Comment by opan
12 hours ago
I don't know that I'd call them rare, but secondhand prices are a bit crazy. Knowledge of how cool modded 3DSes were spread on social media and the eBay prices all shot up. It's a similar cost to a Switch 1 IIRC. The non-XL New 3DS did come to America pretty late so they aren't as common over here. I got a Japanese one originally because they weren't out over here at the time. There's also the IPS panel lottery to worry about. If yours has an IPS panel for one or both screens, it's worth a bit more.
I’ve not been able to figure out if the Japanese ones will work for me so I’m always hesitant.
Yes if you jailbreak it
It removes the region lock and you can set the system language to english. The eShop was shutdown already so that doesn’t matter
Just seconding this real quick; I bought New 3DS systems in both standard and XL sizes from Japan. It's easy enough to jailbreak/install CFW on them and get it set up so you don't have to worry about it. (Note this was well before tariffs and other import problems, so I have no idea what the market looks like and if there are any caveats to be aware of if you live in the US.)