Spotting a Genuine Tamagotchi

Hi All, I'm a collector who collects various items and I'm wanting to get into some tamagotchi, probably more expensive ones but I have little to no idea what I'm doing. There's one on ebay that says rare and is quite expensive. I'm wondering how not to get hosed on this? There's one article online that says it's rare but the picture of it is the exact same one that's on ebay. Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

Could you provide a picture of the one that you're looking at, please? Some models cost more than others, but at the same time some people will try to sell things for more than they're worth because they mistakenly believe that "old = rare" and that toys are investments. Not only that, but some models are more expensive now because they were unpopular during their time - sometimes due to not being as good as earlier iterations.

Moreover, some online articles about toy-collecting (often ones bearing titles along the lines of "Your Vintage XYZ Could Be Worth A Fortune Today!", and similar) are deliberately misleading due to actually being associated with pump-and-dump schemes such as those that affected collectible coins in the 1980s, and which are affecting vintage video games right now. More information can be found in this video;



It's about an hour long, but it's very informative for genuine enthusiasts who want to avoid getting ripped off and seeing their hobby gobbled up by disinterested parties who only seek to commoditise items in order to attempt to profit later. Be wary!

Apparently the file is too big can I send it to you another way? 

Adama said:

Apparently the file is too big can I send it to you another way? 

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Does it work if you use an outside image-host such as Imgur?

If there's a problem with an image hosting, maybe you could link the sale page?

Hi Heemi, there's an article that says the P1 red and white is extremely rare and it's got a picture of the item for sale on eBay, which I assume has been for sale for a long time. I just wonder where they got the info that it's extremely rare and the pricing from. 

Can you at least link the article, then? I need to know what I'm working with here.

Adama said:

there's an article that says the P1 red and white is extremely rare and it's got a picture of the item for sale on eBay, which I assume has been for sale for a long time.

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I'm instantly suspicious of any article that makes such claims (the video that I linked to before explains why in detail), especially about the Gen 1/P1 devices. This news-article from January of 1998 mentions that, at the time of publishing, over 40 million Tamagotchis had already been sold - the Tamagotchi launched at the end of 1996 in Japan, and in mid-1997 everywhere else, so, even accounting for different colourways being produced in different numbers, those early devices are by no means rare.

Expensive does not equal rare, and rare does not necessarily equal expensive. That goes double for items that sold many multiple millions.

Adama said:

I just wonder where they got the info that it's extremely rare and the pricing from. 

Click to expand...

Thin air, I would imagine. Again, the video that I linked to before explains why listings like these can happen. Though of course, sometimes it's just as simple as a seller thinking that something is worth more than it is.