I need advice! Help me build my collection!

[WiseSalesman]

As I'm sure you've seen me state on here before, my collection (http://users.ign.com/collection/WiseSalesman) is a little, shall we say sparse.

At 139 games, I'm feeling a bit inadequate around here, to say the least, so I've decided to do something. I want to just, for a little while, focus on building my collection in number, as opposed to just looking for my grails and such.

My question is, what would your advice be as to how to go about this? Currently, I'm most interested in just grabbing a whole bunch of commons for the systems I already own, preferrably the older ones....NES, SNES, Genesis, and Saturn, specifically.

Also, the other problem is, that I, as I'm sure is the case with most people here, would prefer my games boxed, or at least with the instructions (although that's not an absolutely mandatory thing).

So what's the best way to begin? Look for lots on EBay? Wait for the summer, and try my luck with hit-or-miss garage sales? Flea markets? Funcoland?

[Raedon]

First, make a bunch of money. Then, go buy every game you can find on a cart. :D

My advice would be to stop by one pawn shop and one goodwill every other day during lunch. also, make sure you go to a flee market every weekend.

Budget yourself, set aside $100 every week for game purchases.

Don't spend more then a set amount for loose common carts.. Like I won't pay more then $5.00 for an SNES or Genesis game, or more then $3 for a NES. Don't go paying $30 for (example) a Chrono Trigger, within a year you will find one at a pawn or flee for under $10.

Try not to go online for any games if you don't have to. If someone sells NES games at your local flee and every week they have new NES games for $3 then don't bother going online.. there is a good chance you will find it locally.

A lot of these overpriced used game stores are only overpriced on the name games (Mario 64, Metroid etc.) or RPG's but dump the actual rare carts out at $5 or something. Even if you hate to go into these places because they have SMB 3 priced at $14.99 loose still do as one day you will find something no one knows about but you.

[autobotracing]

flea markets and thrifts are my favs .yard sale can be goo but its a pain in the ass to chase them becasue around here half of them are not there and are old signs

[Achika]

It's tax season, start shopping the thrift stores. Now that the New-Year has rung in, people will start doing their taxes and looking for tax breaks. Which means, from now till April 15th, the thrift stores may start getting volumes of things in.

[christianscott27]

interesting observation on thrifts achika, never occured to me but it makes perfect sense.

anyways to what wisesalesman was posting about, you're in the easy part- with a collection that small you'll have no trouble finding things you need. i remember once i decided to seriously collect NES games the first 400 or so stacked up in no time, mostly from fleas and to a lesser extent thrifts. you'll want to go after garage sales too, thats a good way to pick up a good chunk at once along with a back up system. so at this stage buy the whole lot, odds are good you'll need most of it and sellers will give you a better deal than if you cherry pick it.

i kinda miss my early collecting days, finds flowed like water, nowadays its getting tough to meet the ol' 7 games a week for under $25 quota i set for myself.
________
Jaguar Xjr-12 (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Jaguar_XJR-12)

[Britboy]

All I have near me is a Goodwill. I never ever ever see games there, and I've checked quite a few times. What's up with that?

[Chunky]

You could ask if they would accept video games, most do. Then on your own, post a sign outside their building that reads "We accept your dusty old video games" or something. Put one up everytime you come if they take it down.

wow i need to spell!

[kevincure]

I have a similar question - right now, I'm focusing on Dreamcast (I finally have most of the rare ones!), but I'm curious about the "common" games and boxed games.

It's no trouble to find a rare DC game for 10 bucks. Or even tons of NES games for under 5. But I'm interested in buying the cheap, not rare ones - such as DC games that sell for < 5 on the bay, or NES games that go boxed for under 5. Because of shipping, you'll get killed price-wise going on the bay. It's also tough to find good condition games of that sort for cheap near your home. What's the best way to go about acquiring the common games, boxed for NES or either way for DC, at the ebay price or cheaper?

[michael]

Buy millions of dollars worth of games.... that should help.

[buttasuperb]

My best advice would be to just look anywhere possible and buy the games you want to play.

You'll need a little bit of money too.

[kainemaxwell]

Right now I'm slowly focusing on NES and DC titles because of my budget and they're easist for me to find right now in my locations. I am looking for games I want to collect and play as well.

I'm almost finished with my spreadsheet of my videogame collections if anyone's intrested once I finish it off.

[Magus]

God, i can get tons of genny games/and NES games complete for 5 bucks and under, with this new connection i have, i am going to see his stock later tonight.

[kainemaxwell]

Who's stock is this now?

[IGotTheDot]

@Achika

All of the donations for tax reasons should already be donated. People wanting the break had to have donated by the 31st of December. It might be a while untill all of the games are on the shelves though.

[NESCollector75]

Volunteer at your local thrift, I did this and saw many games. Also did it for my community service (for school incase anybody had any other ideas) Employes get first dibs there. Also be nice to them, they will always be willing to hold stuff for you if you are nice to them! Also with the donation thing, sure they have to donate by the 31st but then it is shipped out to the store, getting there about a week later, then its when ever the employes get around to putting it out!

[GENESISNES]

What you should do is get 50 bucks or more, go to a gamestop or funcoland, and buy out their entire collection of NES SNES and Genesis games that are sports. They may be crappy, but at 25 cents a peice and making your collection looking spiffier by the game, you cant beat that.