Okagawa -- absolutely, please share some photos! I passed through Fukui on the way to Kanazawa back in August, but didn't get a chance to stop....
I LOVE finding those weird pricing deals. Like one of my stores in the area -- normally it's pretty difficult to find Samba de Amigo for the DC maraca sets, this one store had at least 10 of them, boxed, for less than 2000 yen. Or the one that (I've probably mentioned before, maybe in this thread, heh) had many loose Twin Famis in nice cosmetic shape for 3000 or 4000 yen. And everytime I see those 10000+ yen SuperGrafx I look at my 3500 yen one (in pretty decent cosmetic shape, just not a nice box) and smile.
MonoTekETeA, there are all sorts of stories about what you can find in the junk bins here. Hard Off (as Okagawa mentioned) is great for this. Basically anything old that they don't feel like testing is "Junk". "Junk" is usually in fine working order, just old. My 3DO was "junk" -- and only $5. Took it home, worked great. Sure it's not in 'museum condition', but it was $5 freaking dollars. I've actually got two Turbo Duos I got on the cheap, The second is the one I play the most, a Hard Off "junk" special in lovely shape. Cost me about $60 or so:
OK, i'll admit -- there's a minor bubble on the plastic of the controller. Other than that, maybe I'm not picky enough but it's freakin perfect.
My other Turbo Duo is a Duo-R. It's probably my favorite 'gaming find' story. I was wandering through semi-rural Nara prefecture a few years ago (this is near Osaka) when I saw a 24h Adult Video store. As I walked past I saw a smaller sign that said "games". What the hell, I'll check it out. The store was 90% porn with a small, small game section in front. I look on a grotty rack and what do I see? A Duo R in a basically destroyed box. Price, something like 5000 yen. well I take it to the front and I ask the guy to look at the system. He opens the box, I look at it and it's a bit cosmetically challenged, but has all of the hook ups and supposedly works:
I hesitate a bit thinking, and I make an "Umm..." sound. The guy looks at me and says "OK, 4000 yen!" Well, yeah!
So my Duo-R was bought in a porno shop in the countryside for about a quarter of the going rate. Who's going to complain about cosmetics with a deal like that? (Fuyukaze -- if you're reading, this is the Duo-R that's going to be yours next month
)