Despina83 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Everyone talks about finding copies of Quadrun, Glib, Cakewalk, Out Of Control, etc. sitting in thrift stores for a buck apiece, but you know, I have never seen a single Atari game of any sort at a flea market or thrift store. Flea Markets, Goodwill, Salvation Army, garage sales, etc. etc. I've never even seen a Pac-man or Asteroids cartridge. Actually, I've never seen video games of any sort in a thrift store. The only thing I ever saw at a flea market was an INTELLIVISION game-a boxed Pitfall. And I only ever found a couple NES games at a yard sale once. How are the waters? There ARE no waters in my neck of the woods. It's buy online or don't buy at all, and we all know that doesn't come cheap. I'd love to be able to score some rare games, but my rarest is only a 6, and I had to pay well for it, plus shipping of course Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 (edited) What part of the world do you live in and how old are you? I've found Crazy Climbers, a Quadrun, Waterworld, Room of Doom, Condor Attack (w/ T-handle), ALL the Tigervision games, Xenophobe, the porno games and just about every game less rare than them at Fleas, garage sales and thrifts back in the late 80's all the way up to the early 2000's. Times have changed, people are reproducing quicker than microbes in a drop of water and the market for the rare stuff *IS* currently dried up for all practical intents and purposes. What *I've* never seen in the wild is a Chase The Chuckwagon OR any Starpath stuff besides Phasor Patrol and the Supercharger itself. Edited October 5, 2009 by save2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corby Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 your kidding right!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonfin826 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 The only Atari games I've come across at a thrift store or yard sale were 5 5200 carts. They were all commons and pretty bad games at that, but I bought them anyways. I don't even have a 5200 (I have a 7800, woot!), but I was so surprised to see Atari carts that I snapped them up. Other than Atari, I come across NES, Genesis, and Master System carts once in a blue moon at my local DAV thrift store, and once at a yard sale I found a Sega Game Gear (it was too expensive though). If you have a Play N' Trade, they sell Atari carts relatively cheap. I got a near mint "One-On-One Basketball" 7800 cartridge for $0.25 I live in VA, by the way, and it does seem as though the Atari craze of the 70's/80's just passed right over my whole area... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horseboy Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 I have been collecting games since 1995 and I have only seen a handful of games at thrift stores or garage sales. The few carts I have found were dirt common games for extremely high prices. Ever since the newsgroup days I have been jealous of all the amazing thrift store stories. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 (edited) your kidding right!!!!! Who, Despina or I? Always in the hunt and actively pursuing games and such. Draw a line straight up I-90, from the northern burbs of Chicago, IL clear up to Tomah, WI - I am not seeing anything even remotely rare these days. Haven't since the late 90's really. Commons to Rare you still see, but it's getting so bad that I'm frequenting these places less and less. Getting real tired of explaining to people that loose Combat's and Pac-Man's should not be priced at $10+ Edited October 5, 2009 by save2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Getting real tired of explaining to people that loose Combat's and Pac-Man's should not be priced at $10+ These are the same people that write or tape the prices directly to the cart label most of the time. They don't have any common sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Getting real tired of explaining to people that loose Combat's and Pac-Man's should not be priced at $10+ These are the same people that write or tape the prices directly to the cart label most of the time. They don't have any common sense. Totally. I currently know someone in the biz of reselling these old games and he displays all his 2600 games, end label side up with a price tag directly on the end label. The uber sticky kind that come from a grocery store pricing gun. The trend for mental retardation didn't stop with the 2600 though. I just bought Club Drive for the Jaguar. Someone had literally wrote in pen on the label. As if they were trying to get it to write. Squiggly swirls on my Club Drive! lol At least that game can be had still NIB for $5 shipped Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 (edited) Despina83, Just be lucky you don't live in London...there is a drought of any sort of Atari gear on sale heere, be it car boot sales (similar to your garage sales or flea markets) or retro gaming shops, they mostly cater for the japaenese stuff like UK/Pal versions of nes/snes/sms/md/sony/dc/saturn/n64 etc etc (not forgetting snk/bandai/nec etc) anything non japanese is very limited like a few c64, spectrum, amstrad, coleco, inty etc etc bits and pieces...so i know your pain Perhpas non japanese retrogaming and computing doesn't exist in london Edited October 5, 2009 by carmel_andrews Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corby Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 your kidding right!!!!! Who, Despina or I? Always in the hunt and actively pursuing games and such. Draw a line straight up I-90, from the northern burbs of Chicago, IL clear up to Tomah, WI - I am not seeing anything even remotely rare these days. Haven't since the late 90's really. Commons to Rare you still see, but it's getting so bad that I'm frequenting these places less and less. Getting real tired of explaining to people that loose Combat's and Pac-Man's should not be priced at $10+ No Despina. Sorry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Despina83, Just be lucky you don't live in London...there is a drought of any sort of Atari gear on sale heere, be it car boot sales (similar to your garage sales or flea markets) or retro gaming shops, they mostly cater for the japaenese stuff like UK/Pal versions of nes/snes/sms/md/sony/dc/saturn/n64 etc etc (not forgetting snk/bandai/nec etc) anything non japanese is very limited like a few c64, spectrum, amstrad, coleco, inty etc etc bits and pieces...so i know your pain Perhpas non japanese retrogaming and computing doesn't exist in london You should have plenty of Amiga stuff over there :-) And what's a car boot sale? I'm envisioning a bunch of wankers in tiny cars (like a rally or our Chevy Cavalier), trunks or hatchbacks open and a bunch of cardboard boxes filled to the brim with gaming gear. All "proudly" infringingly (I just made that word up) parked in some poor old sods parking lot. I know you have the equivalent of a Wal-Mart over there, just can't remember the name of your generically homogenised, lower class "super" corporate marketplace full of Chinese crap... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoulBlazer Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Car boot is to the English what a yard sale is to us Americans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 (edited) oops, forgot yard sale as well....must be getting late I haven't seen much amiga stuff since i went to notting hill (west london) about a year so so ago Edited October 5, 2009 by carmel_andrews Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NCN Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 I haven't seen any Atari carts since I moved out here, and paying inflated shipping on commons to start a collection (feeBay) isn't worth it. The only video games I see out here are NES carts or XBox/PS2 games, and I have no interest in them. Bummer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cebus Capucinis Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Gotta pay to play around here. Then again north Idaho wasn't the mecca or hub of video gaming then or now, so all the thrift stores are absolutely knackered when it comes to anything. You might occasionally find some Sega Genesis stuff but that's the newest you'll ever see around here. As much as ePay irritates me, as long as I'm getting a big lot of 30+ carts with $10 shipping or so with at least 5 doubles I'm getting my shipping cost back in profits from selling the extra doubles carts individually. That's at least something. This hobby pays for itself if you go about it in the right way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Gotta pay to play around here. Then again north Idaho wasn't the mecca or hub of video gaming then or now, so all the thrift stores are absolutely knackered when it comes to anything. You might occasionally find some Sega Genesis stuff but that's the newest you'll ever see around here. As much as ePay irritates me, as long as I'm getting a big lot of 30+ carts with $10 shipping or so with at least 5 doubles I'm getting my shipping cost back in profits from selling the extra doubles carts individually. That's at least something. This hobby pays for itself if you go about it in the right way. That is a very true statement, I never buy singles on ePay unless its rare and I know I really want it . . . . which I haven't yet, but yet generally I only buy big lots and then I sell off or give away the doubles as I don't need them. -Disjaukifa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 This hobby pays for itself if you go about it in the right way. Does it...I haven't seen any warren buffets or Bill gates of the collectors market....are am i missing something Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 i had a yard sale a few months ago and for an experiment i put about 50 2600 common carts for 50 cents each out.not one even sold ...and no one even inquired about them.and this was a 2 day sale and was pretty busy...weird Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cebus Capucinis Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 (edited) Does it...I haven't seen any warren buffets or Bill gates of the collectors market....are am i missing something "pays for itself" and "makes you eleventy bajillion dollars" are about as far apart from each other as any two statements could get. Would "you generally break even" sound better? Edited October 6, 2009 by CebusCapucinis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rik Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Actually,Atari,CV,INTV stuff has been getting pretty scarce to nil at the thrift and flea markets for the past year or so,before that,there was tons to be found,where i live.However, there's literally tons of Sega Genesis games and systems at the flea markets and thrifts,right now,still,don't know why that is exactly,strange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homerwannabee Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 i had a yard sale a few months ago and for an experiment i put about 50 2600 common carts for 50 cents each out.not one even sold ...and no one even inquired about them.and this was a 2 day sale and was pretty busy...weird That's because about 1 in 50,000 actually actively collect for the Atari 2600 by searching yard sales. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 oops, forgot yard sale as well....must be getting late I haven't seen much amiga stuff since i went to notting hill (west london) about a year so so ago That's cause Amiga people have enough sense to keep their stuff. Christ is some of that stuff worth money. lol I've seen that name (or burb) pop up before. Are you not an Amiga or Commodore guy? Not a member of Amiga.org? Seems to me lots of Notting Hill Amiga folks by you... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 the notting hill referrence was a retro gaming and hardware shop...dunno if it's still there (i am more the north/northwest fringes of central london) i haven't seen the amiga dot org site in years Getting back on the subject though, not wishing to diss our collector friends but since there are certain AA members that have 'everything' i don't quite see the motivation or incentive to start collecting when there is not a chance in hell of getting 'everything' as I pointed out elsewhere yesterday, these 'certain' collectors wont' sell anything of their collections apart from dupes (duplicates) and that only comes about if they buy up other largish or smallish collections Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red 5 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 I get piles of Atari games, NES games, SNES, and so on every weekend at tag sales. The trick? ASK! At every garage sale / tag sale ask EVERYONE. I would say 15% of the time, the owner of the house says, "Oh yeah! Can you hang on a second?" They come out with a box of old games. Or they say how it is 'up in the attic, can I have your number?' I get random phone calls all year from people who finally get to their attic or storage center and then call me. Of course I go to about 20 tag sales every Saturday morning from spring to fall... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skylark68 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 I remember finding video game stuff (mostly Atari) all the time back in the '90s. I picked up a Coleco Telstar in the box for $1 long ago. Nowadays it's hard to find anything of interest in my area. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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