Official Nintendo Power Strategy Guide Thread

Ndolger

Ndolger

CAGiversary!
There are a few reasons for this thread:

1) To brag and show the spoils of my hard work after months of collecting

2) To help anyone else out who may be a fellow collector

3) See if I can get help completing the data on the topic (I believe it's complete, but I may be missing content); specifically I need to know if I'm missing bonus content, like posters, other inserts

For some reason, strategy guide collecting isn't very popular...which is a main reason why I decided to do it. I'm not interested in just any strategy guides though. I'm only interested in Nintendo Power ones...mainly because they ceased publication late last year. Sounds like the perfect time then, right? Well, I thought so.

I have isolated 111 specific magazines that fall under the "Nintendo Power" / Nintendo Player's Guide labels (you could argue there are at least 4 more...maybe more than I'm not accounting for). Most can be had for under $10. Others are much more rare and expensive...Earthbound anyone?

Admittedly, I'm still missing ONE guide...the 2nd most valuable one: Link's Awakening. I suppose that's a fourth reason...anyone want to sell / trade me a good copy of Link's Awakening? :) I've been waiting to try and snag a decent price for it.

Didn't know where else to make this thread, seemed like as good a place as any. Let me know if you have any questions, but on my website I have created a table that has information on: the name, avg price (according to me), extras, price I paid, and where I got it. http://www.ndolger.com/nintendo-power-official-players-guide-checklist/

Quick stats:

- Estimated fair market value: $1500

- Price I've paid so far: $800 (missing 1 guide; estimated $50)

- Number of guides: 111

- Rarest / most expensive: Earthbound (~$120+)

- Cheapest guide: Varies, but I'd have to say Battalion Wars (did anyone actually like this game?)

-There are a few guides that have variants: Yoshi's Island, Mario Kart 64, Pokemon XD, Paper Mario Thousand Year Door; different covers

Sorry, I didn't check if there's an "official" thread on this already. I'm happy to make it an "unofficial" one if need be.

Thoughts? Any other collector's out there trying to do this? Surely I can't be the only one?

 
I'm assuming you're aware but figured I'd post anyways since I only saw one on your list, there is two versions of the Twilight Princess guide. One with a shiny foil cover and one with a standard glossy cover.
 
I don't think it's published by Nintendo Power though. I believe that's from Prima. I could be mistaken.

 
No, it's the Nintendo Power one - the one I originally got at Best Buy had the foil cover, but the ones I ordered directly from Nintendo in 2008 were the standard glossy covers. Prima had three different editions (Wii, GC, Collector's), I believe.
 
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Doomstink said:
No, it's the Nintendo Power one - the one I originally got at Best Buy had the foil cover, but the ones I ordered directly from Nintendo in 2008 were the standard glossy covers. Prima had three different editions (Wii, GC, Collector's), I believe.
Click to expand...
Interesting...thanks for the tip. I'll add it as a variant!

 
Wow, nice collection. I'm surprised to see that only a few are worth a lot though (as in substantially more than MSRP). I figured they'd all spike due to NP shutting down.

I don't specifically collect any one type of guides but I do have a sizable collection (300+). I pretty much stopped collecting them though due to size/weight.

 
Finally finished my collection today! The last one I needed to get was Link's Awakening...got it on eBay for $41. Ended up spending on $27 as I had eBay credit! That's about as good as I had hoped for...hopefully the condition is as "Good" as expected.

But yes, you're right. There are only a dozen or so that are above the MSRP. Most of the guides in the open market, would only fetch a couple dollars at a used bookstore (if you want true value; take the average price and subtract $3-4; the price of shipping solo). Condition is everything though. These guides are very easily damaged and due to their nature, end up getting a lot of wear and tear. The better they are, the better you can sell them. Of course, having the "extras" in tact are paramount too.

A mint Earthbound guide will fetch over $200 pretty easily. The rest of the rare/expensive guides are: Chrono Trigger (got lucky with this one, bought a junky one, and one as part of a lot; sold the junky one...paid for the price of the good one), Link's Awakening, Super Mario RPG, any of the SNES era guides really, Conker's BFD, and Fire Emblem sell for above normal.

One of the main reasons I tried to collect these was *because* I'm a cheapass (thanks CAG!).

 
If I had a crystal ball I would have bought all those copies of Earthbound that were dirt cheap, sitting on top of shelves at Walmart decades ago.  Those big box combos would have made me so much money today lol.

I still have a lot of my NP guides around, but they're beat to hell after making the mistake of loaning them to my brother back in the day.  Pretty fun to flip through Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Earthbound, Killer Instinct, Super Metroid, etc.  So many memories. . .

 
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I was never trying to really collect Nintendo Powers but my buddy gave me his collection a while back, so I have;

Issues: 1-103 (missing 7,8,9,13, and 100)

NES Game Atlas

Mario Mania

Super NES

Game Boy

Top Secret Passwords

Chrono Trigger

Link to the Past

Final Fantasy III

Super Metroid

So I got a few of the valuable ones

But now it makes me want to complete the whole set...eventually

 
holy crap I think i have all of those by mistake, no joke. I'm sitting on a gold mine. Definitely going to be selling these come soon. last thing i need is mantle piece guides taking up space. 

 
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