Most Memorable find experience?

[recorderdude]

Even though I'm sure we've all exchanged our greatest finds at some point or another, this doesn't necessarily refer to absolute rarity (though it helps) or exactly what price you got it for: it's all about the experience. What find do you remember most?

For me, there's two that really stick out. Found both before I joined DP so they're not copypastas from the finds thread.

One was during a community yard sale. I was walking up to a lady who had a bunch of wet boots and old books on a table for free. Like I had done pretty much every day before, I asked if she had any video games even though I expected her to say "no". Then, something unexpected happened.

"Yeah, we have some games but my good for nothing son hasn't priced them yet. DOOOOOOOON! GET YER ASS OUT HERE YA HAVE A CUSTOMER!"

I couldn't help but chuckle inside.

Soon after, he walked outside with a box containing a few PS1 games and told me, and I quote, "you don't want these shitty old games maaaaan".

I told him I'd take a look and hoo boy, am I glad I did. Found a CiB Megman 8 and Spyro 1 in there, as well as a copy of syphon filter I knew a friend wanted.

What followed was the most hilariously pathetic haggle I've ever done in my life.

"The prices on these aren't what I want. They're marked at $4 but you can have them for $4 each".

I jokingly counteroffered him $2 for all three games I wanted total.

"Okay maaaaaaan".

...I was speechless. Paid the guy and left with a few treasures.

The other was actually an online ebay auction. A woman was selling a wii and the bids started at $100.00 with free shipping. The wii had a few things I disregarded at the time, listed one controller/nunchuk, the console, and a gamecube controller. the auction had nearly ended and I was super-tense that It'd be sniped. At that point I did the stupidest thing ever: Bid on it a bunch of times in small increments.

...The auction ended with 17 bids. All mine. I won it for $100.

Now, I thought that was a decent deal...up until I actually got the thing.

When I opened it up...not only was it in the original packaging, it was FILLED with extras.

In total, I got

A launch wii with all the cords and necessary accessories complete in box

a boxed wii component cable

a boxed wii zapper

wii sports

link's crossbow training

TWO wiimotes

TWO nunchuks

One normal nintendo gamecube controller.

...and here's the one that REALLY made me shit bricks.

http://gearmedia.ign.com/gear/image/article/682/682875/nubytech-mega-man-x-controller-20060123053246482-000.jpg

Complete in the box, with flaws but still actually there.

That controller is the rarest item in my collection of 200+ video game things.

But wait. that's not the amazing part.

I had wondered all this time why the seller started the item at such a strangely low price in the first place; obviously they knew the value to SOME extent as they mentioned that the first-gen wiis were a bit more hackable and desirable.

When I booted the wii up, I was surprised to see a shiton of legitly purchased VC games on it, so I figured it had been used quite a bit in the past. One of the first things I went on was the internet browser. Decided to check the favorites to see if YouTube was there...

and then it aaaaaaalllll made sense.

Ass porn.

Page upon page of ass porn bookmarked to the wii.

I understood now.

The kid's mom found it on his wii and, out of fury, quickly resold it on ebay without considering the timing of the auction (it ended at like 2AM which is probably part of why I actually got it) and forgetting to mention/not picturing most of the valuable shit.

I'll never forget that second one.

So...what's your most memorable experience on the hunt? Surely I can't be the only person to discover the crazier the seller, the better the deal :P

[Enmity]

So about four years back I was randomly searching Craigslist for any kind of gaming goodies I felt like picking up that day. One post caught my attention 15+ original Xbox systems for $60. The post said they it was a random box of original Xbox systems controllers and cords. Also that it had been sitting in a garage for a couple years and he wanted it gone. He was about an hour and a half from me. I figured what the hell even selling them at $15 a pop I'll make money and I get to visit the beach at the same time since he lived on the coast. I called him told him how long it would take me to get to him and not to sell it as I am on my way with cash in hand. So I call him as I am pulling into his neighborhood to let him know I am there and he says "Ohh, I didn't think you were actually coming so I told someone else to come pick them up. Luckily you got here first." I was like "yeah, lucky me..." Anyways he drags this like water heater sized box out of his garage and is like "A friend gave them to me a couple years back thinking I could do something with them. He said they were from some studio or something, I don't know man." I looked in the box and behold was 14 complete Xbox dev kit systems with the clear green shells and about four parted out ones. Also about two matching controllers for each system. I promptly paid the man and got the box into my car before this other guy decided to pull in and ruin my find lol.

I didn't go to the beach that day lol.

That is probably the one find I won't forget or beat for quite a while.

[Atarileaf]

The ones that stand out in my mind:

1994: 300 + Atari 2600 games with 6 systems for $125 including all the Mystique titles CIB. Back at that time I'd frequently come home from yardsaling with big boxes or bags of Atari systems and games for pennies on the dollar.

2002: Atari 2600 + 120 games for $10 at a yardsale

2003: Value Village had two packs of CIB Atari 2600 games for 69 cents for a bag of two, I bought about a dozen packages. Some pretty decent rarities in there IIRC

2004: Bibles for Missions thrift store had several 2600's, 7800's, and various Atari 8-bit XL and XE computers in their backroom, untested, with boxes of games and hardware for each system. Made two trips in a week and got it all for about $80. All worked really good. I remember Captain Beeble being a nice cart find for the 800XL

2009/2010: Two loose Vulture Attacks/Spider Maze/Gas Hog/Master Builder and other 2600 rarities for a buck or two each via yardsales or Kijiji

There have been others but these are the ones that stand out to me. The dates above are based on failing memory so I may be off a year or two on those. Getting old sucks.

[retroguy]

I haven't had any super amazing finds in the wild, but in the two years I've been collecting, my best Ebay score so far was a Sega Master System with 8 CIB games for about $30. It was listed as used but the description didn't do it justice. When I opened the package, it turned out everything was in pristine condition. Seriously, the guy could've sold it as brand new if it came with the box. Very cool!

[calgon]

My senior year of college I interned for a publishing company in an upscale Connecticut town. On a whim I swung by a goodwill on my lunch break and sure enough in a plastic baggie by the registers were SNES games. One of which was earthbound. $3.00 total

[SEGA_Queen]

I seem to have really good luck finding rare and/or expensive PS1 games for cheap. For example:

Tales of Destiny for $7.99 (Complete)

Valkyrie Profile for $8.99 (Complete)

The Misadventures of Tron Bonne w/ Strategy Guide for $35.00 (Missing Manual)

Tail Concerto for $10.00 (Disc Only)


I also found a copy of Conker's Bad Fur Day for $3.00, and flipped it for $60!

EDIT: I just remembered another awesome find. I picked up a complete, near mint copy of Popful Mail from a Craigslist seller for $15.00!

[FrankSerpico]

Probably Final Fantasy 2 for SNES for a buck at a yard sale back in 2000. It was cartridge only but good luck at finding it at that price today, or even anywhere else back in 2000.

[Sailorneorune]

First big gaming find - Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (CIB) $10 at Book Broker. I was 12 or 13 years old, and the Genesis was close to its end. Local game rental shops were making room for the PS1 and then-"Ultra 64", based mostly on speculation of big titles. I was very happy to get this game cheap, when most places were charging $30+ still for new Genesis games. The battery still holds my complete Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles saves, with all Chaos and Super Emeralds obtained. I have since replicated this feat on the Sonic Classic Collection DS game, and it is still hardest to do with Knuckles.

Personal best gaming find that I didn't end up getting - also Book Broker, Lunar 1 & 2 PS1 for $20 each. When I was in my first year of high school, the PS2 was coming into its own, so some PS1 owners weren't thinking their cunning plans all the way through, and decided to dump their PS1 games to get PS2 money. I had found both Lunars and wanted to buy them, but I didn't have the money... so I asked the owner to please hold them. When I went to school the next day, I told my best friend about them, and she bought them. I eventually got my own copies after starting college, and after 7 years of trying to get the Lunar 2 hardbound strategy guide for less than $60, I was finally able to snag it for $45.

Personal best gaming finds that I did end up getting - Ikaruga CIB JP Dreamcast for $35, traded for Shenmue II CIB EU Dreamcast. Both were going for twice that at the time.

DuckTales 2 NES cart only for $5 (Book Broker yet again). I had also picked up Rescue Rangers 2 NES cart only for $10 (from the Book & Music Exchange store that also mistook the first Flintstones game for the second one, and had a $40 price tag on The Search for Dino and Hoppy for at least a year). Of course, both of these games are not that inexpensive, normally... I had tried them out, and decided they weren't my thing. I traded them to someone who had helped me out before.

The many, many copies of the Phoenix Wright games I found before Gamestop started pitching cases and manuals. I miss that. :(

[snes_collector]

So about four years back I was randomly searching Craigslist for any kind of gaming goodies I felt like picking up that day. One post caught my attention 15+ original Xbox systems for $60. The post said they it was a random box of original Xbox systems controllers and cords. Also that it had been sitting in a garage for a couple years and he wanted it gone. He was about an hour and a half from me. I figured what the hell even selling them at $15 a pop I'll make money and I get to visit the beach at the same time since he lived on the coast. I called him told him how long it would take me to get to him and not to sell it as I am on my way with cash in hand. So I call him as I am pulling into his neighborhood to let him know I am there and he says "Ohh, I didn't think you were actually coming so I told someone else to come pick them up. Luckily you got here first." I was like "yeah, lucky me..." Anyways he drags this like water heater sized box out of his garage and is like "A friend gave them to me a couple years back thinking I could do something with them. He said they were from some studio or something, I don't know man." I looked in the box and behold was 14 complete Xbox dev kit systems with the clear green shells and about four parted out ones. Also about two matching controllers for each system. I promptly paid the man and got the box into my car before this other guy decided to pull in and ruin my find lol.

I didn't go to the beach that day lol.

That is probably the one find I won't forget or beat for quite a while.

That's awesome. A few of my best:

Toaster NES + Top Loading NES + few games- $20 at a flea market. The guy I bought this from apparently was selling due to his son getting in trouble. Poor guy.

Keio Flying Squadrun- $5 CIB at Goodwill- Here's one I almost missed, was at a somewhat local goodwill at saw some Sega CD games in the counter, I mostly glanced over them seeing commons like Jurassic Park, etc. and continued to look through the store. On my way out my dad goes "Are you sure you don't want any of those games" so I decided to look one more time and saw what I glanced over. Needless to say I bought it. Thanks to my dad for that one.

Aero Fighters- $25 at a Rhino Games- Was on vacation with my family and was doing a little shopping and found a Rhino games. Was so stoked to see this game on the shelves, price was about going rate at that time, but I was really happy to find it in the wild.

Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers 2- $2 or 3- Don't exactly remember because I had no idea the game was rare when I bought it. Ended up trading it to a friend for some SNES games then ended up buying it back from him when he got out of collecting.

None of these were recent, Chip & Dale was probably 4 years ago, and the others 6 or 7 at lease. I don't find many good deals in the wild any more, but I do live in a small town (where none of the above were found.) Best things I've found in the past couple years has been a CIB Mario's Tennis VB and a CIB Mega Man X4 for Saturn, which actually was in my hometown.

[jeffg]

2006: CIB Aerofighters for snes for $3.99 at Goodwill (unfortunately sold it for $200 then :( )

2007: Bought out an old video store that still had a bunch of SNES boxed stuff: Earthbound, all Final Fantasy, etc. Bought a total of 160 games for $500 total. Harvest Moon and Earthbound with boxes were the best 2 in the lot.

2008: Zelda Yellow Test cart at flea market for $2. Funny thing was I left it there one day and went back and got it the next as I wasn't sure what it was.

2009: F1 Pole Position for Gameboy Complete in box. One of the R8's. got it for $2.99. Needless to say I made a little profit on it.

2012: Myriad 6 in 1 at mom & pop thrift store for $4, stopped as my spidey sense tingled as I drove by. It closed down 2 weeks later, so talk about great timing. and then also Flintstones 2 at Game exchange here in town.

I have had lots of others but those are definitely the cream of the crop

[cyberfluxor]

I saw a posting for an arcade cabinet on Craigslist, cannot recall the posted price but it was interesting enough I wanted to meet up and see what they had. Arriving to the guy's parents house he opened the garage and it was packed with so much stuff, in the front were 6 arcades. I spotted a 4-player X-Men that was in great condition, never seen one with so few scratches or defaced artwork. We started plugging games in and 4 of the 6 worked. He stated they needed to go that weekend so whatever I wanted would be $75 each. I picked the four working machines: X-Men, Fighting Vipers, Police Trainer, and Ameridarts. He worked for a local arcade distributor and would have a truck to haul several other orders around, so I gave him the address and it was delivered free. $300 for four working arcades, not bad. X-Men is always a hit when people come over, they want to play through the game again.

On one of my old Saturday digging days a pawn shop had a stack of Atari 2600 cartridges, which I always like shuffling through. One stood out from the bunch and I had to get it. For $1 a sweet and cool Crazy Climber was mine. When posting my finds for the day on Digital Press I received a private message asking for trades. With curiosity I asked what Saturn games he would be willing to trade and ended up with three games I couldn't refuse: Power Slave, Panzer Dragoon, and Panzer Dragoon Zwei.

I decided to stop by one of the thrift stores on the way home, typically they have nothing special but every now and then it's well worth the stop. Walking by their electronics section I spotted a TurboGrafx-16 box with a $15 price tag. I had to open it and check the system was actually there, always check inside the box! Sure enough the system was there with all the hook-ups and one controller along with a few games in jewel cases with booklets: Ninja Spirit, Devil's Crush, Blazing Lazers, and Keith Courage. Then under the system I found some loose cartridges: Falcon, Final Lap Twin, and Neutropia II. Well worth the quick stop and everything tested out working.

[Steve W]

In 2003, after reading online about people having good luck at thrift stores for games but never personally having gone into one, I decided to start hitting a few Goodwills, Salvation Army stores, and various local shops. The problem was, I was coming home empty-handed each time and getting more and more discouraged. I was driving home thinking that this would be the last time I bother going thrift store hunting since nothing was happening. I ended up passing a grungy little strip mall with a real hole-in-the-wall thrift in it. The first thing I noticed when I walked in was the Rastan arcade cab for $50 (not working). I poked around the sad, dimly lit space and saw something - I realized it was a Vectrex. No controller, sadly. No price either. I took it to the counter and asked how much it was, they were confused by what exactly it was, and I told them it was an old black-and-white game console from the '70s and '80s era. They plugged it in, it fired up fine, and she said "I dunno - how about five bucks?" I held my excitement in check, put on my poker face, paid the woman, and left with my prize - a machine I had been wanting since I was a kid. I decided not to abandon the hunt, expanded my area, and started finding a lot of good stuff. It took just one good find to really get me to understand how much fun finding something great could be - like a gambler getting a full house.

[Guyra]

Ass porn.
I really hope you cleaned those controllers well! xD

[Baloo]

At a flea market a few years back my brother went to there was a table with a supposedly extreme amount of mostly boxed Genesis, Sega CD, and 32x games, all for $1 apiece. He picked up Knuckles Chaotix CIB, Wild Woody CIB, The Punisher GEN w/ box, and Spiderman: Web of Fire 32x CIB all for $1 apiece. Definitely my best find.

Also found a CIB Chrono Trigger very early on in my thrifting days for $10, sold it a few months later for $60. Oh how I wish it still only cost that much!

[VACRMH]

Fun thread! I can think of quite a few.

1.First one isn't game related, but was still a good story. My guess is this was around... 2003? 2004? Anyways, I had been trying to bid on a good set of the Outlanders manga for some time. There's books with multiple issues available, but I wanted all the comics because of the cover art. I don't know, I was being weird.

The last time I bid, I was outbid on an auction where it had just about all of them. I think there's about 30 or so issues and I bid about $60. So I found another auction a few days later with the full set and I was ready to strike. I wanted to snipe it, but I was out of town so I had a friend do it for me. We chatted while the auction ticked down...

"Ok, it's just about over"
"How much is it at?"
"$5"
"Bid $75!"
"Done."
"What's it at?"
"$5.50...and it ended."
"At how much?"
"$5.50."

Not sure why it went for so cheap. But I was sure happy :D

2. I want to say this one was around 2006. I was visiting a friend at a Toys R Us and browsing the games, when I saw that they had some copies of Digitial Devil Saga on the shelf behind the counter. I asked him to check the price and they were $10 each! (And this is before the GQD reprint, so they were the boxset with soundtrack and space to put DDS2.) I said I'd take all 3, which he responded with "But there's only one of you." lol

I sold one for about $70, and another for $200 O.o Still have the last one. Bought alot of games with that money.

3. Probably 2004 was when this happened. I was working at a Gamestop and a customer came in to trade in some Playstation games. He wanted cash, we didn't give cash, but I did want the games. Problem is, I only had my check book on me and no cash. But for some reason, he let me pay him with a check for the games. My manager said to step outside and do the sale, so for $36 I bought, all 100% complete... Persona 2, Tales of Destiny 2, and Thousand Arms.

It was a damn good day :D

[Esquire Fox]

There is a pawn shop in my area that used to get a lot of older games. It is run by an older gentleman who speaks in mumbles, but is generally a friendly and funny guy. I went down to that shop a couple of years ago on a routine check for worthwhile games.

I found a few things and brought them up to the counter. The owner comes up to me and gives me a fair price for them (generally $2 ea for anything old). Before I can pay, he asks me if I am interested in old "Nintendos". He says he has a bunch of them in the back. So we head back there and man, he wasn't kidding. There were walls lined with Nintendo 64, SNES, and NES systems. He also had a ton of Sega Genesis and Dreamcast consoles. I notice a lot of funtastic Nintendo 64s, some mini SNES consoles and even a Top-loader NES. When I ask him what he wants for them, he paused and started mumbling to himself (something he does often). "Tell you what. If you take all of these out of here, you can have them for $1 a piece. I want to get rid of them." Before I knew it, I was making multiple round trips to the pawn shop to fill my car up with consoles.

I had bought around:

100 - Nintendo 64
80 - Sega Genesis
20 - Dreamcast
20 - SNES
15 - NES

I still have a picture from one of the trips:

6279

I proceeded to clean, test, and sell each of the consoles. It funded my collecting for the rest of the year.

[retroguy]

Wow! :o Did you keep the top loader for yourself? I would. Even if you already had one, that's a case where I wouldn't mind having a spare.

[Atarileaf]

There is a pawn shop in my area that used to get a lot of older games. It is run by an older gentleman who speaks in mumbles, but is generally a friendly and funny guy. I went down to that shop a couple of years ago on a routine check for worthwhile games.

I found a few things and brought them up to the counter. The owner comes up to me and gives me a fair price for them (generally $2 ea for anything old). Before I can pay, he asks me if I am interested in old "Nintendos". He says he has a bunch of them in the back. So we head back there and man, he wasn't kidding. There were walls lined with Nintendo 64, SNES, and NES systems. He also had a ton of Sega Genesis and Dreamcast consoles. I notice a lot of funtastic Nintendo 64s, some mini SNES consoles and even a Top-loader NES. When I ask him what he wants for them, he paused and started mumbling to himself (something he does often). "Tell you what. If you take all of these out of here, you can have them for $1 a piece. I want to get rid of them." Before I knew it, I was making multiple round trips to the pawn shop to fill my car up with consoles.

I had bought around:

100 - Nintendo 64
80 - Sega Genesis
20 - Dreamcast
20 - SNES
15 - NES

I still have a picture from one of the trips:

6279

I proceeded to clean, test, and sell each of the consoles. It funded my collecting for the rest of the year.


DING DING DING - you win :D

[ownerizer]

Some of my favorites, since I've only been collecting and flipping for about 4 years:

Bought a CIB SNES with CIB games:
- Uncharted Waters
- Starfox
- Donkey Kong Country
- Zelda: LTTP

$40 total at a flea market


Bought a CIB Tomba! $3 at a thrift store

Bought a CIB Saturn with 4 CIB games - $40

Bought a SEALED Zelda OOT & Master's Quest for GC - $4

Bought a MINTY CIB Gameboy brick for $5

Bought a CIB Ogre Battle PS1 for $4

Bought a lot of 55 PS1 games off CL for $50, almost all CIB including Tails Concerto and Vagrant Story, at the time the value was almost $400

Bought a set of Snap-On SAE Double Box Wrenches with a bunch of other tools - $30 (sold for $80)

I mean, I could go on, but those are some of my favorites. I've pretty much sold what I had or didn't want and kept the rest.

[Cornelius]

There is a pawn shop in my area that used to get a lot of older games. It is run by an older gentleman who speaks in mumbles, but is generally a friendly and funny guy. I went down to that shop a couple of years ago on a routine check for worthwhile games.

I found a few things and brought them up to the counter. The owner comes up to me and gives me a fair price for them (generally $2 ea for anything old). Before I can pay, he asks me if I am interested in old "Nintendos". He says he has a bunch of them in the back. So we head back there and man, he wasn't kidding. There were walls lined with Nintendo 64, SNES, and NES systems. He also had a ton of Sega Genesis and Dreamcast consoles. I notice a lot of funtastic Nintendo 64s, some mini SNES consoles and even a Top-loader NES. When I ask him what he wants for them, he paused and started mumbling to himself (something he does often). "Tell you what. If you take all of these out of here, you can have them for $1 a piece. I want to get rid of them." Before I knew it, I was making multiple round trips to the pawn shop to fill my car up with consoles.

I had bought around:

100 - Nintendo 64
80 - Sega Genesis
20 - Dreamcast
20 - SNES
15 - NES

I still have a picture from one of the trips:

6279

I proceeded to clean, test, and sell each of the consoles. It funded my collecting for the rest of the year.

When was that? What an awesome story!

One find really stands out for me: Responding to a CL ad that just said a vague 'lots of gaming stuff'. I called and the woman said to come by early the next morning. I show up and a woman invites me in. She's been chatting with another guy, possibly waiting for me before we get to the goods. As we start going through things she's talking about how this is all her husband's stuff and she's sick of it and has told him to get rid of it all. He's at work or out of town or something. Then it gets weird as she starts to get into how he set up surveillance inside the house to watch her. There were some awkward sexual references, too. Crazy stuff like that. I was still fairly new to collecting at the time, so while I found a lot of great things, I'm sure I left some nice things behind. I left with a large trash bag full of NES, GC, and some misc other games for $40, I think, whatever I had in my wallet. I don't really remember what all as it was a random assortment. She'd meant to sell a PSP (very new at the time), but we forgot about it by the end, as we were going from room to room. I feel bad for the husband in retrospect, but I didn't know the situation before going, plus the other guy was there and he would have just scooped up whatever I didn't; there was a fair bit of trying to be polite as we reached past each other. Pretty sure he got some very nice strategy guides and PC games (from a binder). And I talked to that guy later (I've run into him over the years... he's kind of a nutter) and he also bought some high-end RC cars for dirt cheap.

Another one I remember was an ad for a Sharp NES on CL for 10 or 15 bucks. I saw it right away, and drove down 30 min away within the hour. Turns out it also came with about 15 good NES games, both black controllers, and the remote! I was in and out in about 5 minutes... wish I'd chatted to find out where it came from and all.

I've got another, but will have to type it up later.

[Big Papa Husker]

Man, you guys have had some great finds. I'm hoping I walk into a thrift store or pawn shop and find Earthbound for $5. :(

[cyberfluxor]

At a flea market a few years back my brother went to there was a table with a supposedly extreme amount of mostly boxed Genesis, Sega CD, and 32x games, all for $1 apiece. He picked up Knuckles Chaotix CIB, Wild Woody CIB, The Punisher GEN w/ box, and Spiderman: Web of Fire 32x CIB all for $1 apiece. Definitely my best find.

I use to stop by a number of thrift and pawn shops while driving places. One pawn shop has had far more misses but every now and then they have something interesting for good prices which has included purchases of a Pioneer CLD-D503 laserdisc player for $10, Technics SL-7 turntable for $7 ($150-200 on eBay) and an SL-1500 on another visit for $7 ($120 unit), speakers and sub-woofers, lots of cheap DVDs and sometimes CD-based games tossed in with audio discs for 50¢. A particular find was one day I walked in and dug through a good pile of loose Nintendo and Sega cartridges that were disappointing. I scanned through the Playstation then Xbox and GameCube merchandise. Looking off to the side of the DVD shelving there were a few more Genesis and some 32x cartridges but figured why not and finish looking through. Spotted a Spider-Man: Web of Fire surrounded by commons! I snatched it up and decided to comb through everything a second time just in case another rare game was overlooked, unfortunately it was the only item I purchased after searching the store for other goodies. The bill came to $1 and I was happy to get it home and eventually played it. It has its flaws but still a fun game to own and pop in every now and then. I've also found my $5 Activator and $1 Kolibri (not rare but really fun!) cartridge there.