Painful finds

[Oobgarm]

I have no idea where I got this game. It turned up in a stack of disc-only games I'd squirreled away some time ago. I was excited when I saw the title, then I noted the both the small nick and huge gash on the data side which renders it totally useless.

http://www.dustincarter.com/dp/silverload.jpg

Yet I cannot bring myself to throw the disc away.

I'd like to find a way to blame Vic Tokai for this, the bastard.

Anyone else have similar stories of anguish?

[Gameguy]

I have a copy of Star Trek 25th Anniversary on CD-ROM, only there's a chunk of the top layer missing in a spot. I kept it too, it's still in the case with inserts.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I have a copy of Star Trek 25th Anniversary on CD-ROM, only there's a chunk of the top layer missing in a spot. I kept it too, it's still in the case with inserts.

... What, really? Well, would you like my copy of it? I should still have it somewhere. :)

[wingzrow]

I saw a collection of boxes snes games get destroyed by rain in front of me at a flea market once.

[Gameguy]

... What, really? Well, would you like my copy of it? I should still have it somewhere. :)
Thanks for the offer but I'm not really into Star Trek games that much, I got it for free with a handful of other CD-ROM games. Honestly I'm not sure why I'm keeping the disc, I tend to keep a lot of junk.

Still thanks for offering. :)

[allyourblood]

I've bought two Amiga CD32 systems over the years. Neither has the power supply. :(

I'll cobble together my own someday, but what a pain.

[eskobar]

Last week i found a Little Samson cart for 2 usd ..... I obviously bought it, but when i came home to test it, Dragon Warrior 1 booted Up !!!!!!!!!!!! :puppydogeyes:


god damn it !!!!!!!!!!

[Tupin]

I've bought two Amiga CD32 systems over the years. Neither has the power supply. :(

I'll cobble together my own someday, but what a pain.

It can use a standard PC power supply along with this cable: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=901

If you want to get rid of one of your extras, PM me. ;)

[allyourblood]

It can use a standard PC power supply along with this cable: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=901

If you want to get rid of one of your extras, PM me. ;)

Yeah, that's what I meant by "cobble"... make my own. I'll get around to it... eventually.

[gum_drops]

Last week i found a Little Samson cart for 2 usd ..... I obviously bought it, but when i came home to test it, Dragon Warrior 1 booted Up !!!!!!!!!!!! :puppydogeyes:


god damn it !!!!!!!!!!

LOL, ouch that one is painful.

[allyourblood]

The first time I found Secret of Mana in the wild, I was elated. Brought it home, fired it up and was met with the title screen from 3 Ninjas Kick Back. That's still a running joke between my friend and I; something bad will happen unexpectedly and we'll yell, "3 Ninjas Kick Back!!"

[saferkefka]

The first time I found Secret of Mana in the wild, I was elated. Brought it home, fired it up and was met with the title screen from 3 Ninjas Kick Back. That's still a running joke between my friend and I; something bad will happen unexpectedly and we'll yell, "3 Ninjas Kick Back!!"

I have a similar story, except my copy of SoM was actually Yoshi's Safari. :oops:

[SEGA_Queen]

Oh yeah, I've got one.

I was looking through a stack of CDs in a thrift store, and I found Suikoden II among them. My excitement turned to anger when I opened the case and discovered someone had stolen the disc. And the worst part was that the game was only $4.00!

[Steve W]

Oh yeah, I've got one.

I was looking through a stack of CDs in a thrift store, and I found Suikoden II among them. My excitement turned to anger when I opened the case and discovered someone had stolen the disc. And the worst part was that the game was only $4.00!

That pisses me off to no f-cking end when that happens to me. It'll happen to pretty much any non-sports disc based title left in thrifts. I've passed on a game or two in a thrift because it was too badly scratched, and the next week or two on my next visit the disc has been stolen out of the case. And really, how many of the savages that shop here have a Saturn console laying around? They're just stealing because they weren't raised properly. Can't they understand that the store is to support a charity? Why can't they control themselves and not compulsively steal? That's why they should kill the occasional shoplifter and mount them on a wooden pike in front of the store, Vlad The Impaler-style. That'll learn 'em. :vamp:

[mobiusclimber]

Between the Bonk 3 cd w/ the light shining thru the disc in one spot, to the CD-i with no power supply (and one of the ones that takes a proprietary power supply), to the copy of Legend of Mana that was resurfaced so poorly it doesn't boot up at all, to all of the boxed NES games I've found at Value Village sporting a huge price sticker totally ruining the box itself, I'd say I've had plenty of painful finds. But then I think about finding Shantae CIB for $15 and I just smile and go on with my life.

[BetaWolf47]

A factory sealed Battle of Olympus for NES. It's in amazing shape, other than a spot where some old couple tried to tear a retail sticker off. The plastic wrap is stretched badly right there on an otherwise really minty game.

Also, Nintendo World Cup. The one game that can make the heart of any newbie game collector skip a beat. Yes, the soccer game that's only worth a few small dollars.

[mb7241]

The first time I found Secret of Mana in the wild, I was elated. Brought it home, fired it up and was met with the title screen from 3 Ninjas Kick Back. That's still a running joke between my friend and I; something bad will happen unexpectedly and we'll yell, "3 Ninjas Kick Back!!"

Heh...while not what you were expecting, 3 Ninjas Kick Back is actually a fair bit rarer :P .

From a certain website, I bought a strategy guide for Dragon Warrior IV (NES) once...got it in, and the map was still there, albeit raggedly torn and separated, with about 1/3 of the map still attached to the back of the book :/ ... Can't complain too much, though...only cost me $12.xx.

[The 1 2 P]

Oh yeah, I've got one.

I was looking through a stack of CDs in a thrift store, and I found Suikoden II among them. My excitement turned to anger when I opened the case and discovered someone had stolen the disc. And the worst part was that the game was only $4.00!

I remember when you originally told that story accompanied with the picture of the case in the finds thread. That has also happened to me at a Goodwill with Sonic Adventure 2(no disc) and at a yard sale with Power Stone 2(Crazy Taxi disc).

For my painful find, I have a rare original Xbox trailer demo disc that I picked up in a lot of Xbox demos. It's the only one I've ever seen and I was anxious to see what was on it. Unfortunately it has a big ass crack on the data side. The funny thing is that it still plays but only to a certain point. So I'm not even sure how many trailers are on it. I wish it were just scratches because I could have atleast repaired those but theres nothing I can really do about that crack in it.

[Xexyz]

This reminds me that 2 weeks ago I saw a black label Symphony of the Night at the flea market. Guess what was inside the jewel case? Yeah, nothing... I'm with the Vlad the Impaler idea someone else mentioned, just expand on it to include flea markets as well.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I once found a Saturn dev system with a bunch of cables attached. I didn't pick it up. Five minutes later after I decided to do so, it was gone.

[allyourblood]

I once found a Saturn dev system with a bunch of cables attached. I didn't pick it up. Five minutes later after I decided to do so, it was gone.

*smack*

[Kitsune Sniper]

*smack*

OW! *bites*

This was BEFORE I knew what that stuff was! I thought it was a Frankensteined system!

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

My main "painful find" came when I thought that I had a "super find". I was at Goodwill and saw some Saturn games. Of course I had most of them already, but something told me to check them out anyway. In the case that was labeled for World Series Baseball was the disc for Dragon Force. SCORE!! Then I looked closer and the disc has a crack starting at the hub aand working its way out a little bit into the data area. Of course I bought it anyway.

JY

[Big Papa Husker]

About 5 years ago I passed on a complete in box NES Rob Deluxe set for $80. Whoops.. :(

[mobiusclimber]

I found Darkstalkers 3 disc only for $4 at Goodwill. Tried to take it out of the case to see if the disc was scratched up and... I cracked it in half. XD

[hamburglar]

A while back I contacted a seller about some TG-16 games in a local newspaper ad, when I got there he also had a Turbo Duo that looked like someone had stepped on, part of the casing was gone, I believe he gave it to me, also threw in a few games, eventually I got the Duo working and kept it as a parts system.

He also had some extra Hucards, Bonk 3 and Rainbow Islands, they both did not work, I don't know how they took care of their gaming gear... I still have both games, feel bad about throwing them out.

[Famidrive-16]

I have a copy of Pieces for SNES that doesn't load at all, no matter how many times I've cleaned it.

Getting an NGPC and finding out afterwards it didn't have a battery cover or an internal battery was also a huge kick in the balls.

[BetaWolf47]

I have a copy of Pieces for SNES that doesn't load at all, no matter how many times I've cleaned it.

Getting an NGPC and finding out afterwards it didn't have a battery cover or an internal battery was also a huge kick in the balls.

It just uses a CR2032 or CR2016 as the internal battery. Not that hard to find, or replace. Shame about the cover though.

I hate getting non-working games. Although scarce, I've gotten about 3 dead games, one of them being Bust-A-Move for SNES.

[Nz17]

Two that I can think of at the moment:

A copy of Grandia (PlayStation) that was complete and in nice condition but turned out to have damage to the discs. I was warned by a guy and his friends (who must have sold the game to the pawn shop or returned it as defective to there) that the disc had damage and I should not buy it, but I figured it was just scratches or dirt on the surface which could be cleaned or treated. And when I cleaned it and tried the game in my console, it worked just fine. To my eventual dismay, I found that there were scratches which caused some audio to skip and were unrepairable. My sister who was playing the game at the time did not like this flaw but as all the dialog had subtitles she was able to continue playing. That is, until there were cut-scenes which skipped so much that the game was unable to proceed. And then I found on Disc 1 there was actual top-layer damage to the data layer of the disc with thin patches missing, preventing anything from being read from them due to data loss. Ironically Disc 2 was as clean and flawless as a new mirror - must have been owned by a player who never made it to the second half of the game. A few years later I bought another copy of the game, this time in mint-condition, because Grandia is so charming.

My other story is a similar setup at the same pawn shop... thinking about it, I guess the moral is don't shop at places like Jiffy Pawn. LOL I went there and saw a PlayStation 2 for sale at a much lower than normal price, somewhere around a 50% discount. I noticed a sign next to it saying it couldn't read DVDs. I figured that it was just the manager or owner of the store didn't know how or was unable to clean or recalibrate the LASER inside the console or that it could read certain DVDs but not others. However as it turned out, the DVD portion of the PS2 LASER was defective and could not be coaxed into working. Thus I own a PS2 which can only read CDs, and trust me when I say there are precious few CD-based PS2 games in North America.

[Xtincthed]

auch, the amount of times I've found rare PS1 games at flea markets with discs missing, or everything but the disc missing still haunt me..

why are Fifa '99 and Need for Speed always complete and are the good games missing stuff!?

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

Another painful find for me came when I saw a plastic bag at a flea market with a Model 2 Genesis and some games. One box that I saw was Castlevania Bloodlines. I opened the bag and looked in the case. Yep, cart and manual. Asked the guy if he would sell the game by iteself and he replied $10 for the whole bag. I figured that was still a good deal so I bought it. Once I got home and got ready to test everything out, I realized that I hadn't checked the game as close as I thought. The Castlevania box had the manual, but the cart was from some other game. :-(

One other thing about that sale was that the bag this stuff was in was one of those clear plastic zippered bags that comforters and stuff like that come in. Since then, I have seen a couple other people also selling Genesis systems and games in plastic bags like that. Is that a common storage thing?

JY

[Famidrive-16]

It just uses a CR2032 or CR2016 as the internal battery. Not that hard to find, or replace. Shame about the cover though.



Yeah, I did get the internal battery replaced a while back (twice even because the first one I put in died pretty quick for some reason)

Having no cover's the worst though, ended up having to cover them with paper and tape

[Snesguy666]

rang up a games store to buy 2 copies of daze before Christmas for the sega mega drive,
but someone had already bought them :(

at another store i asked if they had wall defender for the atari 2600, they did i was exited however the game was the PAL H.E.S. release with a pik lable and white writing, i bought it anyway great game.

great escape bomb atari 2600, got it in the mail to find it was a dead cart and the pal vers. atari 2600.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Bomb games are a lot of fun but they must have built them like crap because they seem to be dead pretty often. Shame too since they're so rare!

The biggest disappointment that I've had in a while was when I was in a Goodwill and saw this NES Bo Jackson Baseball in one of those clear plastic game cases. It was a lot heavier than other carts and was missing its screws ans was rubberbanded together. I left it there a few times but then I realized that I should buy it thinking it was a prototype. The board was definitely bigger than most other nes games. When I got home to try it, it turned out to only be a 76 in 1 bootleg game. Man was I disappointed to say the least.

[SEgamer]

Oh yeah, I've got one.

I was looking through a stack of CDs in a thrift store, and I found Suikoden II among them. My excitement turned to anger when I opened the case and discovered someone had stolen the disc. And the worst part was that the game was only $4.00!

Did you ask the owners/cashier if they keep them behind the desk? The local Goodwills do that now and I nearly missed out on a few good games thinking they were stolen.

Same happened to me with a Beyond Good and Evil game for the GC. I didn't even think to look in the case until I got home... one of those stupid moments for me :frustrated:

Another one was finding Valkyrie Profile for $5. Problem was that the first disc had what looked to be acid dropped on it while it was spinning. Looks like a few little comets going around the disc. It's too bad to get it resurfaced, so the only thing I can think of is using 3000 grit sandpaper to get the disc surface level and then get it buffed at the local video store.


Yeah, I did get the internal battery replaced a while back (twice even because the first one I put in died pretty quick for some reason)

Having no cover's the worst though, ended up having to cover them with paper and tape

I fixed an Earthbound cart by taking the game ROM out of it and put it in a Madden 96 board. Not sure if you're experienced with soldering, but wouldn't hurt to find a sports game to do the transplant.

[mobiusclimber]

I forgot about one of the worst finds I've had. Saw a beat up box at Goodwill: NES Miracle Piano. I open it up and the piano inside is disassembled with all the keys loose and everything. I realized from looking it over that something had burnt out (I could smell it actually) and the person took it apart to try to fix it but obviously couldn't. BTW, Goodwill wanted $15! ROFL I passed.

[ugly_monster]

I found an old video store here in town selling factory sealed NES games. The guy said after I spent more money there he would take me to the back room where he had about 600 more. 600. After 2 weeks of spending $100 (he only had about 20 different games up front and I kept buying the same ones) he closed.

600 factory sealed NES games. He wanted $20 each and wouldn't take less. Everytime I drive by the store I want to cry.

[SEGA_Queen]

Did you ask the owners/cashier if they keep them behind the desk? The local Goodwills do that now and I nearly missed out on a few good games thinking they were stolen.

This was a independent thrift store that kept all the discs in the original cases. The cashier actually told me that people had been stealing game discs and leaving the cases behind. She did give me the empty case for free though.

[Gameguy]

Same happened to me with a Beyond Good and Evil game for the GC. I didn't even think to look in the case until I got home... one of those stupid moments for me :frustrated:
You've reminded me of another one that happened to me. I came across a compete copy of Alien 3 for the Genesis at the flea market, I opened the case to check that everything was there(everything was) and bought it for $2. When I got home I took the game out of the case, and on the back of the cart was a label with the word "defective" written on it :grrr:. Of course the game didn't work, luckily I was able to return it the next time I went to the Flea Market. Strangely most copies I've come across of this game were also defective, the last one I got was a couple of weeks ago and it's dead.

Another time I went to a thrift store and there was a copy of King's Quest Collection in the display case. I looked through the box and the disc wasn't there, I asked about it and apparently it was stolen....even though the box was kept in the display case. I don't get how that could have happened unless the employees were really incompetent.

[Smashed Brother]

Back in '05, I bought a CIB Ogre Battle 64 from EB games. I actually brought it home and let it sit for a couple of months before deciding to give it a shot. So one day I put it in the N64 and turn it on, and WCW Nitro pops up on the screen! Of all the shitty games to swap cartridge cases with...

Anyways, my buddy worked at that EB and when I told him about it, he managed to find another cart only copy of the game, so I was able to swap it out free of charge. Of course I kept the box and manual :)