The Official "Thrift finds" Thread

[0078265317]

When I plug it into my hp laptop it says:

 

Goiteck PS3 Wired Controller

 

So mystery solved thanks.

[Silverfleet]

Over the weekend, my wife wanted to go to the Iraqi Antiquities Store... err... Hobby Lobby, and she knows full well that if we are going to this particular store, I'm hitting up a small retro shop I always score deals from. I consider it payback for making me listen to the church music.

 

This time, I was actually hunting for records, and scored these:

 

The Scorpions album was the most at $10, but it's an original pressing and flawless. The other two were similarly flawless and $3/ea. Still better than the prices I see at the local flea market by a mile.

This store also sells comics, collectibles, and retro games, so I had to see what they had for games. They were stocked really well, but nothing jumped out at me on the shelves except for a $10 copy of Star Ship with a number label. I passed on that and went to the glass case. In there, they had Vectrex games! No one has Vectrex games in the wild around here, and when you see them, you buy them! They had a bunch of games I already had, but one I didn't, so I grabbed it. It was $16 with the overlay, which I felt was a good deal.

 

As I'm checking out, I see a pile of games on the counter and asked the guy what was up with those. He recognized me from the last time I was in, and said "Oh yeah, you like the obscure stuff. Check this out." Then, he pushes forward a boxed Jaguar game hiding behind a stack of Genesis games. I have rarely seen loose Jaguar games, and this was the 1st time in the 15 years that I've owned a Jaguar that I've seen a boxed game. Another $10 later, it was mine! I'm not a big Jaguar collector, but this was one of the few titles I wanted for the system, so I was happy to snag it.

Edited February 25, 2019 by Silverfleet

[CatPix]

So, it's not exactly a thrift find, but it's an Internet donation thing - we have a website here in France, Donnons.org : "giving" which is a site where people give stuff.

The donations range from trash to gold - from a lot of water-damaged VHS to cars (usually cars to fix but heeeh, that's usually good money in parts).

 

And I found that thing, close to me.

I picked up up for two reasons. well, three :

1) it's free and close to me.

2) the design is rad, very 80's

3) it was a local brand, and I mean local as in the creator of the brand and his factory were about 50 km from where I live.

 

 

Yep, a cute, very barebone 80's "monitor-like" television.

Kaïsui was a local brand; when it was founded, televisions were still a luxury item. The founder of the company created the name by using two Asian brands, Akai and Sansui, to give his brand the hip and quality feel of Japanese electronics of the era, and imported televisions sets from Taiwan and China; to give you an idea of how cheap his TV were, their first color television was sold for the price of a same-sized black and white set from major brands.

They were also in legal trouble since those smallers sets like the one I got were sold as "monitor", evading the taxes on RF-able televisions.

As soon as the major brands started to get in the cheap television segment, Kaïsui capsized and closed in 1993.

 

This set is in rather good shape; it's PAL/SECAM compatible, with a switch to select between the two, and RGB compatible as well, which is always great :

 

Really, that TV and the SMS are really "matching" so well

[Jess Ragan]

Argh. I have a monitor with a SCART input, but the quality of the video is lackluster. Honestly I thought the security monitor I got later with S-video looked just as good, if not better. I'm assuming the European SCART monitors and televisions look a lot better than the set I bought from Mercari.

[CatPix]

SCART doesn't always mean RVB - some sets might have the connector, but only accept composite and/or S-video.

Some monitors might have it for compatibility but internally have a RGB to composite adapter because it was hastily adapted. Early Sony color sets sold in France were modified in that way before they adapted their sets.

But here it's rare, as adapting RGB was in fact done simply by wiring the RGB wires almost directly to the tube drivers. You can see it on early 80's TV; if the contrast pot doesn't work in RGB mod, then RGB is fed directly to the tube ( contrast in older TV is in fact tuning the intensity of the composite signal)

Edited February 28, 2019 by CatPix

[Jess Ragan]

Is there a list which tells you which SCART monitors and televisions support RGB?

 

I have an Amiga monitor back in Michigan, and I always thought about modding a Genesis to work with the RGB port on the back. I just don't think it's as simple as making a straight pin connection. It probably needs resistors or capacitors or some jazz between the system and monitor. I have enough Genesiseseses back home to sacrifice one for the cause, but I'd just have to get them back first.

 

Connecting the first model Genny to a VGA monitor has been a total bust, I can tell you that. Again, I'm confident that it's not a straight pin to pin connection. There's got to be some Keebler magic in between to make it happen, and I guess it has to be a significantly old VGA monitor which accepts 15Khz signals. It's a real pain in the cheeks, I tell you.

[towmater]

$10 for a 10... Okimate 10. I could not resist after seeing the "Fred Rated" sticker indicating that this was a part of Tramiel's desperate attempt to overcome the issue of retailers not wanting to stock ST's. At the very least I've purchased two SIO ports for hacking-around, but since the printer still has a usable ribbon, is there a program that makes Atari XL screen dumps and prints them?

[CatPix]

Is there a list which tells you which SCART monitors and televisions support RGB?

 

I have an Amiga monitor back in Michigan, and I always thought about modding a Genesis to work with the RGB port on the back. I just don't think it's as simple as making a straight pin connection.

I think there might be a list of TV and monitors sold in North America that support RGB, but a worldwide list of televisions? I don't think so. SCART was mandatory in France between 1981 and 2016 on all color TVs so that list would be just overwhelmingly long - only a few early brands made that RGB to composite adapter thing. It would be shorter to list the monitors that feature a non RGB SCART.

For Amiga monitors, it should be a straight pin-to-pin wiring.

Here is the back of an European Amiga RGB monitor :

Yep, they didn't bothered.

Note that, now that I see it again, you want to use the "Linear RGB input" as TTL RGB is a different beast and won't work with SCART RGB. Or try to find a SCART female connector and solder it on the PCB of your monitor, there are good chances that they left the holes to solder it?

Edited February 28, 2019 by CatPix

[Jess Ragan]

Typically that's what happens, yeah. I'm just a little hesitant to crack open one of these things, because if it's not properly drained of power, it can shock you. Like, to death.

 

I just wish SCART caught on here the way it did in Europe, because in spite of its size, it seems quite handy. One cable for audio and video beats three or even five like we're used to using here.

[Tanooki]

I was at the louisville arcade expo yesterday, not a fan of my 2 favorite vendors being gone this year. I did get a nice deal though. I picked up a package of 3 games for $30, and what was excellent is that my girl got a tinkerbelle ds game complete and loose NewSMB too (I have a case/manual for it already) -- but for me, Darkwing Duck GB + manual in excellent shape. Got a great deal with all that given what DW goes for alone

[+FujiSkunk]

Aside from the steady stream of games that has indeed remained very steady (wander over here for a pic of the latest), some other interesting things have hit my store recently.

 

First, more good albums for the vinyl collection.

 

 

I also picked up the LP on the right in the following pic, which at first glance is a duplicate of one I already had.

 

 

It turns out Break Out was released with two different track listings in the States. The album ended up being the biggest of the Pointer Sisters' career, and had pretty much every hit from their '80s catalog most fans would want, including "Jump (for My Love)", "Automatic" and "Neutron Dance". What it didn't have, at least at first, was "I'm So Excited". The label then reassembled the album and turned it into a greatest hits collection of sorts, with all four big '80s tunes accounted for. And, just to satisfy (or enrage) the completists, "Jump (for My Love)" and "I'm So Excited" were given new remixes. The strategy worked quite well, because when the "I'm So Excited" remix was released on single, the song actually re-entered the American Top 40, and ended up peaking higher on the chart than before!

 

Then there was this oddity...

 

 

Unfortunately (or maybe not?) the record wasn't actually in the jacket, but I bought it anyway because of the odd cover, and to erase any possible doubt that the '80s were nothing but big hits and landmark albums.

 

Then, for some reason the store got in a collection of Korean karaoke laserdiscs. I don't plan on keeping them, but I grabbed them anyway, figuring I might have better luck selling them online than the store would leaving them on the shelf. Now, as we all know, karaoke means acting out your fantasies of being a professional singer. And on occasion, people acting out such fantasies have been known to "air microphone". I thought maybe the designers were combining the two ideas -- karaoke and air-microphoning -- when they came up with this cover:

 

 

Whatever the reason, I reeeeally think they should have reconsidered.

 

Finally, there was this shirt, which I totally would have bought had someone else not already called dibs.

 

[Fushek]

Finally found something worth posting again. Craigslist find for $70. Had a PS2 system with the games seen below. Some unique titles and some very good PS1 games including Resident Evil 1, 2 and 3 and Bomberman Fantasy Race

 

[+FujiSkunk]

Nice little collection there! Amplitude is one of my favorites from the same company that later did the first Guitar Hero and the entire Rock Band series.

[DragonGrafx-16]

Hah Rez alone is easily worth 1/3 of what you paid...

[Tanooki]

Yay on this, right timing for the 2 obvious games in this stack.

 

$11.25/ea on the Bomberman games, the other two were $3, and the old robot was .59 and from 1984. I'd call this a pretty nice pick up day finally after a drought since the VB.

[Jess Ragan]

Ooh, Max Steele's Robo Force! I had summa those when I was a kid.

[Tanooki]

Ooh, Max Steele's Robo Force! I had summa those when I was a kid.

Ok so that's what it was. I guess that makes sense with the CBS 1984 on the back it would be some network level generic but good kids cartoon toy. I just tore the entire thing apart completely and degrimed it entirely. Plenty of dust in there and it gelled in the arms which I didn't realize until I opened it actually was a spring powered air bladder in there to make the arms push inward and have the hand guns tap together. Added some clear nail polish around the arm rings on the inside to both tighten up the action but also the goo will help make a better seal for the air to carry into the arms as they're working better now (barely wiggled before.) Did that and the leftmost part of the sticker was curled up, reapplied it too.

 

I know it looked familiar but I hadn't researched it yet as I've seen them a few times at flea markets all jacked up and this one was nice compared. A cool desk toy either way.

[0078265317]

I found a harry potter gba and gamecube memory card for 2 bucks each at goodwill 9 days ago.

 

http://mvvg.blogspot.com/2019/03/goodwill-hunt-03-08-2019.html?m=1

Edited March 17, 2019 by 0078265317

[RodLightning]

Found a Wii today at a local thrift for $6usd. It has had a hard life, but seems to work fine. I have a complete boxed system in storage that can stay there while I investigate the latest methods of putting homebrew channel and emulators on this old thing.

[SmellyJelly]

Found this at a local retro game store for 2 dollars. Their atari selection usually sells pretty slowly, so I don't actively prioritize it when I'm looking for purchases, but when I saw this I knew I had to snag it.

[Tanooki]

At some second hand stores over the weekend I did mighty nice I suppose.

 

I was able to get the $40 GBA game Summon Night 2 for $14. Also was able to get a GBA SP Action Replay device for $25 that seems to stupidly sell for 80-100 on ebay which I have no idea why.

 

 

 

And now while this isn't an ebay find, it was online and took some wheeling and dealing to get it for notably less than the going rate, but I'm now the proud owner of Jack Bros on VB. (Days earlier Vertical Force and 3D-Tetris came in too from a combination deal on ebay too) So I have knocked off some usually painful titles for less. Also that manual behind Jack, I got that mailed to me free as a courtesy on a ebay buy where the post office dented in my box a bit which was unexpected and very nice to do.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Tanooki

[HoshiChiri]

 

I was able to get the $40 GBA game Summon Night 2 for $14.

 

Summon Night 2 is worth $40?! Sheesh, I paid a dollar for mine- and it came with the GBA! Maybe I should play that one of these days...

[Tanooki]

 

Summon Night 2 is worth $40?! Sheesh, I paid a dollar for mine- and it came with the GBA! Maybe I should play that one of these days...

Yup. It was $40 there and had sat for months as people in this area typically refuse to pay ebay pricing for games in a local case. It was a matter of luck they had their timer hit to drop the price, then the 2-3x a year 20-50% off coupon week hit, so I got it down to that which is a steal. Normally I'd likely have just sold it, but the more I watched some pictures and videos, read a little bit, I think I'd really enjoy it as it seems to be a weird mish-mosh of like the Tales of... format by live (no turn based) with like a Zelda/SOM style overworld handling. I'm leaving it on my desk as a reminder along with Darkwing Duck GB too as to shame myself into remembering to make time for both.

 

I had no idea the game was like that as I was only aware of the other main line games being SRPGs and I really mostly hate those types of game so it was a miss years ago when I could have bought it new.

[zappi]

yeh the GBA Summon Night games have been going up in price, so much so that they were heavily bootlegged a year or so ago - type "Summon Night gba" into ebay and you get all sorts of listings from China :/

[Tanooki]

yeh the GBA Summon Night games have been going up in price, so much so that they were heavily bootlegged a year or so ago - type "Summon Night gba" into ebay and you get all sorts of listings from China :/

So it's a recent bump eh? ATLUS effect at play I guess. I was wondering about it too, but it looked solid from any outside appearance I know of, so I brought it home and unscrewed it at my desk and it checked out so I kept it. Fakes are very good, but by the eye if you know you can basically still tell but it's very tricky. I almost questioned it as the label seemed a bit shiny given GBA games still have that lame ink that dissolves with anything worse than water.