Where do you pick up retro goodies? UK

[barnieg]

Here in Rugby Town there doesn't seem to be much in the way of Retro Computing & Console stuff to pick up. Anyone else found good sources of retro stuff?

 

Charity shops seem to have the odd PS2 game and quite a few PC CDROMS but apart from that nothing. Quite bizarrely I was looking in the "X Catalogue shop" and they had some n-gage games on the shelf bizarre!

 

Barnie

[caver]

Not sure about your side of the planet, but on this side, especially if you are adding to your existing collection (as in, you are trying to avoid duplicates) it's not so much where you look but how often....

 

Craigslist, and savers seem to be the best for me... But the church charity shop next to my house I've picked up a few goodies (and missed on a few, since whoever stole from the shop left the cd case behind, who are these jerks that steal from charity shops?????), same with goodwill, and the local swap meat...

 

I probably go to savers 2x a month on average, and about 1/2 of the time they have something retro and about 1/4 of the time it's something I'm interested in....

 

I am curious about where all the computers are though.... I've yet to see a C64, A8, or practically anything else in the wild.... They used to have Sinclairs at savers maybe 10 years ago, but I've never seen anything like that lately, especially at a reasonable price.

 

Each geographical location is probably different though, I'd say visit a few different places every week for a few months, to get a feel for if that place gets this stuff, and keep visiting those that do.... and for those that don't try to visit every now and again just in case....

[Tickled_Pink]

The increasing recognition/perception of what this stuff can be worth is hampering finding anything in the wild these days. Last time I saw anything from the 80's was about 3 years ago at a car boot near Swansea. A guy there had a boxed 800XL and another couple of 80's systems. Didn't ask how much he wanted for it as it would have been futile - missus would have killed me for buying up more 'Atari junk'. Prior to that, you have to go back further at the area I now live in - there was a guy who used to sell new and used Atari 2600 games. This kind of thing has pretty much dried up in recent years around here.

 

I have seen plenty of Megadrives and Nintendos over the years. Actually, my mother-in-law recently sold a Megadrive and about 16 games she found in the attic for £50 at a car boot. However, those machines have never interested me. It's 70's and 80's or nothing.

 

I have seen a couple of shops selling 90's consoles in recent years. I'm sure that the local branch of Gamestation has had the odd N64 in the window. I remember a shop in Pontypridd and another in Newport doing the same - all nicely re-shrinkwrapped.

 

 

Game store owners don't really know too much beyond the 90's. The biggest sickener for me was when a guy opened a games shop down the road. He mentioned that a customer had come in offering to sell him a Vectrex with more than a dozen games for £40. This was about 12 years ago. I told him that I'd have bought it (already had a Veccy but could have done with more games) and told him if he saw the guy again to let him know. Never heard anything. Needless to say, he wasn't in business long.

Edited June 19, 2011 by Tickled_Pink