Where'd most of your collection come from?

[TwinChargers]

Out of curiosity, what percentage of your collection was actually purchased, "out in the wild" instead just clicking and purchasing online? Would your collection be significantly smaller without Ebay? Did most of your rare finds come from finding them online? If not, where did you find your rare consoles or carts before you were on the internet?

[Sudo]

Almost everything I have was bought in retail stores.

[evg2000]

Not counting stuff that I bought new when it was in the stores, I would say at least 80%-90% came from thrift stores and flea markets. If it wasn't for having found most of it cheap, I would have a much smaller collection. My collection has at least 10,000 items in it so if I paid ebay prices for them, there is no way I could have this many items in my collection.

later,
Charles

[Trebuken]

My feedback is/was over 120 on ebay from maybe 2000+ transactions...I have only sold one item on ebay ever...

There was alot I could find in the wild, but it was actually cheaper on ebay.

I usually only by stuff released in the last year or so at stores unless there is a deal...

[Raedon]

The bulk of my collection is common console items sold at Flea markets right after the consoles are dropped. A good chunk of my rare carts I got at the end of a systems life. This was true of the N64 and Dreamcast. Even the worst Flea usually has some NES and SNES carts all at one price. You won't buy a SMB/DH for $3 but you will a Final Fantasy.

I've stopped seeing the real classics at Fleas though. I got all my 2600 from Fleas but I didn't see any 2600 in 2006. I miss the days of 3 2600 consoles and 300 2600 carts for $20.

[MasterJSP]

As of this post I own a modest 110 console games and 37 of them I acquired from eBay. The rest of from retail stores and family/friends.

[Kevincal]

eBay. I'm far too lazy to go thrifting unfortunately. I plop myself in my chair and buy stuff on eBay. Well, atleast I USED to. :( Now I'm poor... There really are good deals to be had on eBay though...

[Kid Ice]

1/3 bought in stores, thrifts, or yard sales, 1/3 ebay, 1/3 buying and trading w/ other collectors.

[swlovinist]

about 95 percent of my entire collection came from, flea marts, garage sales, rental stores, pawn shops, and thrift stores. Another approximate 4.5 percent came from game conventions...the harder to get stuff. I use ebay(.5 percent) as a last resort these days. Hell even common games now cost $$$ after shipping. The secret is to be patient and to collect over time....my genesis collection took 13 years to complete.

With gas being so expensive, I just do a thrift run carpooling with others and to and from work.

[Fuyukaze]

The majority of my imports came from online. The majority of my domestic stuff came from the wild. Often times the games I want that are released in the states are more expensive online then at a retail store. It's near imposible to find imports around here and when I do find them they are normaly at conventions I attend. Problem with that is they tend to be more expensive then even Ebay would cost new.

[Mayhem]

Before the mid 90s, almost everything was bought from a shop, either normal stores for my C64 games or markets/grey importers for my SNES fix. Now I directly import most of my games so now it's done almost entirely online (except for when I happen to visit the US).

[PentiumMMX]

Mostly in the wild, depending on the system

[Steve W]

I started thrifting in 2003, and that's when my collection started to explode. I've more than doubled the amount of stuff I have since then. I just wish I had started a decade or so before then, back when the Digital Press 'zine and the 2600 Connection were going on about thrift stores and how easy it was to find stuff.

I have never bought anything off eBay. I haven't ever sold anything there, other than my Myriad 6-in-1 cartridge when my car needed work. I have, in fact, only sold 4 games out of my collection in my life. Until 2003, virtually everything I own came from me buying it when the console was still on the market.

[BadChad]

For my newer consoles (PS3, 360, DS) mostly from stores like Wal Mart and Electronic Boutique.

For my NES, SNES, and Genesis, local hock shops and EBAY!!!!!(BIG TIME)

[7th lutz]

I have anywhere from 25 to 30% of my collection came from the wild. I started going to flea markets to buy games since 1989. A fair I go to has a video game selling booth since 2000.

The wild is where I got most of my 2600 and Snes collection from. I also got a good amount Genesis games from the wild also.

I got about 25 to 30% of my collection as gifts.

I got another 30% of my collection from different stores.

There only Systems I got most of games online is the lynx, Tg-16 and Sega Saturn.

I never used ebay. I got my stuff from online stores.

[NES_Rules]

100% of my collection has been purchased in the wild. A few games were purchased new either recently or years ago. But most have come from garage sales and flea markets.

[robotriot]

Mostly ebay, especially for older games and systems. There aren't many flea markets with video games around here.

[guitargary75]

90% ebay or retail stores, 10% in the wild.

[Mordan]

Out of curiosity, what percentage of your collection was actually purchased, "out in the wild" instead just clicking and purchasing online? Would your collection be significantly smaller without Ebay? Did most of your rare finds come from finding them online? If not, where did you find your rare consoles or carts before you were on the internet?

100% ebay. 3000 dollars games and 1000 dollars shipping costs.

no shop or garage sales here.

fuel costs too high. 1000 km round trip is +300 euros.

fucking OPEP

[Nebagram]

About25-30% tops is from ebay. A lot of my stuff was bought new (my collection is weighted considerably toward 6th generation with a lot of weight also coming from 5th and 7th)- maybe as high as 30% there too. Rest of it was found in the wild. Nothing pre-Mega Drive though- that was all ebay.

[EX-Soldier]

probably 65% to 70% was bought out in the wild, retro video game stores & flea markets, ebay definitely a last resort as i usually get better deals here in the buy/sell forum

[Cornelius]

I'm estimating 95% of mine has come from the wild (Craigslist/garage sales/thrifts). 4% would be from here, and 1% ebay. Might be more like 98% wild, but it is hard to say. There were a few very significant chunks that came from large CL buys.

[Tron 2.0]

For my older consoles neogeo,pce and famicom,ebay or the messages boards that i post at.

As for my current consoles most of the time just about any retailer.

Though i will say as of late for the ps2 online more for finding games for it.

[carlcarlson]

95% ebay. It's not just mindless clicking though, I buy to sell and you have to know your stuff to be able to do that and make it work for you.

[winniethepujols]

I was 18 when I got my first job -- I was a bag boy at a grocery store. Anyway, being that I lived with my parents and had very few financial obligations, virtually all of the money I made was expendable.

EB Games used to have an awesome selection of pre-owned games on their website... they also had 15% off pre-owned items, as well as free shipping. In addition to this, you could also get 10% with an "Edge Card," a card granted to members of EB Games (I think it cost $10 to join the 'club' [for lack of a better term]).

Anyway, lots of pre-owned games + some really good discounts + a steady flow of cash = game purchases on basically a weekly basis. It's kind of sad... I have ton of games I've played for probably an hour or two tops.

I never imagined having money to consistently spend on games would be such a bad thing. It kind of had a similar effect to emulation... with access to all of these games that were so readily available, it kind of tainted the whole game-playing experience, because I stopped savoring games and moved on to a new flavor-of-the-day far-too-often.

[retro junkie]

About 100% of my stuff use to be supplied from local retailers. Since just about everything that I own has now become retro, I have been buying from online stores and ebay for the last five years. At this point it is about 50 50 when it comes to my stash.

[Flack]

My collections are all a little different.

My Atari 2600 collection (~200 carts) is probably 25% stuff I owned originally back in the day, 25% garage sales, and 50% thrift stores/flea markets.

My NES collection (~200 carts) is probably 25% games I originally owned back in the day, 25% garage sales, 25% thrift/flea markets and 25% DP sales.

My Sega Genesis collection (~150 carts) is about 50% ebay lots, 40% thrift/flea markets and 10% garage sales.

My Commodore 64 collection (not including the stuff I owned back in the day) is probably 75% craigslist and 25% thrift stores. Most of my spare hardware has come from thrifts and most of my software has come from craigslist collections.

[Poofta!]

gamestop/ebay.

depends on the system.

but id say most of it came from gamestop.

[Aussie2B]

It really depends on the system for me. Some of my collections, like Virtual Boy and Neo Geo Pocket Color, are 100% online purchases, and, in turn, almost entirely from eBay. Others, like NES, consist almost entirely of brick and mortar purchases, be them thrift stores, independent game stores, or GameStop back when they still sold NES games. My collections for PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consist of a lot of major retail store purchases from when games were marked down or when I found good deals in the used sections (back when GameStop was good for that too). My PlayStation imports, on the other hand, almost all come from my boyfriend's NYC Chinatown purchases, since we've combined our collections. All together, I'd say online purchases and eBay specifically have greatly contributed to my collection, but my collection also tends to explode over the summer when I start hitting lots of thrifts. It's probably pretty 50/50. I actually can remember how I acquired just about every game in my collection, so if I wanted to, I could probably get an exact percentage, but yeah... I'm not gonna do that. :P

[murdoc rose]

About 50/50 I supose overall, that goes for my rares aswell.

[RPG_Fanatic]

Older stuff Ebay, newer stuff at Best buy, Gamestop.

[Howie6925]

Most of my games came from pawn shops, and Blockbuster also ebay.

[ScourDX]

I got most of my games from Retail store like Bestbuy, EBGames, TRU, BBV and etc. About 23% of my games I got thru Craigslist.

[modest9797]

I got most of my games from Retail store like Bestbuy, EBGames, TRU, BBV and etc. About 23% of my games I got thru Craigslist.

23% ??? That is pretty exact compared to the ussual 10, 25,50

[ScourDX]

23% ??? That is pretty exact compared to the ussual 10, 25,50

I keep track of the games I purchases from for the past 7 years. The Excel database that I developed gives me the overall summary.

[DigitalSpace]

I'd say about 90%-95% of my collection was acquired locally, with the rest coming from trades and online purchases (and on an interesting note, I have yet to purchase anything in my 1100+ collection from eBay). Most of my R6's and rarer games were found in the wild.

[Kamisama]

Mostly eBay. It's hard to find retro stuff over here :)