How did everyone start their collections?

[Frankzilla]

Hey, I'm just starting to collect, and I'm curious how everyone started theirs. I'm looking to start a larger one covering as many consoles as I can, and I'm wondering, for the people that did something similar, did you focus on one system to start, or did you just start buying whatever, whenever you saw it?

[ssjlance]

My whole collection started when I was 4. At this point I had played the original Game Boy maybe twice and didn't care for it, as the screen was pretty much crap. Plus, I have bad eye sight in the first place, which didn't help me to enjoy that any more. Anyways, my dad had been a gamer since the early days of the Atari 2600 and it was near the end of the SNES's life span. He had sold his a while ago as he wanted money for something. He saw a good price at Wal-Mart for one and was about to buy it when my mom told him he didn't need that. A few days passed and he had an idea: I'll buy it for the kids and she'll probably go for that. So, I got an SNES with Donkey Kong Country. And this was the first system I ever collected for. I got a Super Mario World cartridge instead of candy at my grandparent's house on Halloween, we got Super Ceaser's Palace for my grandfather, although he had no interest in it so I ended up getting it, I spotted Zelda at a game store for $15 a little while later, and several years later I found a copy of Earthbound for $3 (which single handedly got me into RPG's, BTW). It just kept going on and on like that.

Also, at one point I had traded Super Mario All Stars to a friend for $10. Last week I was forced to attend a family reunion. We stopped by the local Goodwill and there was a copy. I expected a really high price on it, as whenever you find things like that still on the shelves, thats usually the reason its still there. And to my amazement, it was 50 cents. So I picked up the other three crap games they had (NBA Jam, Monday Night Football, and SMW (not crap really, just already have a copy) and All Stars.

[Kid Ice]

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (actually 1995 in South Jersey)

I went to a used game store looking to trade some Genesis games for other Genesis games. The store was closed, but there was a flea market behind the building. I thought maybe someone would have Genesis games they would want to trade. No one had Genesis games but this old guy had an Atari VCS and twenty cartridges or so. I thought it would be fun to play some Atari over the weekend so I traded him (under the premise that it would be easier for him to sell the Genesis games).

I played Atari all weekend and I wanted more. There were a few games I remembered from childhood that I wanted to try again, so I went to a used electronics store, which had a 7800 and about sixty VCS games for $50.

At that point I was pretty much already a collector. In later trips to that used electronics store I made two key purchases...a Vectrex and a X-rated double ender (don't even remember which one). At the time I was into newsgroups and I ended up trading the double ender for a box full of sealed 7800 games.

Now I'm collecting VCS, 7800, and Vectrex. Nice, but I'm craving something a little more up to date...I'm thinking maybe I'll check out some NES stuff at Funcoland, but instead I discover a bunch of discounted 3DO stuff. And that was IT.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

Hey, I'm just starting to collect, and I'm curious how everyone started theirs. I'm looking to start a larger one covering as many consoles as I can, and I'm wondering, for the people that did something similar, did you focus on one system to start, or did you just start buying whatever, whenever you saw it?
Stick with one or two consoles to start out with, otherwise things will get too crazy.

Personally, I never really "started a collection"...I've just accumulated stuff for various systems I've bought over the past 25 years. I have however, tended to collect for a certain system at given times and in those cases I've bought stuff for that system until I got bored with it. I'd move on to something else, but always ending going back to others.

[schnuth]

I started collecting mainly because of the Atari 2600. When I first got on this here internet (circa 1994) I was still using my trusty Commodore 64. At some point I discovered newsgroups and the comp.sys.cbm group. One time I was reading a post I noticed was cross posted with the classic gaming newsgroup, so I checked it out, and all this started. :)

I still had my 2600 at home with about 30 or 40 games. Most bought for me as gifts, but some did come from the occasional neighborhood garage sale. After visiting this group my Atari fever was reawakened and mass thrifting/garage saleing ensued. Of course when your thrifting your going to find other games and systems, and so my video game collecting started.

Those were some great days since I used to find something substantial almost every weekend it seemed. I don't have a lot of what I used to since I don't collect for everything anymore, but if it wasn't for stumbling upon that newsgroup I'd probably still be a guy with a Atari in his closet. Except now I'm a guy with around 400 Atari games in my closet. :D

Aaron

[noname11]

Back in the SNES days (93-96). I was too poor to afford an SNES or anything else, so I started buying up peoples "old games" at the local swapmeet. Many great finds later, here I am.


Glad I never got into POG or (current at the time) Baseball card collecting, however. Ha ha ha, so many friends with so many wasted allowances!

[diskoboy]

I've never really considered myself a collector. More of a pack-rat. I've been gaming since 1979, and just never had the heart to throw my stuff out.

Any of it...
Even if it's broken.

I'm don't really collect games just to have them. Besides art and drawing, video games would be my other hardcore passion.

[Cornelius]

I always loved loved loved video games growing up. Didn't matter what kind or what system. I was just too poor and/or cheap to do anything about it. We had an NES for a few years and then well after its run I gave it away. When I got married my wife had one and it sat in our basement for a couple years before I just had an itch one day and finally went and bought a p/s for it and played some of the few games she had. That was it, I was hooked. Turns out her parents also had a decent SMS and Colecovision (well, they had an ADAM) stash, so I have that stuff now.

Then I went nuts and bought everything for every system I could. I've calmed down a bit now, but fortunately made enough good deals that selling extra/unwanted stuff has paid for what I kept. I'd recommend not going crazy like that, because it is really hard to part with something, even when you buy it saying you just want to check it out or use it as trade bait.

[Sparkster]

My family had a 2600 when I was a kid. Then I eventually got an NES and SNES. Years passed...

I was looking around on craigslist for a guitar, and stumbled on good prices for some NES games. I figured it wouldn't hurt... I was bored with emulation. All of a sudden, there's more good deals on CL, and more, and more, and more, and then I found myself trying to get my hands on all the great games.

Edit: and not to mention amazing finds at garage sales.

[Steven]

January 2001. I was at a friend's house studying for a psychics exam. He had a Saturn, and gave me Bust A Move 2 and SFA 2 for free. It began the collecting/buying at an insane clip part of my gaming career

[Hwj_Chim]

I just never get rid of anything, after a few years it starts to pile up. I am more of a gamer with a ton of games Than a collector. I don't buy every game that I see just the ones that I want to play and that helps to keep costs down.

[ProgrammingAce]

January 2001. I was at a friend's house studying for a psychics exam.

0_o
...

[scooterb23]

Here's my quick story.

I grew up in a 1 console, 1 computer house.

When I wanted a NES, I had to get rid of my 2600.

When I wanted a Commodore 64, I had to get rid of my TI994A. You get the idea.

Well, when I had to get rid of my Genesis, because my sister wanted a Super Nintendo...that's kind of when I wanted to become a collector. Because I hated getting rid of that Genesis. And then I became nostalgic for all my other old systems. But we still had the 1 console, 1 computer rule.

Then, one day... I did the unthinkable, I was out on my own for the first time after getting my driver's license, and I went to a KB toy store. I bought a new Genesis. So my parents did the only thing they could. They bought me a tv for my room, and grudgingly gave their blessing for my video game hobby.

[Lemmi_Is_God]

my first system i got was a robertsportrama 8 pong system, my uncle gave it to me in 1979, then i got an atari in 82 for xmas

then when the 7800 commercials came out i pulled out my old atari 2600 to play and it didnt work, so i bought a 7800, then i jumped to the TG-16 and genesis

during this time i wasnt a collector but just a gamer, between 1994 and 1996 i would hit fleamarkets every now and then found a few pong systems a 5200 and other things i cant remember, oh yea and the CD-i i found in the garbage.
then in 1997 Funcoland opened in my area, this is where the flood gates opened, 3DO, sega cd, but mostly games from them, i started hitting the fleamarket every weekend from 1997 to 1999

took a break for 2 years to play Everquest, then i found online store and in 2002 got on ebay and went ape-shit
now i have 35 systems or so (including pong systems) and somewhere around 1600 games

also isnt there a thread like this somewhere here already?
i could have sworn ive typed a responce like this before :)

[Steven]

0_o
...


LOL! Me bad... I should lay off them drinks before I post :P

[bangtango]

I was always a gamer since the ripe age of three or four when I started out on a 2600 and moved onto a 7800 then the NES.

I don't like to call myself a collector but if I have to accept the label then it started around 1999 or 2000 when I found a Sega Saturn at a flea market. This was a system I had only read about in EGM and Game Players magazine but that was it. At the time, I just had the NES, SNES, Genesis, N64 and 2600. Oh, and stuff like Game Gear and Gameboy. The idea of owning a Saturn was so foreign to me at the time but for $25, I couldn't pass it up. Part of the appeal was that the system was commercially dead around this time and it was the first system that I obtained after it was no longer being sold in stores. Everything else I had at home was bought off the rack at Kaybee, Toys R' Us, etc. or at least purchased used (at a pawn shop) while it was still being sold commercially at retail stores, i.e. I got my first Genesis used in 1993 or so.

So basically, I wasn't going to be buying a whole lot of new Saturn games off the rack at Walmart. Since I had to work much harder to find used games for the Saturn, at pawn shops or flea markets, I gradually started finding games I'd never played before on systems I already had. What a trip it was finding Final Fight 3 for $5 at a pawn shop around that same time (99'/00') because I was a rabid fan of the original and I had never even heard of a third game in the series. It became an addiction of sorts and I've had it off and on ever since.

[qbertandernie]

yeah, saw that too...phsychics exam...

i was never allowed an NES when i was a kid. we didnt have a lot of money to spend on stuff, and $100 was a lot. i was always told 'you have an atari' so i used to play that all the time, but always wanted an NES. i used to find atari games at kmart or similar places for $2 or so, then later would find some at garage sales or from friends, but never had more than about 20. when our joysticks wore out i remember my mom buying new ones(big white ones with red bottons on top of the sticks). They were $15. At this point i was becoming an adolescent, so every good intentioned thing anyone did was crap...especially mom. i remember telling her it was stupid to spend that much on new controls for the stupid atari...nobody was going to play it anyway. even though id fire it up about once a month for three or four days at a stretch...

as time went by i realized we couldnt afford an NES and i was not going to get one, but my bro saved up the money for a SNES in 1995 or 1996, and we starting buying games with our own money. i still kept my atari, though it collected dust below the SNES, only getting used every few months for a few rounds of demon attack, dig dug or frogger. we were making about $4.00 an hour(my first job started me at $3.85, as i recall), so buying of games was slow. after a while i started hitting junk shops just looking for random not game related stuff, and bought some atari games here and there but still didnt have many. i was just a kid with an old atari who liked to play my bros SNES.

then one day in 2000, sometime early in November, i hit a goodwill and saw an NES system. $5 complete, with 30 or so games marked $1 each. this was a childhood dream, 15 years late. i figured for $35 i couldnt go wrong, so i bought it. having played at friends houses before i knew id have to blow in every game to get them to work, half the time moving the game back and forth or barely inserting it to play, so it was not unexpected.
sometime in the middle of the stack i had an epiphany. at $1 each i bet i could buy one of every title on the NES easily. cant be more than 200 or so games, and because noone in the world would actually try this, i should be able to find them all pretty easily. that moment in time is when i shifted from 'player' to 'collector'.

so i went to funcoland. i grabbed a game list, and proceeded to track down every title i could find that was $1, or the titles on the funcoland list priced $9.99 or over for up to $5. i refused to spend more than $5 on any game, regardless of the funcoland price. the local used shops in town helped immensely, supplying flintstones 2, bubble bobble 2 and big nose freaks out in the same day. at this time these titles were 'high dollar games' on the funcoland list, so i thought i had done well paying $15 for all three. but $15? damn, thats three hours pay! i needed a way to keep track of my expenditures, so i'd know what this stuff had cost me total! thats when my dad taught me about microsoft excel, and because i started early i have a record of what i have paid for nearly every item in my collection.

oh, and i discovered there were a few more than 200 titles on the system.

hitting garage sales and junk shops netted more systems(genesis, sega cd) and many games for those systems over the next few months, and i began buying everything i could find that was game related and cheap. this was the golden age, when the items i care most about now were recently out of favor with the release of the playstation, but long ago enough that they were considered by most to be valueless. before i knew it the small shelf i had was replaced with a bigger shelf, and bigger, until a whole bedroom was full. now im sitting on about 4500 games.

when i hit about 1000 i got nostalgic, and pulled the two games i knew were from my first purchased(actually from the 'sale' pile, id found nicer copies), as they have the name 'penny ybarra' written on them in magic marker and they still have the goodwill price sticker attached. Super Mario Bros 3 and Metroid. these games sit on top of my computer desk to this day, along with a few other trinkets from my travels, as a reminder of where i was then.
looking up at those games i often wonder what i would do if i ever came across penny ybarra. she was a catalyst of sorts, and i guess could be blamed in a round about way for my spending countless hours and thousands of dollars in the pursuit of more games for my collection. it was her games that started me collecting. ive had a lot of fun thus far, so i guess she should be thanked...but i sometimes wonder whered id be now if i never started collecting. sometimes i think i should sell it all and pay my mortgage down. get out of this hobby for good.

then i head across the hall to the game room. sometimes going as far as to decide what to sell first. my collection kicks a lot of ass and makes me happy, so i have no regrets about where ive ended up. but theres still 500 PS1 games to go. and 110 SNES...and 5 microvision...
maybe theyve got a fresh trade in at the junk shop up the street...i could get there before they closed if i left now...

and so it goes.

[cyberfluxor]

When I got my first job everything went into my pocket so there was plenty of spending money. Going to Game Stop (looking back at it I got raped) I began buying old game system I never played or always wanted that others had. My console count jumped to 15 in a bit over a year and would just buy games that either I knew I'd love or looked real good and cheap. Eventually I expanded into pawn shops, thrift stores and indy locations that'd save me more money and boost my selection by far.

[Frankzilla]

Nice, it's always cool to hear how people get started, keep the stories coming!

For me, I've been a gamer all my life since I was probably about 3, we always had at least one console in the house. When I was young and stupid I constantly traded in my games/systems for the newer stuff, and now I regret that. I want to start "collecting" a lot of the games I group up playing but got rid of, and some of the games I never got around to playing. I'm actually going to focus now on probably my SNES/NES/DC one of those 3 to start with, while also working on a Castlevania collection.

[bangtango]

Nice, it's always cool to hear how people get started, keep the stories coming!

For me, I've been a gamer all my life since I was probably about 3, we always had at least one console in the house. When I was young and stupid I constantly traded in my games/systems for the newer stuff, and now I regret that. I want to start "collecting" a lot of the games I group up playing but got rid of, and some of the games I never got around to playing. I'm actually going to focus now on probably my SNES/NES/DC one of those 3 to start with, while also working on a Castlevania collection.

To further answer your original question, I like to concentrate on having as many systems as possible. I'd rather have 150 games spread out among 10 systems than 1-2. With you being a new collector, I'd suggest starting off with a system like the NES, Genesis or PS1 because the games are pretty easy to find and you can usually get them for a fair price. SNES and DC are also good choices, too. Once you've been at it for awhile, then I'd look into adding other systems to your palette. Of course, it also depends on what you end up finding while you are out hunting for stuff. If you find a $10 Sega Saturn system tomorrow, then by all means grab it!

[Barbarianoutkast85]

My Collection started during the 2002-2003 school year (my senior year), I had gone to a local pawn shop and ended up buying Castlevania: Bloodlines for the Genny becuase my friend talked me into buying it. For a week or so my friend and I played Bloodlines until we beat it. Then I bought Toejam and Earl: Panic on Funkatron and we played until we beat it. Then I bought Contra: Hardcorps and I dont think we ever actually beat it. Anywho after I had bought these three Genesis games just to play at my friends house, I finally decided to buy a Genny since the one I had as a child has look been broken, because my little brother put change in it like a piggy-bank. Now five years later I'm less then 50 Genesis games away from the entire US collection! MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWEEEEEE MOTHA TRUCKA!

[FlufflePuff]

I played tons of games as a kid, but made the ill fated decision to sell off all my stuff during my freshman year of highschool. I was trying to be "cool" and games were too dorky. *sigh* I then spent a year in Japan as an exchange student and was again submerged in gaming, but returned to the states and didn't start playing much beyond PC games. Returning to college for my sophomore year, I brought a 13 inch tv with me, but I didnt realize the VCR I brought didn't work. I went to buy a new one at a pawn shop, but as I was shopping I came across a genesis with a couple of games. I made the fateful decision to buy that genesis instead of the VCR and the rest is history. By the end of sophomore year I had 5 consoles (Genesis, SNES, NES, N64, PS2). By the end of my Junior year I had 9 (GC, Sega CD, GBA, 7800). By the end of my Senior year I was at 22. I'm up to 45 consoles now with just shy of 2000 games at last count. I've slowed down purchasing as my job takes up a lot of my time, but it's given me plenty of time to get caught up on games I haven't played yet. Going to try to polish off the rest of the NES collection right after I finish off the credit cards.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[tom]

I tried to write a Lore about it, but I guess I'm not the 'writing type' anymore.
Short, my boss at work kept playing VCS (at work), and a co-worker played River Raid for hours with one plane (every extra plane he crashed on purpose).
So I went out and got a VCS with four games. This was around 84, started late, always was more into music and my own band.
After playing with my VCS for a whole night (incl. wife), we finally went to bed, and I saw coloured blobs in front of my eyes.
From then on I got hooked on VCS, and I had to collect all games available.

(It was so crazy, I even raced into town in my 1/2 hour lunch break only to purchase 3 or 4 VCS titles on CC. Had it well figured out: 10 minutes driving (very fast) to shop, 4 minutes walking to shop in mall (this incl. an extra minute trying to park the car somewhere close, usually in a 'non-parking' area), 3 minutes looking/deciding/paying, 3 minutes walking back to car, 10 minutes driving back (very fast) to work. If the train barriers were down, I was screwed).
Wow, fun times :-)

[Push Upstairs]

How did my collection start? With two games (three actually) SMB/Duck Hunt and SMB3.

If you start when you are younger and jobless, it really is a snowball effect. Two games become 4, four eventually becomes 12 and then pretty soon you are sitting at close to 30 games.

Having a job and being into older/used games makes this snowball process move quite a bit faster. 10 games suddenly becomes 40 and then you get other systems and have the process start all over again. Those "Buy 2 get 1 free" Xbox offers at Gamestop quickly tripled my Xbox collection in less than a month.

[BydoEmpire]

My family got an Inty for Christmas around '81 or so, and fell in love with gaming. A few years after that I traded a friend a bunch of pirated Apple 2 games for his Atari system, because even though I loved my Intellivision there were Atari games I wanted to play. Plus, the games were cheap (not really being aware of the crash)! Once I was a little older I started picking up games at yard sales for those two systems, even though I had an NES and SMS. I can't seem to stick with just one system. ;)

I don't know that I consider myself a collector as much as a gamer who has a hard time resisting buying consoles and games I didn't own when they were in their prime. I'm also a pack rat when it comes to video games. I've never really focussed on one system - whether they're in their prime, or whether it's collecting. Last year I ended up selling my n64, Saturn, and Colecovision collections because it was just too much. I'm finding it more rewarding to be able to spend my limited gaming money on more games for fewer consoles (although "fewer" is still 10 or so that I actively play and buy for).

[VACRMH]

Nice topic :)

I've always been a gamer, as long as I can remember. Starting on NES, then Genesis, Sega CD and SNES, and was currently on Playstation when I started collecting.

I had sold off just about everything besides my Playstation and whatever games I had at the moment (I used to trade in my games... forgive me) when I met my current girlfriend. Back then, I played here and there, but not alot like I used to. When I stopped by her house for the first time I spotted a top loader with a nice stack of games. She agreed to let me play for a little bit, unaware of the grave mistake she was about to make. Nostalgia hit, and I started to think "Well I have a job, why not buy everything I sold off?".

I then started to hit the used game stores and such, searching for the games I loved so much before, also coming across games I never had a chance to play. "Hey, I never did get to try this one....Oh! And remember that one that so and so used to own? Oh yeah! I never did try that game I saw back in Game Players when I had my SNES! Holy crap! I never got to play a turbo grafx!" You get the idea.

Flash forward about 7 years, and there's still games I want to try. I still remind my girlfriend that she started it all with the toploader (now sitting under the TV). She always likes to come back with "I knew I should have hidden it, I just had a feeling!"

[Frankzilla]

To further answer your original question, I like to concentrate on having as many systems as possible. I'd rather have 150 games spread out among 10 systems than 1-2. With you being a new collector, I'd suggest starting off with a system like the NES, Genesis or PS1 because the games are pretty easy to find and you can usually get them for a fair price. SNES and DC are also good choices, too. Once you've been at it for awhile, then I'd look into adding other systems to your palette. Of course, it also depends on what you end up finding while you are out hunting for stuff. If you find a $10 Sega Saturn system tomorrow, then by all means grab it!

Yeah, that's what I've been doing, I'm focusing on my NES and SNES to start, and if I see some sweet deals anywhere for anything (even if it's a console I don't have yet) I'm going to snag it up. I work at a Gamestop, so I have already seen a few good titles in great condition traded in that we resell for 5-6 dollars, so I've grabbed a few of those. I think the most difficult thing for me to do is going to be making my Castlevania collection, but that I will work on while I start my NES/SNES collections.

[Cyan]

I've always been a bit of a pack rat. Back when Final Fantasy III came out for the SNES in North America, the game cost something like $100 Canadian brand new. Of course, just being a teenager, I didn't have that sort of cash sitting around.

But, I did have my trusty Commodore 64. I had that thing, plus all the games, for almost ten years by that point. I actually managed to find someone who paid $100 for it, exactly the money I needed to go and buy my fresh new copy of FF3.

Since then, I've just kept all of my games where they are. Because I don't like to throw anything away, the games just sat for quite some time. After becoming a "responsible adult" (hah!) I've had more money to buy up neat things relating to Final Fantasy: soundtracks, Japanese imports, that sort of thing.

Eventually, I stumbled upon Digital Press and my collection exploded from a simple Final Fantasy fanboy collection to one spanning dozens of systems across thousands of games. Crazy stuff, I tell you.

The best part? My return on investment for the C64 vs. FF3 was pretty decent: Commodore 64's are now dirt cheap, and FF3 in all the original packaging still retains some of its value. Not bad!

-RS.