May 2013 Finds

[theclaw]

Proximity to a metropolitan area. Game distribution isn't all roses as people seem to think. A lot of titles get few copies sent out to nowheresville.

[FamicomFreak]

Some new additions. Nothing major but happy overall ^_^






Cheers !

[GREEN00]

Proximity to a metropolitan area. Game distribution isn't all roses as people seem to think. A lot of titles get few copies sent out to nowheresville.

I live in the Seattle area and I seem to have the opposite problem.

Random sellers are too savvy, and any good deals are snatched up by the many other collectors first.

[Deadman]

Agreed! Same here in the DFW Metroplex - 10,000 collectors and about 8 good hunting spots = very little for me.

Yesterday at Half Price I found a few dollar clearance items:

Resident Evil 2 (Playstation) - complete black label - $1
Toy Story 2 (DC) - complete $1
Sonic Adventure (DC) - complete $1
Aerowings (DC) - missing disc - gameshark disc in the case instead - $1
The Sims (Xbox) - $1
Spongebob Squarepants Movie (xbox) - $1

[FOnewearl]

Do you have any unconventional tips? I'm getting ready to quit trying to collect at this point, and I'm not even aiming at more desirable systems like SNES, Saturn, or TG-16.

As I'm sure plenty of people here would agree it is a lot of work looking for deals on old games in the wild, not every day is a zinger either for example I went out today for about 4 hours went to 25 yardsales and only found a few meh finds for my efforts.

I keep track of the addresses I've been to before for yardsales and skip them figuring that the chances of finding older games at a repeat sale to be slimmer or go back to them if for some reason I think they may have something I'm interested in from when I was at a yardsale the previous year(s). Another thing I found that works for me is I have found games more consistently in two areas around me. I normally start out in these two areas most days aside from starting elsewhere for other reasons that over rule this (some thing advertised I'm interested in, lots of sales in another area vs very few sales in the areas I normally do better in).

Unfortunately with the influence of online selling becoming more common place every year it's harder to find deals IMO (this doesn't just apply to video games) either the price is higher or a few people I've talked already this year hinted at something video game related that was found when getting ready for their yardsale that they rounded up that they had no interest in selling (or at least at a yardsale).

Every area is different in what you can expect on an average day. I'd say if you haven't already stick with it for about a month and decide then if it's worth your time, trouble & gas money.

Proximity to a metropolitan area. Game distribution isn't all roses as people seem to think. A lot of titles get few copies sent out to nowheresville.

FWIW I don't live in the middle of nowhere but I certainly don't live in a metropolitan area. For example I remember my one friend getting the only copy of Mega Man 7 that our local Electronics Boutique got when it came out and Electronics Boutique was the only store around me that carried TG-16 stuff when it was current.

[Polygon]

As I'm sure plenty of people here would agree it is a lot of work looking for deals on old games in the wild, not every day is a zinger either for example I went out today for about 4 hours went to 25 yardsales and only found a few meh finds for my efforts.

This something I think a lot of people fail to realize. If you watch pickup videos on YouTube or look at people's finds on here, you might think they are happening upon these finds constantly, when in reality they can spend all day or a whole weekend to find those deals. It's not like they go to a couple of places and come out smelling like roses.

[Tokimemofan]

Salvation Army had some PlayStation games for $1.19 each
Fighting Force 2
Mega Man 8
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man Legends 2
Metal Gear Solid (No Manual)
Spiderman (Also had Spiderman 2 inside)
Twisted Metal 2
Twisted Metal III
X-Men Children of the Atom

Once I saw the Mega Man stuff and the price I told the clerk ring em up. These seem to have been there for a week, and no one noticed. I hadn't been there for 2 months since I haven't had a good find at that location in a long time.

[Cornelius]

First time out for garage sales this year. We had a really late spring, but fortunately today was beautiful and also the first day of my part of the city's neighborhood sale. With a recently potty-trained kid, you basically just go to what you can and can't get too worried about hitting them all. Anyway, pretty decent kick-off to the season.



Paid asking price on everything:
GC including MP7, mic, both controllers - $10
GC games - $2 each from same sale
PS2 Fatal Frame - $1.50
DS game - $1
NES w/ hookups SMB/DH/WCTM - $20. Almost passed on this, but she said she didn't even know she had it and found it in her attic, so I'm hoping it works well.
Office 2004 - $3.99 from a thrift in the area (forgot my 25% off card )
GMC Barbie RV - $5 for my parents. They have a restored GMC (or three) they are fanatic about, so they like this sort of thing. So big they might just sell it at one of their rallies.

[Aussie2B]

Proximity to a metropolitan area. Game distribution isn't all roses as people seem to think. A lot of titles get few copies sent out to nowheresville.

From my experience, the best hunting grounds are areas that are solidly suburban. You don't want places that are too rural, obviously, but big cities can be pretty fruitless. Big cities often don't have much middle ground; you just have the poor areas where people don't have the money for buying lots of video games or you have the well-off people who are too snooty for buying used goods. There also seems to be less trust in others, since in densely populated areas, you really can't feasibly learn who everybody in the neighborhood is, and this discourages doing things like holding a yard sale, if you even have the space to have one in the first place, which you probably don't. Here in NYC, I do virtually no hunting in the wild. I mostly stick to online shopping while I'm here. Yard/garage sales are pretty much unheard of, and thrift stores are extremely uncommon too. I get my game hunting fix when I visit family.

For good game hunting, you want an area that's suburban and middle class. People who aren't rich and pretentious so they're open to looking for good deals as thrift stores, but they still have enough money and space to acquire more than they need/want and periodically clear out some space by donating to a thrift store, selling at a pawn, or hosting a yard sale.

[GREEN00]

FOnewearl, it certainly sounds to me like you've earned whatever you find! I try to regularly check Goodwills & the like near me, and Half Price Books is my most consistent source for game collecting (though legitimately expensive games remain expensive, in the past few years I've found for example Earthbound for $150 and Suikoden 2 for $100 at HPB, but I bought neither), but I use the bus for transportation, and I lack the interest or your commitment to plan military grade operations for collecting.

I wish you luck in your collecting endeavors!

[Flashback2012]

My first good find in a while and one I've been after for a few years now. I picked up this little guy @ Half-Price Books...



The damaged packaging from where someone tried to peel off the sticker (and failed) is a minor annoyance but I can hardly complain considering I got the unit complete for only $60.

Now I have that unit, the Classic NES GBA, the Mario Anniversary DSi XL, and the Red Wii Anniversary system.

[Sailorneorune]

There are a few places I check regularly. Sometimes I get lucky; sometimes I don't. One local store in particular treats me VERY well.

Here's what I picked up from Book Broker yesterday:

"Manga Mania" 5-disc anime DVD set (includes BioHunter, Golgo 13: Queen Bee, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Psycho Diver, Twilight of the Dark Master). All OOP titles from Urban Vision; Psycho Diver never made it to DVD here. However, it's a region 2 set imported from Germany. 4 of the 5 titles have no subtitles, German or otherwise, but they all include the English-dubbed versions. Interesting.

Omega Boost (PS1 CIB)

Mega Man comic #25 (after finding out the Friendly Local Game Store in Henderson didn't get any Mega Man in )

Mega Man/Sonic comic left over from Free Comic Book Day (after I was told they thought they ran out, so I bought this issue online, which I found out later has the same content from Sonic #247 and Mega Man #23, which I already had at the time. I'd be angry about it, but I've done even less intelligent things with $6 than this).

Total: about $20

[SEGA_Queen]

Here's what I picked up from Book Broker yesterday:

Mega Man comic #25 (after finding out the Friendly Local Game Store in Henderson didn't get any Mega Man in )

Mega Man/Sonic comic left over from Free Comic Book Day (after I was told they thought they ran out, so I bought this issue online, which I found out later has the same content from Sonic #247 and Mega Man #23, which I already had at the time. I'd be angry about it, but I've done even less intelligent things with $6 than this).

Yeah, I had the same problem getting MM #25 at my local shop as well. The shipment which included MM 25 was lost en route, and the shop's owner didn't know when he'd be getting replacements. Oh well, I'll have to try my local bookstore instead. I didn't even bother with the Sonic FCBD issue, as I knew it was a reprint beforehand.

On a more recent note, my city had their annual city wide garage sale today. At first I wasn't going to bother going out, as I was low on gas (and the gas prices have been jacked up for the Mother's Day weekend). But I ended up waking up earlier than I anticipated, and decided to just go to a few sales near my place.

The only thing I found that was worth buying was Pokemon Battle Revolution for $5.00. I attempted to haggle the price down to $3.00, since the game is scratched and missing the manual. But the seller was firm, and I knew the game was still worth more than the asking price.

I haven't had a chance to give it a proper test run yet, but I was able to successfully copy my Pokemon from Diamond.

[InsaneDavid]

Visited my parents and hit a few estate sales. One was advertised as having some pretty cool and desirable vintage slot car sets. We got there pretty early and I was stoked to see they still had them. Of course while the boxes were nice the sets were beat to hell and woefully incomplete. I did find a complete Pac-Man card game there and for $2.00. I figured why not, that's about my limit for boardgames at these, video game related or not.

Another estate sale had a lot of merchandise and was well run but nothing I was interested in. I spotted a Pac-Man lunchbox in a bag of miscellaneous crap for $2.00. I took it up to the table at the front and asked if they'd sell me just the lunchbox for $1.00 and then I'd take the bag of miscellaneous back out to where I found it so it could be resold. They agreed. It had a couple stickers on the front that I was able to get off, with only minor label staining (upper right) due to the adhesives breaking down on one of the stickers over the past 30 years. I don't see this one very often, the Pac-Man cartoon / Pac-Land artwork on plastic. Most Pac-Man lunchboxes are the old metal one or a later plastic one with some artwork from the metal version on a sticker. Removed the handle, cleaned the tiny bit of rust out of the brackets, cleaned it up inside and out, not bad for $1.00.

[Mark1983]

This weeks flea market/Vintage Stock pickups:

[Niku-Sama]

ahh man i have been looking for the dual pack of megaman for psp for ages now!

jealous...

[Mark1983]

ahh man i have been looking for the dual pack of megaman for psp for ages now!

jealous...

I almost completely missed it, lol. I'm glad I didn't though

[FrankSerpico]

Scored Kid Chameleon and Maximum Carnage for the Genesis for 18 bucks today. Been wanting to add both to my collection for awhile

[Polygon]

Here's what showed up in the mail yesterday. I got Mario Sunshine and Majora's Mask for a decent price. I'm especially excited for the Genesis as I've been looking for a certain revision for a while now to do some mods to. Plus it's in pretty good shape too.

[Shaq-Funaki]

Please check out my newest pick up video!