I stumbled across a niche Sega Saturn title originally made for visually‑impaired players. I really liked the concept and the price was reasonable, so I purchased it. The listing showed all accessories complete. When it arrived, however, the outer game box had obvious damage. The seller explained a family member handled the shipping and suspects the damage happened during sea freight. They offered me a partial refund.
Returning the game would be bad for both of us: the seller would cover return shipping, and there is risk of further damage in transit. Also, I might not find another copy at a decent price with acceptable condition.
I’ve come up with three options and I’m wondering what this community would do in my situation:
1. Get a PET protective sleeve to safeguard the cracked original box, preventing cracks from spreading. 2. Source a second‑hand genuine original empty long‑box from another collector. I want to understand how swapping the box affects the item’s overall condition rating and scarcity value. 3. Store only the disc inside a standard CD jewel‑case, and keep all original accessories sealed in storage bags.
Even if a future buyer wouldn’t mind these issues, disclosing the full truth might lower the resale price and make it harder to sell. Still, I want to be completely honest about its condition.
I’m curious about the community collectors’ perspective. What are the pros and cons of each option for long‑term personal collection and future resale value?
I want to understand how swapping the box affects the item’s overall condition rating and scarcity value
disclosing the full truth might lower the resale price and make it harder to sell
Games are meant to be played, not hoarded like some financial asset. Play it and enjoy it, or make it look nice if you’re putting it in a display. Fuck what other people might think, enjoy it for yourself!
Yes! I’ve thrown away hundreds of cases for old games keeping only the sleeves, manuals, discs and cartridges. I buy games to play and enjoy them, not to start a museum or hoping I can sell them off and retire early. I want them to take the least space possible so I can buy more games.
Saturn is annoying though, cause the majority of the Pal games have cardboard cases glued to the disc holders, so they take up more space than most other consoles.
Unless the case is special like some of those jewel CD cases I’d just look for a aftermarket replacement you can transfer the box art to.
I wonder if anyone here cares about resale value. This community is about gaming.
Do they make replacement boxes? I regurally bin cracked jewel cases for games and music discs. Collectors don’t care about the jewel cases unless there’s something unique or special about them. Just swap the case if possible.
Over $100 I’d get a refund
Under I would look for a replacement box
In general the condition of the contents is what’s important. Case condition doesn’t really effect resale value unless its very badly abused, in which case its very common to swap it out. If it’s a special style case, like the original ps1 long boxes, if you have that style box, it doesn’t really matter if you had to swap cases. If it’s a generic jewel case, it matters very little. I think this is because the cases were generic and interchangeable from the factory, and prone to breaking anyway. If you want to be a stickler about it, maybe keep the original case with the package, but keep the game and acessories in something nicer.
Not advice on what to do exactly, but why do you say “long box”? I know many PAL and NTSC-U Saturn games came in special, long boxes, but I can’t recall ever seeing a Japanese Saturn game in anything other than quite standard CD jewel cases (special edition carboard outer boxes aside). Particularly Kaze no Regret, which is a fairly common game here (a regular jewel case copy still usually goes for under 1,000 yen, even with obi and other ephemera).
If you want to, it should be possible to pop the broken cover out of the hinge piece and replace it with the cover from almost any standard double-width CD jewel case. There are several videos on YouTube showing how to do this. Once you put in the paper insert, no-one would ever be able to tell.
I don’t have a ton of physical media, definitely nothing rare or valuable to anyone but me, but what I do own I care more about the condition of the media itself and associated artwork than I do about its packaging. From the pics you posted it looks like the plastic wrap is the resealable kind, I’d just swap the box out with a different one and put it back in the plastic wrap.
