Items you can't even look at on Yahoo Japan Auctions

[kazuo]

I think it's a whole extra surround that bolts onto a (New) Net City cab. You could possibly just use similar (smaller?) buttons to recreate it on a custom panel.

The Naomi keyboard games use a similar expanded surround.

[thchardcore]

Anyone catch that Nastrodamus that went for like 1,600 USD on YJA recently? I was in until about 7...

[zak]

Anyone catch that Nastrodamus that went for like 1,600 USD on YJA recently? I was in until about 7...

https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/japan/en/au ... 1096092005

Plus shipping and tax!

[sven666]

Sheesh, shouldnt have sold mine so cheap, wonder who bought it...

[zak]

Sheesh, shouldnt have sold mine so cheap, wonder who bought it...

Korean version goes for a lot less

Japanese version with art and an auction by beep! Always ends at a stupid price.

It's been proven that beep shill bid too. I'm looking at you $2000 x-men!

[Grinning Cat]

Anyone catch that Nastrodamus that went for like 1,600 USD on YJA recently? I was in until about 7...

https://www.fromjapan.co.jp/japan/en/au ... 1096092005

Plus shipping and tax!

So...this is what it feels like to be rich

Looks like the art was all copied too (at least according to the description). I think Suruga actually had one for even more (maybe more like 220k?), which is also seemingly gone.

But yeah, Beep auctions literally make no sense. I mean, quite a number of things go straight up on Yahoo - but quite often, you also see them list things that have been sitting in their shop (unsold) for months. And these (without fail) always sell for massively more on Yahoo. Assuming the winning bidders are actually paying up, it makes you wonder why they don't just stick everything on Yahoo...

[pubjoe]

Absolutely right. We really can't glean too much from YHA. So suspect.

[kazuo]

But yeah, Beep auctions literally make no sense. I mean, quite a number of things go straight up on Yahoo - but quite often, you also see them list things that have been sitting in their shop (unsold) for months. And these (without fail) always sell for massively more on Yahoo. Assuming the winning bidders are actually paying up, it makes you wonder why they don't just stick everything on Yahoo...

They don't just throw everything on YAJ because then nobody would go to their store. They wouldn't have anything worth going out there for. Same reason shops like Pink Gorilla in the US don't do online sales - the larger customer pool would clean them out of anything worth buying, making the retail locations not worth visiting.

The reason why YAJ is so inflated right now is because the yen is getting killed by foreign currencies, notably USD. Lots of overseas buyers bidding through proxies up to massive amounts because their money is going further. The winning bidder appears to be a proxy, and US buyers don't pay customs/import tax provided they're not stupid enough to use private couriers for delivery.

[Grinning Cat]

They don't just throw everything on YAJ because then nobody would go to their store. They wouldn't have anything worth going out there for. Same reason shops like Pink Gorilla in the US don't do online sales - the larger customer pool would clean them out of anything worth buying, making the retail locations not worth visiting.

I'm specifically talking about their online store (perhaps I should have made that clearer). I mean, hasn't it only been in the last few years or so they've even started listing PCBs on their website? Before that, I imagine anything that went on their site would've been thrown straight on Yahoo. That said, Beep has always had a pretty big presence on Yahoo...if they were really that concerned with prioritising footfall/their physical store (à la Pink Gorilla), it's a strange strategy to list most of their more desirable PCBs on Yahoo (other than, of course, that's where they stand to make the most money - what with half the world using proxies!).

The reason why YAJ is so inflated right now is because the yen is getting killed by foreign currencies, notably USD. Lots of overseas buyers bidding through proxies up to massive amounts because their money is going further.

Totally agree that that's a (big) factor. However, it's also pretty obviously in their interest to drive up prices (with shill bidding, etc) where they can. Apart from obviously making more on the sale; they drive up the perceived value of PCBs - which will help set future shop/website prices.

Who knows...I just find some of Beep's sales really odd. They sold a Guwange (with copied art), for example, a number of months ago for even more than a 'B' condition one on Tops (which is still there now!). And Tops are known to price everything 30-40% higher than basically anyone else on Earth I think the last Guwange sold on this forum (after that auction) took a long time to move at basically half the the price...

[pubjoe]

The reason why YAJ is so inflated right now is because the yen is getting killed by foreign currencies, notably USD. Lots of overseas buyers bidding through proxies up to massive amounts because their money is going further. The winning bidder appears to be a proxy, and US buyers don't pay customs/import tax provided they're not stupid enough to use private couriers for delivery.

Good points. There are lots of factors, and big spenders. Agent vs agent often gets messy.

But there is also plenty of dodge. The last minute bid extension alone invites trouble. Like when I've been involved in a bidding war and on the fourth time of being outbid I give up. Then the higher bid disappears and I win the item anyway.

I feel that shilling agent bids is pretty standard practice and users should be wary of this. This is just one example. There are suspect completed items too.

On ebay I take completed items with a pinch of salt, on YHA it's a cellar.

[kazuo]

I'm specifically talking about their online store (perhaps I should have made that clearer). I mean, hasn't it only been in the last few years or so they've even started listing PCBs on their website? Before that, I imagine anything that went on their site would've been thrown straight on Yahoo. That said, Beep has always had a pretty big presence on Yahoo...if they were really that concerned with prioritising footfall/their physical store (à la Pink Gorilla), it's a strange strategy to list most of their more desirable PCBs on Yahoo (other than, of course, that's where they stand to make the most money - what with half the world using proxies!).

Usually it's because it has been sitting on the shelf for too long, but it's fair to assume they can just throw it to the wolves to get top dollar.

Who knows...I just find some of Beep's sales really odd. They sold a Guwange (with copied art), for example, a number of months ago for even more than a 'B' condition one on Tops (which is still there now!). And Tops are known to price everything 30-40% higher than basically anyone else on Earth I think the last Guwange sold on this forum (after that auction) took a long time to move at basically half the the price...

Some of it is shilling, some of it is people getting carried away in bid wars and driving the price up, some of it is two whales setting really high bid amounts and regretting their life choices when they see the end result. @pubjoe is definitely on the money with this point. One thing I will say though is that a lot of the bigger proxies (Buyee, FJ, etc.) basically charge nothing in fees for auctions now, so they don't really have any incentive to shill your auction prices. It's either a flat fee, or zero. My proxy doesn't charge a dime for YAJ, they only charge for Mercari orders since it needs to be done manually.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that some people have no idea that PCB shops like TOPS, etc. exist and sell online.

[pubjoe]

I feel that shilling agent bids is pretty standard practice and users should be wary of this.

I hope this didn't sound like I was implicating agents. I've never suspected FJ of shilling. It seems some sellers see agent bids and then, happy days.

[thegreathopper]

I was in Beep last week, mostly they sell retro games, Super Famicom etc - they had a few Jamma bits but mainly EXA stuff and lucky for me CPS2 Volume button replacements for a couple of quid.

[kazuo]

BEEP has an entire glass case full of PCBs against the back wall, opposite the EXA display.

[jimmerd]

Yahoo Japan seems quite trend based. Maybe one month something common like CPS2 is in vogue and the prices are outrageous, then wait a few months and everything is reasonable again. I think maybe it's down to the "new and popular' search ranking available that's based on view count as well as bids.

[sven666]

Maybe its the fact that the japanese enthusiast scene is still largely a mystery.
+20 years in the hobby and several trips to japan even and i have yet to see a single japanese member on any of the forums i frequent or any signs of a japanese forum either for that matter.

[Pete]

This guy recently posted but I'm not sure if he's from Japan or just lives there:

https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads ... kyo.26170/

[kazuo]

I am pretty sure he isn't Japanese, he just lives there (i.e., immigrant/ex-pat). There have been one or two Japanese members who recently joined A-P.

As far as why you don't see more Japanese members on English-speaking forums... well, that's why! Many Japanese don't have any conversational English skills, and the hobbyists tend to keep more to their own circles. You can kind of interact with them on Twitter somewhat using machine translation, but it is hit or miss and users are reluctant to reply to people outside of their network. It's generally related to discomfort with non-Japanese language more than anything else.

That's my experience at least.

[sven666]

Yeah that was the sentiment 20 years ago aswell.. surely the japanese enthusiasts must have some sort of resourse sharing medium, they have tons of arcades and tons of patreons, i refuse to believe theyre all walking around as complete islands..?

[buffi]

Yeah that was the sentiment 20 years ago aswell.. surely the japanese enthusiasts must have some sort of resourse sharing medium, they have tons of arcades and tons of patreons, i refuse to believe theyre all walking around as complete islands..?

My understanding is that its mostly twitter?

There's some cool blogs as well like https://pomkot.wordpress.com/ , but in general both the playing and collectors seem to hang out on twitter. Maybe theres some forums a well, I dunno.