So my bud was at the local mall last week and saw a game store going out of business. They were packing up everything, already closed and all that. He asks the dude packing if they have any NES/SNES they might want to sell instead of pack up...and walks out of there with 500 games for 315 bucks. Nothing too special, but quite a few complete and lots of variety.
We're thinkin...hmm, maybe some other old store might want to dish their inventory? We saw a small video store with a decent number of (very overpriced) SNES/NES/64 and other games. So me and my friend find the manager and go, "Hey, we're game collectors always looking for new stuff, how much would you want for all the N64, NES and SNES?"
Stunned look on his face while he stammers, "Come back Thursday, I'll give you an estimate." He also showed us their old store where they left a ton of mostly sports titles (about 300 in all for Atari -> Saturn) and two big Nintendo signs (one giant "World of Nintendo" and the neon-backlight Nintendo one that's always on ebay. We casually mention we might be interested in that stuff too.
So we stop back this evening. He lists like 40 games they're gonna keep (of course the more expensive stuff like FF3, 64 Zeldas, Mario RPG, etc.) and says he's willing to go 700 for it all.
23 N64 boxed, 43 N64 unboxed (all non wrestling, non sports), 35 SNES boxed, 75 unboxed, 20 NES boxed, 75 unboxed, plus 300+ games in the older store incl. 150 NES titles. We also add in the two Nintendo signs, a 2' long Playstation marquee, and a bunch of random stuff like 11 Saturn games, 4 32x games, 7 PSX complete, 30 no instruction PSX, 80 Atari, etc.
We get him down to 475 for everything. Mostly relatively common stuff, but all the boxes are in great condition, incl. a few complete Koei NES games, etc. He also (for free) gives us a box with something like 200 empty boxes for SNES/64 incl. 2 Captain Novolin, Kid Kleets, TMNT, Clayfighter TE and a bunch more.
Total: ~85 boxed, ~500 unboxed, 3 huge signs (2 Nintendo, 1 Playstation) and 200 empty boxes (many w/ instructions incl. a bunch of Virtual Boy even), sold for $475. That is, under .75 a game.
To quote O Brother Where Art Thou, "We're not one-at-a-timin', we're mass-consuminatin'!"