Give your collecting tips!

[Retro_player]

Hello...

I don't collect for a long time, and I live in Portugal, wich is a country without a retro-gaming comunity, yard sales and the used game shops it has are too expensive! I use Ebay.de and ebay.uk and sometimes I manage to find some good deals from private people.
Since most of you in the boards have a vast experience in collecting I was wondering if we all could use this thread to share experiences and give tips.

regards!

[Flack]

My advice would be, collect what you know, and collect what you love. Pick a goal, and go for it!

For example, I personally collect systems and games for systems that I used to own. It's too easy to just say, "I collect video game stuff." That's what I ran into with my Star Wars collection. I used to say, "I collect Star Wars stuff." Now I focus on things like, I collect "Star Wars figures" or "Right now, I'm collecting Star Wars video games". It makes it a lot easier if you set small goals. Then you will feel successful when you've completed your goal!

Pick that system you used to own and love and get to work! Also, make sure the way you display your goods reflects how you feel about them. No one starts out with a "Room of Doom" per se, but an arcade cabinet sitting out in your garage isn't nearly as impressive as one sitting in a game room. Put your goods on display, whether it's a custom made display or right off the showroom shelves. No one's going to say "wow" over a shoebox full of old cartridges.

My only other comment would be play everything you buy. True car collectors drive their babies. Games are meant to be played. Buying a game, storing it, and never playing it is in effect killing it, in my opinion. Dust those babies off every now and then and give your thumbs a workout.

[MarioAllStar2600]

Study the rarity guide







No Im serious

[hydr0x]

flack i think you missed the whole point here, he's not asking about what he should collect and how he can store it, he's asking how to find games at all

yeah, i know, that's not a question americans have to ask, but we europeans do have to as we have no garage sales and all that stuff over here, just some few fleas and the internet, no salvation army and no pawn shops either (at least they do not have any old games)

try to find some stores that still sell games or might have sold them in the 8/16-Bit era and ask them if they have any old stuff laying around, works more often than you'd think

also try to find out every flea that is in your region regularly and try to find if there are any 2nd-hand shops, that might work, what also works sometimes is making announcments in your local newspaper, i got some things that way, though most of it is very common