When did you start collecting for the NES?

[fergojisan]

My sister gave me her NES and games in 1993, when she went off to college. I didn't have any home systems at the time, so I enjoyed a small home-gaming revival then. My wife told me about Funcoland, and I picked up a few classics I had missed (DK Classics, was this the first retro compilation? Burgertime, Elevator Action, etc.). I didn't play it too much though. I started collecting Atari in 94, but not the NES. It was the Digital Press 'zine that started me off. They had a top 75 Games you might have missed list ( http://www.digitpress.com/archives/arc00003.htm ), and I went to Funco and picked up all the NES ones when I could find them. Playing all these hidden gems opened my eyes to all I had missed on the NES, and I started picking up everything I could find. These days I'm limiting myself to complete games, so it's slow going, but still fun. I know there's games I'm never going to find unless I win the lottery, and I have stopped worrying about the games that got sold or traded away (like the 2(!) complete Stack-Ups that I HAD, although one of them is in good hands with TheSmirk). Finding Atari stuff in the wild these days is next to impossible for me, but not so for the NES. I've got a long ways to go for a complete collection, so there will always be something out there to look for.
I love this forum, I hope it never goes away. ;)

[boatofcar]

I've been collecting since I bought my NES, but have sold big chunks of my collection on and off over the years....I may have 3 or 4 games left from my original collection...

[Emily]

Yeah, I too have pretty much collected from the beginning. I got my first NES used from relatives, and the majority of my games the same way. Especially during the SNES/Genesis days. I would go over to my cousins house and listen to them freak over their new Genisis and Snes they had gotten; then I would go and look through their crates of NES games.
Eventually all my relatives just gave me all their old games and systems.

The only games that we bought new until I got my Gamecube, were Gameboy games. We mey have got Super Mario World 3 new, but who knows.

[Chainsaw_Charlie]

i think it was 92 or 93

[sniperCCJVQ]

summer 1999

[Sotenga]

Collected since I was born, collected throughout my childhood, still am collecting now. :)

[Xexyz]

The collecting bug just hit me last year. Just this past week, I've felt the urge to start collecting some NES games. My collecting, however, will not start until I fix my old NES(curse those connector pins) or buy another one.

[Ruudos]

I really started colelcting in 2000. Emulation brought me back to the NES.

[FlufflePuff]

Well, I had a NES back in the day with about 50 games, but I foolishly sold it in 93 to get a SNES with like 3 games. At the time it didn't bother me, but damn, I had some good games back then. Anyway, my current collection started in 2001. While I collect for 20+ systems, the NES is my main love. I have 403 carts comprising 51% of my collection. I'm going for the whole US licensed set (screw you Sachen). Not sure if I want to try for complete set, but I always pick up boxed games if I see em. Fortunately, I've got many of the most expensive games already and it's more of a super expensive and super crappy hole filling task I have left.

[GarrettCRW]

I've been collecting since I got the system, and, as I like to brag, I've gotten more games since the NES was discontinued in '95 than I scored when the system was still alive. My brother wanted to trade the NES and games for a Genesis, but I flatly refused, knowing that, unlike our Atari (for which we had some serious dogs for, like ET and Donkey Kong, that at the time overweighed the desire to play the good stuff like Frogger and Yar's Revenge), I'd want to play the games we had. I'd like to think that it was a good idea.

[Nesmaster]

probably about 5 years now.... and i aint stopping til i have all (or 99.9%) of the US releases :D

[Cobra Commander]

Well I've technically been collecting since I got the NES in 1988, but really only now do I have the time and money to devote to an real collection. Way back when, I don't think I ever had over 25 games. Now I have 205, and it's growing all the time.

[pseudonym]

i picked up an nes and a box of games at a flea market during the summer of '99. later on i started picking up other games here and there and searching the net for games i remember playing as a kid but couldn't remember the names of for the life of me. i seriously started collecting around mid 2001.

[cracked8ball]

I started in 1996 after I was in Kmart and saw they had old NES games for sale. So I bought a few, and went from there. Real life issues (bills, rent) caught up with me, and I quit collecting in about 2002 and sold off about 200 games (some being rares, and even a proto), keeping only the ones I liked. However last year when I disovered Gamestop and other places were discontinuing NES and sellign the games for cheap, the collecting bug bit again and since then I've jumped to 421 games, with intent on getting every US release.

[RetroYoungen]

I've had an NES for a long while, but I didn't really start collecting for it until I discovered the beauty that was Funcoland back in either '98 or '99. I would go and pick up five or so games at a time at about $5 total, then go back again later that week (with saved up lunch money) and buy a few more. They knew me by name for about three years in there, I came so often. LOL

[zshadow]

I just started collecting NES and SNES recently.. back when I was younger (around 7/8 years old). I had close to 100 NES and SNES games but I sold them all at a local game store around the time when the Playstation came out.

Anyways it was a really dumb idea on my part.. I remember having FF3 boxed, Lufia, and others. If I would've of kept all those games I'd have a pretty nice collection.. but oh well :x

[NESaholic]

Got my NES back in '88 and collected 20 games till '92, started collecting again 1,5 year ago.

[Xexyz]

I officially started collecting for my NES today. Before today, I had 28 titles, the last of them being purchased around 94.

[dreamcaster]

December 2002.

Bought a NES with two controllers and Bionic Commando for $19 AU

I fixed it after the blinking problem got so bad, the machine was almost unplayable. A simple bending of the pins - and it's like new again. :)

I've bought and sold many NES's, but this is the one I've held on to.

[Super Mario Fan]

Summer of 01. It was one my favorite summers.



I'm getting kind of nostalgic. :(

[NintendoMan]

I've had an NES for a long while, but I didn't really start collecting for it until I discovered the beauty that was Funcoland back in either '98 or '99. I would go and pick up five or so games at a time at about $5 total, then go back again later that week (with saved up lunch money) and buy a few more. They knew me by name for about three years in there, I came so often. LOL

This sounds EXACTLY like me!! I also used to have to go there so much, I would lie to my mom or dad what I was doing. (They didn't want to going to the local mall so much, this was when I was 16) Then go to Funcoland instead. They knew me by name too.

[-hellvin-]

About a year ago. Had an NES as one of my first systems and when I started to get into collecting about a year ago that was my main focus until I got more sega oriented. I have about 200 complete NES games so far. Not bad I suppose. I had a multicart for my old NES which I LOVED back then so I'm a real multicart freak, I just love em to death.

[kainemaxwell]

I first got my NES back in '89 and have held onto the little toaster since. Starting collecting for it as well as gaming? I think that hit 2-3 years ago after the DP Survivor game. Sometime around there I started wanting to collect as well as game with the system again which lead me into wanting to get the Mega Man titles I once had and branching off into my Tengen collection.

[long_shawn_silver]

December 1985

[Master Chu]

Woke up one morning back in '98 and started thinking about 3 of my fave NES games that i used to rent all the time.

Double Dragon, Rygar & Dragon Power...

My quest for those 3 has since lead on to about 400 more. LOL

[Arqueologia_Digital]

Less than a year (i was and i am always a serious SMS fan), but NES is great...a lot of hours of my childhood are with this 8 bit machine...

Matías

[Jasoco]

July 11th, 2003 when I found a boxed copy of SMB3 at GameStop.

[Kroogah]

Mid-1999. Several reasons at once.

1. Found the magic of NES emulation, then discovered StarTropics didn't work right. I really wanted to play StarTropics again.

2. Was also a horror movie geek so I bought Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street carts.

3. Found 2 different NES bundles at garage sales, and they were $6 both times.