The flea market here is awful.. Even the resellers left.

[SuperSonic]

Whenever I watch youtube videos I see the people flipping through hundreds of games. I got up early today so some video game hunter would not beat me to the deals. The flea market opens at 8 and I got there right at 8 where I was 1 of the 8 cars in the lot. The flea market was half empty and the food places didn't even open up until 9am. So I ended up walking around waiting for people to set up hoping it would get better. It never got better and not one both had one video game. Not even an xbox game. There were zero resellers there.. The one that used to be there open a shop up across the street and closed in after only being there for a month...

Do any of you guys have awful flea markets?

[wiggyx]

We don't even have awful flea markets. All of them closed down years ago in my area. Luckily the garage/yard sale scene is decent and we've got tons of used shops with reasonable prices.

[Mr Mort]

I'm in the same boat. Went to a flea market and walked away empty-handed. I feel like it's just a waste of time.

[Kitsune Sniper]

My local flea market people can't get merchandise as easily as they could before. Goodwill and Salvation Army are keeping the stuff and selling it online. So I don't find that many bargains anymore.

[bb_hood]

Same here with flea markets, alot of the resellers that have booths get there early and clean up anything good.

[SuperSonic]

My local flea market people can't get merchandise as easily as they could before. Goodwill and Salvation Army are keeping the stuff and selling it online. So I don't find that many bargains anymore.

Yeah I notice that here to. Also I hear some of the goodwill's are starting to price stuff compared to ebay pricing.. They will put something out and put a tag on it showing the amazon/ebay price.

[bigbacon]

i have two big places near me. Both have one vendor who have old video game stuff.

One is actually pretty good but doesn't look like he is getting more stuff. less and less stuff each time but decent prices also. Problem is everything he has is loose carts so depending on what I'm trying to collect (right now is CIB SMS games) I am out of luck. He does sell a lot of NES commons for like 3 to 5 bucks which is pretty decent for a local place.

Other is a grumpy old man that has lots of old games and consoles in CLOSED boxes so you can't even just browse what he has without asking and then he stands over you like a hawk and it gets awkward REALLY fast. Though he also sells (or shows off) old toys so I've at least been able to take bags of old toys from my childhood and just flat out trade with it. Just sucks having to go through all the annoying boxes of stuff.

[SuperSonic]

i have two big places near me. Both have one vendor who have old video game stuff.

One is actually pretty good but doesn't look like he is getting more stuff. less and less stuff each time but decent prices also. Problem is everything he has is loose carts so depending on what I'm trying to collect (right now is CIB SMS games) I am out of luck. He does sell a lot of NES commons for like 3 to 5 bucks which is pretty decent for a local place.

Other is a grumpy old man that has lots of old games and consoles in CLOSED boxes so you can't even just browse what he has without asking and then he stands over you like a hawk and it gets awkward REALLY fast. Though he also sells (or shows off) old toys so I've at least been able to take bags of old toys from my childhood and just flat out trade with it. Just sucks having to go through all the annoying boxes of stuff.


I hear the sun light damages old games so maybe it is keeping them in better condition

[bigbacon]

I hear the sun light damages old games so maybe it is keeping them in better condition

he is in an air conditioned building on the flea market site. both guys are actually in doors.

[Sulz]

I honestly don't know what to make of them around my area. I just recently started going, so there's a few I haven't gone to yet, but the ones I have been to have had almost nothing of interest. Best I've been able to do was get a broken Xbox original (disc tray was "broken", took like 30 mins to take it apart and clean the belt before it was running like new) for $5. Everything else I've seen has been really bad condition/overpriced 6th gen stuff. Most of them are in really shady places, too.

On the other hand, my brother in law got SMRPG and a few other desirable SNES games for like $5 each at one of the places that was barren when I checked it out, so I'm willing to admit it's a crapshoot. But to be honest, I'm not sure it's really worth it to me personally. I hear people saying you just have to keep trying and I get all that, but factoring in all the gas money I'd have to spend trip after trip until I got lucky would probably negate any "deals" I found; I'm also not that patient or much of a morning person. It doesn't help that these places are extremely uncomfortable for me personally, either (ocd).

As for the Goodwill sidenote, most of them in my area are still pretty good, so at least there's that. They do price newer games a little higher now, which I can understand, but older stuff is $3.25.

But the youtube vids with hundreds of games, I'd wager those are the few amazing trips out of all the not so good ones.

[SuperSonic]

I honestly don't know what to make of them around my area. I just recently started going, so there's a few I haven't gone to yet, but the ones I have been to have had almost nothing of interest. Best I've been able to do was get a broken Xbox original (disc tray was "broken", took like 30 mins to take it apart and clean the belt before it was running like new) for $5. Everything else I've seen has been really bad condition/overpriced 6th gen stuff. Most of them are in really shady places, too.

On the other hand, my brother in law got SMRPG and a few other desirable SNES games for like $5 each at one of the places that was barren when I checked it out, so I'm willing to admit it's a crapshoot. But to be honest, I'm not sure it's really worth it to me personally. I hear people saying you just have to keep trying and I get all that, but factoring in all the gas money I'd have to spend trip after trip until I got lucky would probably negate any "deals" I found; I'm also not that patient or much of a morning person. It doesn't help that these places are extremely uncomfortable for me personally, either (ocd).

As for the Goodwill sidenote, most of them in my area are still pretty good, so at least there's that. They do price newer games a little higher now, which I can understand, but older stuff is $3.25.

But the youtube vids with hundreds of games, I'd wager those are the few amazing trips out of all the not so good ones.

Exactly.. There are a few flea markets here but they are all about 40 mins away.. If I have to go 3 times before I can get a few games for 3-5 dollars that sell for 20 on ebay its not worth it. I also have to say getting there super early sucks. You have to walk around for like 2 hours waiting for people put stuff out because if you don't beat the reseller booth then all is lost.

[Steve W]

There's one really large flea market near me that I rarely go to anymore that has (or at least had) a dedicated game dealer. All the other ones in all the flea markets I've been to in the past few years have dropped out one by one. I'm actually driving pretty far away from the Dallas/Fort Worth area just to find flea markets that haven't been scraped clean by the resellers, hoping maybe I'll find a game dealer that doesn't have eBay on his laptop in the background.

At the big local flea market, I used to struggle to get up early and head out there, but the vendors were never set up yet. It's supposed to open its doors at dawn, but half the vendors were drunk the night before and show up late. I found the best time to hit is around 11am, that way the single game dealer out there is manning his booth and hasn't walked around the place looking for things to buy up and resell in his area.

[Gameguy]

Years ago the flea markets near me were ok, there was even a game vendor there that always had amazing stuff at great prices. I didn't buy it but I know I passed on a Zombie Nation for $8 back then, I really should have bought it. I know there were a ton of games I should have bought but didn't. Back then plenty of garage sale people would just rent a space and sell off whatever junk they had, which meant good prices and good finds. The place apparently increased the rent so only vendors went there, but the good well priced vendors moved to better locations. The vendor I liked there now vends at a university so he's better off, though he's now farther away so I can't really travel there.

Now the regular vendors are like stores selling clothing, tools, or sunglasses. Anything like CDs, movies, or games are priced way too high and literally sits for years. The last time I went I recognized the same dollar store quality DVDs from the same vendor who's had them for years, they're now sunfaded but he was still asking $4 each. Maybe I'll go again this year as a one time thing, I sometimes find something but it's really a fluke.

[GamerTheGreek]

by me there is 1 flea market. Hardly any cart based anythigns. but if you wanna pay 5.00 for a common atari 2600 cart or SNES sports title have at it. Or if you wanna pay 50.00 for a broken spray painted SNES that wont power up or 60.00 for a Xbox 360 with the ring of death ( no Hard drive ) theres plenty here available.

There are a few good venders but so small if you blink u miss it

[SuperSonic]

by me there is 1 flea market. Hardly any cart based anythigns. but if you wanna pay 5.00 for a common atari 2600 cart or SNES sports title have at it. Or if you wanna pay 50.00 for a broken spray painted SNES that wont power up or 60.00 for a Xbox 360 with the ring of death ( no Hard drive ) theres plenty here available.

There are a few good venders but so small if you blink u miss it

Yeah I love all the vendors that sell untested NES/SNES as working. Yeah the crap is annoying they dont want to sell broken stuff at a broken price because they know someone with more knowledge than them will buy it and fix it. Making a ton of money so I guess they figure they should get a nice big cut of the profit by pricing a broken xbox 360 20 dollars less than a working one lol..

[plasticMan]

Goodwill, Yard Sales, Salvation Army, and Garage Sales are being turned into mini eBay markets near me. There are some flea markets but again, each of them are going online and price comparing to mark up their prices. Taking all of the joy out of the hunting experience.

[bigbacon]

yard sale/flea markets (where people can rent a table)have always been weird though in terms of prices. You always get a lot of vendors who think there stuff is worth 10x more than it really is, won't budge on prices, and leave with everything they came with blabbering about how peopel are cheap.

I never understand that. yard sales/flea markets are like the last ditch effort to me. You are out there because you'd rather not keep the junk and don't want to just throw it away so why not make a little money.

Just amazing that to people used stuff isn't worth much at all in a lot of categories (obviously there exceptions) that and most of the stuff people are selling at these things (specially flea markets) I know they got it for free somewhere.

[Atarileaf]

but factoring in all the gas money I'd have to spend trip after trip until I got lucky would probably negate any "deals" I found

Exactly. In years past, I've spent 6 or 7 hours driving around on a Saturday going all over the county I live in only to find a couple small things or nothing at all. I've come to realize that finding a game worth $20 for a buck isn't that great a deal when I spent $20 in gas to go get it.

Its sometimes just easier, and yes, cheaper to pay market prices online.

I suppose the trick is to make trips like that about MORE than video game hunting. If we go we'll go as a family to a park, have a picnic, go antiquing, make a nice day out of it and make yardsaling just a side endeavor. That way coming home empty handed isn't a big deal.