 CQ 178 - Documenting Compulsive Collectors with Director Edward Payson We're talking with director and Sega collector Edward Payson about his upcoming film Rarity: Retro Game Collecting in The Modern Era! We're also picking 3 games we'd keep if we had to start our collections over, talking some Atari porn ...
09.19.2021 CQ 177 - Games Based on the Best Cartoon Ever Made It's Batman day! We're talking games based on Batman: The Animated Series aka The Adventures of Batman and Robin. A bunch of games with a same name that are different games, some have unappreciated collectability, and a couple games with ...
09.06.2021 CQ 176 - Finding Value in What the Market Doesn't Value We're talking about collecting the cheap stuff. There are different collecting categories and different ways of thinking you can use to find interesting games to collect that aren't some NES black box hangtab that costs $100s now. Find your own ...
08.29.2021 CQ 175 - Talking Karl Jobst's SCAM ALERT (also are pop reports an answer?) We're mostly talking about the Karl Jobst video on market manipulation and alleged fraud in the graded games market. If you haven't watched that video, go Google him and watch that first.
08.16.2021 Episode 174 - So you want to collect Turbografx-16 3 hours of collecting Hu Cards, pumping Soldier Blade, and dunking on Disney's Talespin: CQ attempts to find collecting nuance in a console where most people struggle to put together a library of less than 100 games.
08.01.2021 Episode 173 - You've completed "The Set". What now? So you finished the NES set (or... the licensed US cart only NES set minus SE). What can you do now in the hobby? We're talking things you can buy to better your set or things you can do to ...
07.18.2021 Episode 172 - Who's Buying Million Dollar Mario 64s? As very requested, we're discussing recent insane auction prices for graded games, who might've bought them and with what motivation, and talk high end market trends and how it might affect the real world game collecting market.
07.18.2021 Update: CQ is going back to an explicit rating Hi friends, quick update that the show is going back to an explicit rating and not bleeping swears. Not that CQ had the most kid-friendly language even bleeped, but this does make editing easier, is in line with other popular ...
07.10.2021 Episode 171 - Collecting the History of Mario Games In this episode we're going over the important and earliest releases, appearances, and ports of Mario games mostly from the early 80s in a new very-Tyler series called "Collecting the History of". We're talking arcades to Game & Watch to ...
06.24.2021 Episode 170 - E3 and Summer Announcements for Game Collectors We're talking about recent announcements that might interest game collectors from new Limited Run Games to the internet's mildest drama of Super Rare Games Shorts to Nintendo Special Editions to... Intellivision Amico? Someone out there is looking for an Amico ...
06.14.2021 Episode 169 - Collecting Light Gun Games (and some you can't collect) We're talking light guns from 1970s Nintendo electronic toys and arcades to Justifier variants to the PS2 Guncon set. Maybe we go on a small tangent about a certain "perfect condition" Wata game as well. Stephan back next week!
05.29.2021 Episode 168 - Six RPGs that Might Be Worth Collecting Right Now Johnny and Tyler just want to talk about some RPGs. This isn't some top 6 list or in any order, just some RPGs that either have interesting price history to talk about or otherwise might be worth talking about because ...
05.18.2021 Episode 167 - The Market is Euphoric, Should You Sell Out? With prices of many things increasing weekly, should you sell out? Should you try to sell and buy back in after "the bubble bursts"? Is there even an overall bubble? Or is it time to trade newly expensive games for ...

Older episodes

The Collector's Quest

What's The Collector's Quest about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

The Collector's Quest episodes:

Collector's Edition 2: Funko Pop Primer in Conjunction with The Dialogue Alley Podcast

CQ 213 - Collecting Mail Order Exclusives

CQ 212 - What Was Cool to Collect in the Mid 2000s?

CQ 211 - What Happened and What Did We Collect in 2022?

CQ 210 - So you want to collect... Nintendo Wii

CQ 209 - Ten SNES Games We'd Start Our Collections With

CQ 208 - CQ Holiday Gift Guide 2022

CQ 207 - Retro Game Collecting is Dead

CQ 206 - So You Want To Collect Halloween Games #5 Current Gen Games

CQ 205 - Too Many Horror Movie Games from the '70s to '90s

CQ 204 - Price History is BS

CQ 203 - Collecting Games From Dead Genres

CQ 202 - Collecting 6 Rare Dinosaur Games That're Totally Cretaceous!

CQ 201 - Reconsidering the List of 677 NES Games

CQ 200 - The History of Our Collecting Goals

CQ 199 - We're Making Less-Bad Collecting Lists

CQ 198 - 10 NES Games To Start Your Collection With

CQ 197 - Enjoying Collecting Games More

CQ 196 - Ranking The 8 Most Collectible Consoles

CQ 195 - Is "THE BUBBLE" Bursting? Time to Buy??

CQ 194 - So You Want To Collect Sega CD

CQ 193 - What Are The Full Set Killers?

CQ 192? - So... Does Anyone Want To Collect R-Zone?

CQ 191 - Collecting Games Because You Can't Emulate Them

CQ 190 - Twenty Types of Game Collectors

CQ 189 - The History (and present) of Collector's Editions

CQ 188 - The Worst Parts of Collecting Games

CQ 187 - The Surprising Collectability of... the Wii U?

CQ 186 - Physical Games in the Upcoming Post-Physical Media World

CQ 185 - 2021: The Craziest Year in Game Collecting

Nightmare On My Shelf

CQ 184 - Obscure Games That Came with Presents!

CQ 183 - Anything Interesting in that Wata Pop Report?

CQ 182 - Collecting 10/10 Games for $10 Each

CQ 181 - Are the "Holy Grails" Even Worth It?

CQ 180 - Collecting the History of Survival Horror

CQ 179 - Collecting 13 Halloween Games for 2021

CQ 178 - Documenting Compulsive Collectors with Director Edward Payson

CQ 177 - Games Based on the Best Cartoon Ever Made

CQ 176 - Finding Value in What the Market Doesn't Value

CQ 175 - Talking Karl Jobst's SCAM ALERT (also are pop reports an answer?)

Episode 174 - So you want to collect Turbografx-16

Episode 173 - You've completed "The Set". What now?

Episode 172 - Who's Buying Million Dollar Mario 64s?

Update: CQ is going back to an explicit rating

Episode 171 - Collecting the History of Mario Games

Episode 170 - E3 and Summer Announcements for Game Collectors

Episode 169 - Collecting Light Gun Games (and some you can't collect)

Episode 168 - Six RPGs that Might Be Worth Collecting Right Now

Episode 167 - The Market is Euphoric, Should You Sell Out?