November 2010 Finds

[Zama]

Just got this bundle of joy in the mail from Amazon this morning:



I jumped the rope for that "Get Three Games for the Price of Two" deal:

- Phantasy Star Portable 2 = $38.99

- Assassin's Creed II = $27.99

- Monster Hunter Freedom Unite = $29.26

I got Assassin's Creed II for free

[heybtbm]

What do I find on my doorstep when I get home? A cardboard box containing...



Inside...



The Club Nintendo Platinum thingy. I forgot I even was getting this.

[NipRing]

heybtbm, thats pretty awesome!

[Cornelius]

heybtbm... you should check your email address on file w/ Club Nintendo. They sent me a notice last week that the rewards were starting to ship, and I just got notice today that mine shipped! Cool box that it comes in, and while there isn't exactly a whole lot to "do" with this figure, I still think it is pretty damn cool for something that is more or less free.

[heybtbm]

heybtbm... you should check your email address on file w/ Club Nintendo. They sent me a notice last week that the rewards were starting to ship, and I just got notice today that mine shipped! Cool box that it comes in, and while there isn't exactly a whole lot to "do" with this figure, I still think it is pretty damn cool for something that is more or less free.

Sure enough...they sent an e-mail 5 days ago. Guess I should check that address more than once a month.

[Ryaan1234]

Lot sale again and an interesting pickup(s).

I was shopping and had a single item in my basket, as there wasn't much new stuff put out. I know this guy who collects vinyl and I politely left the stack which was there to him (mostly because the records they had looked like a big stack of gospel and easy listening music ). Anyways my friend, who let me repeat myself collects vinyl came up to me and asked if I had found anything and that he was leaving because there wasn't anything good. I was being facetious and said "Wow, you mean you didn't find anything of interest in that lot?" and he said "Well, it was all crap except this Japanese Herbie Hancock record. It's still over there if you want it."

I dashed over there and looked, my friend even pointed the album out to me. Because "Chameleon" is one of my favorite songs of all time, and knowing that Japanese pressings are usually much better than the normal pressings I got it. Turns out it's a Japan-only Herbie Hancock album, and hopefully worth something. I looked through the stack and picked out a few other oddities, mostly for my growing vinyl collection: Garfield Out There Tonight (promo), John Coltrane My Favorite Things (stereo), Neil Young This Note's For You, Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life, and Ringo Starr Drowning in the Sea of Love (Disco mix I think? Your guess is as good as mine. Atlantic DSKO 93)

Anyways, some niiiice 70s stuff, and a nice day after finding that Herbie Hancock album. The records were $1 a piece, btw.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Nice on the PC games Kitsune. I doubt my current computer could run them well, but for that price I'd probably give it a shot!

Oh, mine can't either. My video card is godawful. But, at least I have them for whenever I can afford a new video card...

I didn't find anything today, except for one guy who had PC parts for sale. He had a Creative Xtremegamer X-Fi Fatal1ty Platinum sound card, complete in box, for $20. He also had an Audigy 2 Platinum (complete with the extra bay with knobs and stuff.) I didn't buy either; however, I got home and did a search for both. The Fatal1ty card is a marked improvement over the Audigy 4 SE (like twice the power or so) and since my Audigy 4 hates several games... I'm probably going to buy it tomorrow. I'll risk $20 for it. It even has a MIDI Gameport! I'd say that's an awesome bonus.

I COULD also buy the Audigy 2 Platinum, but I'd rather not risk the $20 or so for that.

Ryaan, awesome find on the Herbie Hancock album!

On another note... I'm hesitating on going to the flea market tomorrow. See, I spent two hours waiting to cross from Mexico to the US today... and I got in line at 6 AM. I do not want to do that again. -.-

[pseudonym]

Nice find on the Herbie Hancock LP.

[Gooch3008]

Found at a thrift shop for $9.98
The person behind the counter said cause it had a orange tag it would drop to $4.98 in a week, so I waited a week and went back and it was actually still there! Snagged it, and its complete and mint except for the box itself!



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[Kitsune Sniper]

I think I paid too much.


Creative Sound Blaster Fatal1ty X-Fi XtremeGamer complete in box (no UPC) - $20 (for my system) - Has a $149.99 price tag on it
Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (Complete in box) - $25 - Has a $129.99 price tag on it

Yeah, I paid way too much for that copy of Office. But, I can sell it for $80, so I can make my money back, at least. :P

[ganondorf]

Craigslist pick-up day,
NES miracle keyboard (had game, book, and power cord with it)-$45
Punch-out trash can-$10

[Steve W]

I ventured down to the town of Waxahachie, TX today. I didn't find anything in the few thrifts I checked out, but I did discover that a new GameXchange just opened up there a few weeks ago. I bought Gods for the Genesis, Lord of the Sword for the SMS, and Prince of Persia: Arabian Nights for the Dreamcast there. Didn't find much thrift store-wise on the way back. Google Maps isn't all that accurate with eliminating stores that closed down years ago. Anyway, on the way back I stopped at a Movie Trading Company and bought a nice little assortment of games for several systems, all bunched up in a little box on the floor there. Mario Bros., Congo Bongo, and Blueprint for the Atari 5200, Kool-Aid Man and Congo Bongo for the Atari 2600, Turtles for the Odyssey 2, Chip Shot: Super Pro Golf for the Intellivision, Jawbreaker II for the TI-99/4A, Dig Dug for the Commodore 64, and an unlabeled Parker Bros. cartridge for the Colecovision. All those games from the Movie Trading Company were $1.99 each.

I bought games for ten different systems today. Might be a new personal record. I don't buy stuff for that many machines at a game convention!

[yoshi64]

Went over to a thrift store I haven't been to in a few months and got the following:

Nintendo 64 controller - 1st party - Transparent Green with good analog stick - $3
PlayStation SCPH-9001 - $5
PlayStation SCPH-9003 - $5 - It's a Japanese model, probably one of the first import items (well at least gaming-wise) I've seen there. I do wonder how it ended up there (along with the 8 other PS1 systems they had).

[Steve W]

PlayStation SCPH-9003 - $5 - It's a Japanese model, probably one of the first import items (well at least gaming-wise) I've seen there. I do wonder how it ended up there (along with the 8 other PS1 systems they had).

Nowadays I keep my eye out for PS1 consoles from Japan. I will occasionally come across Japanese games in the wild, but so far not a console to play them on. I do however own a few UK Playstation games and the accompanying console to play them on (which I still haven't tried out since I don't have a step-up converter).

I'm incredibly fascinated by how these import games end up not only in the US, but in a flea market or a thrift store. Why did someone go to such an expense to import the things, then drop them in a donation box years later rather than selling them on eBay? You'd think they would know that the games had some kind of worth, for nothing other than being imports at least.

[yoshi64]

I'm incredibly fascinated by how these import games end up not only in the US, but in a flea market or a thrift store. Why did someone go to such an expense to import the things, then drop them in a donation box years later rather than selling them on eBay? You'd think they would know that the games had some kind of worth, for nothing other than being imports at least.

Interesting you bring up going through all the trouble/expense of importing and then just letting it go for nothing. I opened up said system (which is actually the Asian model, but still the exact hardware of the Japanese unit) to clean it and I discover not only did they import the system, but they also installed a mod chip in it. Now I just need to figure out if I can use a regular US power cable for it without causing any problems to the system. *Hint hint to those of you who would know*

[fahlim003]

*Hint hint to those of you who would know*

Depending on where you are you might be able to use it. If you're in North America and the rating on the system label on the bottom of the PlayStation reads anywhere from 100V-127V it will be fine. If it was used in the Indonesian, Thai, or Taiwanese markets, as they also operate on the 100-127V scale. Essentially, either you conclude what the voltage rating on the system is or show a picture of the label.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I wasn't planning on going to the flea market, but two people bought stuff from me last night, and I figured they'd get angry if I didn't ship today, so...


Lot of various Zip 100/250/750 disks: $17 total. Now, why did I pay so much money? Well, these are brand new. Plus, they're Iomega branded. PLUS, they're worth quite a bit on eBay, from $25 to $35 depending on the amount of disks. I figured I'd take the risk.


Planet Of The Apes General Ursus (Aurora) model kit: $2
Action Replay MAX (two discs, no memory card): $2
Adventure Island 3 (with manual): $2
Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of Pink Floyd (promo / UPC punched copy): $1
Warcraft (DOS / Mac CD): $2

This is a bit of an oddball set, isn't it?

Both the General Ursus model kit and the Action Replay Max were bought at the same booth. The model kit is unused, but the box is crushed and some of the model pieces snapped off of their ... model... frame... thingy. I figure it's still worth a sale. I already have an Action Replay, so I bought this to trade it, I guess.

Adventure Island 3 and that weird Pink Floyd CD were bought at the same place where I got the Zip disks. That is the second "Lullaby" CD I've seen, I saw another one (but skipped it) last month. And I bought Warcraft so I could complete a set. I already had the Mac box and docs... but no disc.

[Steve W]

Rockabye Baby: Lullaby Renditions of Pink Floyd (promo / UPC punched copy): $1

I listened to snippets of that album on iTunes recently... er, no thanks. Ew. I've heard too many bad covers of Pink Floyd music in my life. In fact, I went into a Hastings Entertainment store yesterday and while I was there they played an entire Dark Side of the Moon cover album. It was meandering, passionless crap. It astounds me how many covers there are of Floyd music out there.

[NayusDante]

Interesting you bring up going through all the trouble/expense of importing and then just letting it go for nothing.

I've wondered about this many times, and there's actually a few possibilities. One is that someone died, and their family didn't know what the "old gaming stuff" was worth. Another is that someone was evicted or skipped town, and the landlord had to clear out the living space to find new renters.

There's some apartments behind where I work, and you know that it's "moving day" when there's interesting things piled up near the dumpster. Lots of furniture, sometimes old broken computers, but never games or movies. I'm guessing that stuff gets donated, rather than trashed.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I listened to snippets of that album on iTunes recently... er, no thanks. Ew. I've heard too many bad covers of Pink Floyd music in my life. In fact, I went into a Hastings Entertainment store yesterday and while I was there they played an entire Dark Side of the Moon cover album. It was meandering, passionless crap. It astounds me how many covers there are of Floyd music out there.

I have a reputation to uphold here, you know.

And well, I find that listening to these weird cover versions makes me appreciate the originals a lot more. I mean, I even bought The Wall 2000! :P