I've recently become very interested in famiclones. Let's face it. Some of these systems look pretty sweet and even better than the NES or Famicom itself. However, getting ahold of these systems is another story. Besides getting a plane ticket to Taiwan and buying these off the streets, what is a good way to purchase them? Ebay seems to have very few available.
Speedy_NES
05-13-2005, 12:50 PM
I was in the same situation as you a few years ago (until I moved to Europe). I'm not sure if there is any [cheap] way to get ahold of a lot of Famiclones when in the US. However, I've found many decent deals on the European eBays here, especially eBay.de (German eBay). The Famiclones usually sell for 1-10 euro + shipping. I'm sure that if you ask nicely, most of these sellers would be willing to ship them to the US, although shipping prices could add up quite fast. :( At least it's a source of getting them cheaper than from Hong Kong/etc.
Another possible source for Famiclones are the newsgroups. That's where I found a few people that had Famiclones for trade back in the late 90's. Not sure if there is much activity in those anymore though, since I haven't checked them out for a long time.
-Speedy
P.S. If you decide to buy some off the German eBay (or any European eBay for that matter), be sure to ask the sellers to protect the original box of the Famiclones. I've had quite a few bad experiences where the sellers try and save packaging costs by shipping the Famiclone in its original box resulting in lots of wear and damage (a couple times even after politely asking them to prevent this from happening) :(