The Thrill of the Hunt!

[atarilovesyou]

Man, there's no better feeling than happening upon some great retro stuff in the wild, if you know what I mean (and i know you do!).

 

I've got a great little local Play n Trade shop nearby, and the guys know me well enough to know that if there's something retro in that's in great shape, I'll want to know about it. Today, that happened!...a whole box of NES and SNES games, CIB, each one pretty much mint minus a few with some residue from price tags!

 

I came home with Starfox, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out and Super Strike Eagle. Nothing much in terms of rarity, but each holds enough nostalgia factor for me to pick up a copy if I can. Usually, ebay is the only way for me to do this. I kinda cringe at the thought of replacing the carts in my collection with ones that are in better shape (the price just climbs and climbs, really, for games I already own) but due to the CIB status, these came home with me. And I even managed to luck out with the prices, as they quoted me some 'non-ebay' prices...I called back an hour later and unfortunately they had to up the prices, after further research. So I'm glad I grabbed the ones I did as they meant the most. I don't like paying $30 for games unless they're CIB and in great shape, yet I've kicked myself in the ass for not pickup up stuff at $5 that is MINTY...only to change my mind after someone else picked it up *facepalm* . . . missed out on Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 when they were $30, now they're $45 and I won't shoot for those prices. Who knows, if they sit there collecting dust perhaps I can talk em' into a deal.

 

On a side note, any idea why SNES Shadowrun would go for $70? i remember it being a cool game and all, but not for that price.

 

I know the 90s are over and long gone are the ebay steals, flea markets are drying up and it seems that even if the games are out there, the sellers know they're somewhat valuable to some of us and priced accordingly

 

Anybody else have some tales of stuff found in the wild at great prices (or even not so great prices)? I still get a kick outta finding stuff out there, especially when it's in GREAT shape and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

[godslabrat]

It's been a long, long time since I found anything of note.

[Dripfree]

"The thrill of the hunt!" I use that phrase all the time to describe my collecting. I rarely buy from Ebay, the hunt is so much more fun. It's a little hard to say if I'm saving money this way cuz I'd have to factor in the gas I spend driving around. But when you find that perfect thing in the wild it's a much better feeling, and story then winning a bid on Ebay. I have almost begun to believe that you can will the things your looking for into reality. It is getting more and more rare to find these things at a steal of a deal. Too many thrift stores are getting Ebay savvy these days and things are priced way to high it almost makes me want to give up on the hunt. Then there is that day when your driving into work and you see a Vectrex in someone front yard for $15 and it's all worth it.

[Cobra Commander]

I'm beginning to think that independent game stores are where its at for me right now. The flea scene is ok around here although I've been known to drive a good distance in "The Hunt". This summer I've scored decent stuff from the Mobile AL flea market. I've driven to a huge flea in Daytona and then to Sanford in the same day. Struck out in Mississippi. Scored again at the Pendergrass northeast of ATL. Lately my wife who travels during the week has been hitting local game stores in the cities she visits. So far Oklahoma city and Denver have been great to us. DFW is next on the list. At the beginning of the summer I was trying to get to 200 VCS games by years end, now I think I'm right around 300. The 2600 is the only console I'm collecting for. My hunt is now nationwide thanks to my wife who likes to shop for ANYTHING, likes exploring new cities and is OCD about lists. I'm going to have to start referring to the collection as "our" collection. We have only started the occasional lowball bids on ebay when we are bored and sitting on the couch or something.

[atarilovesyou]

I guess the only real difference is that now, the prices are up there. If I can get a great NES title mint for about 5 bucks, I'm laughing! Doesn't happen often though...this latest find was kinda like one of those dreams you have (well, at least I have em, lol) where you're in some old shop, store, school, whatever, and you're digging around a room and SHIT there's a BOX OF OLD-ASS VIDEO GAMES, complete in boxes!...can't tell you how many times I've had those dreams over the decades

 

I guess the folks down the road (waaaay down the road) will have something to look forward to, as I'm sure my treasures will end up in some kinda thrift store once I've checked out

[Dripfree]

I guess the only real difference is that now, the prices are up there. If I can get a great NES title mint for about 5 bucks, I'm laughing! Doesn't happen often though...this latest find was kinda like one of those dreams you have (well, at least I have em, lol) where you're in some old shop, store, school, whatever, and you're digging around a room and SHIT there's a BOX OF OLD-ASS VIDEO GAMES, complete in boxes!...can't tell you how many times I've had those dreams over the decades

 

I guess the folks down the road (waaaay down the road) will have something to look forward to, as I'm sure my treasures will end up in some kinda thrift store once I've checked out

 

Yea I have those dreams too..... Part of me feels like maybe I should worry about that. When I check out I don't care what happens too all my treasures as long as the individual collections stay together. Although I probably have thousands of things I kind of see it as having about 20 things.... By that I mean each collection is a single entity. I have my NES collection, my Atari computer collection, my Atari 2600 collection and so on. You can break them up into individual collections when I'm gone, but I'll be tossing and turning in my grave if they get torn apart piece by piece. Whenever I get a new piece I put it in it's spot usually alphabetically with its brothers and sisters. Thats actually my favorite part of this hobby. Whenever I do that little voice in my head says something like "Your with your family now, and you will never be alone again"....... And after reading what I just wrote, I now think I probably should seek help!

[christianscott27]

Sigh, I think this is partially what has pulled me away from the hobby. When I was collecting hardcore about 10 years ago I could pull in some pretty amazing stuff for very little money. I was always shopping at this one flea market (Lynn MA) where most of the sellers were the guys who cleaned out foreclosed and abandoned properties. That place regularly produced dusty boxfuls of classic gaming goodness. Back then the sellers were more interested in quick money than researching their wares. I hit that same place on the way to the beach a few months ago and it was nothing but xbox and later stuff at near gamestop prices. I guess if I was there every weekend like I used to be I might still catch a box of intellivision games, but then again it's been 30+ years since those games saw the light of day so there's just not that much left to resurface on the used market.

 

Without that adrenaline rush, collection list check-off, shelving pride, online bragging and initial test play there isn't much to keep a person collecting. Even if I do find something odds are I already have since my collection is pretty vast. Once in a great while though I still find something, just two weeks ago I scored at Mattel Electronics Horoscope Computer for $2 at Savers, and since it's one of the harder Mattel handhelds to score I briefly had that little rush.

[Classic Pac]

I only rediscovered 'The Thrill of the Hunt" this year when I began checking out as many of the local gaming shops as I can. I got some real goodies so far including Game and Watch 3 for the Game Boy and Metal Slug Anthology PSP.

[karokoenig]

A little bit of excitement can be had on ebay. Being patient makes it more fun. Stay out of bidding wars and don't go for any BIN at once, no matter how desparately you want that particular game. You have to learn to let go of a great many auctions. But if you stay patient, you will sooner or later find that one auction which for some reason stays under the radar. And then you will get what you want relatively cheap.

 

But yeah... hunting in the wild - can't beat that. It's an awesome feeling finding a good deal. And here in Germany, those moments become rarer and rarer as well, just like for you guys across the pond.

[Cobra Commander]

I got a lot of respect for anyone who holds down a brick and mortar store these days.

[Reaperman]

It's been a long, long time since I found anything of note.

Yeah, I've stopped looking anywhere but ebay years ago. It's saturday, I could be out doing that stuff but there's no point.

At best the thrift stores are full of PS2 sports titles and wii games. Basically what gamestop is throwing away. All but one retro game store in town closed, and that's the one that pisses me off every time. Heck, maybe it's gone now too.

 

Better to save my pennies, go online and get myself something I really want, not a stack of things that I happen across on a table--probably doubles of decent commons that I now have to pay to store/insure for the rest of my life. Maybe I'm finally hitting this "growing up" phase everybody was on about.

 

Sadly, the hunt will probably start to get more fun again when we get old enough to start dying off and our possessions start to recirculate. Right now it's kind of like a game of hungry-hungry hippos with only a few of the least interesting marbles left floating around on the field.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Reaperman

[omegadot]

We have three stores here that I frequent a lot. One is mostly focused on fighter tournaments but has a small used selection up front. Two others are fully dedicated and fairly large. I've seen just about every system I can think of float through there over the last few months. Cost-wise it's a crapshoot whether Amazon, ebay or they win, though. I really like shopping at these places, so I keep that up.

[Keatah]

I guess the folks down the road (waaaay down the road) will have something to look forward to, as I'm sure my treasures will end up in some kinda thrift store once I've checked out

Yea I have those dreams too..... Part of me feels like maybe I should worry about that. When I check out I don't care what happens too all my treasures as long as the individual collections stay together. Although I probably have thousands of things I kind of see it as having about 20 things.... By that I mean each collection is a single entity. I have my NES collection, my Atari computer collection, my Atari 2600 collection and so on. You can break them up into individual collections when I'm gone, but I'll be tossing and turning in my grave if they get torn apart piece by piece. Whenever I get a new piece I put it in it's spot usually alphabetically with its brothers and sisters. Thats actually my favorite part of this hobby. Whenever I do that little voice in my head says something like "Your with your family now, and you will never be alone again"....... And after reading what I just wrote, I now think I probably should seek help!

Yeah, I've stopped looking anywhere but ebay years ago. It's saturday, I could be out doing that stuff but there's no point.

At best the thrift stores are full of PS2 sports titles and wii games. Basically what gamestop is throwing away. All but one retro game store in town closed, and that's the one that pisses me off every time. Heck, maybe it's gone now too.

 

Better to save my pennies, go online and get myself something I really want, not a stack of things that I happen across on a table--probably doubles of decent commons that I now have to pay to store/insure for the rest of my life. Maybe I'm finally hitting this "growing up" phase everybody was on about.

 

Sadly, the hunt will probably start to get more fun again when we get old enough to start dying off and our possessions start to recirculate. Right now it's kind of like a game of hungry-hungry hippos with only a few of the least interesting marbles left floating around on the field.

 

I've not had too much luck with the local thrift shops as far as finding classic games and material. It's been years since I came across anything 8-bit or cartridge-style. Perhaps it is because the center point of my activities revolves around Apple II stuff. And with Apple's great reputation today, all people see is $$$ when they see the logo. And for the estate seller, there's a ton of shit to go through, and ebay is *the* reference source for pricing. I believe the days of Apple II stuff in the thrift stores are over with. The next source of material will come from those estate sales.

 

Each and every bit of hardware and software in my collection is an entity and has it's own personality and capability. Especially the smaller bits of software like individual VCS ROMS and the emulation environment they run in.

 

It is the environment created by the emulator that is the entity, not the emulator software itself. The emulator software is just another nameless PC application. The real magic is the pattern and arrangement of the gates of the CPU and associated circuitry and virtual rom. The emulator software just arranges those things.

 

If I was to lose one tiny seemingly insignificant portion of the virtual collection; the whole "society" suffers.

[DaytonaUSA]

Dude I know the feeling. I've been really lucky recently. 42 dollar japanese 3DO. 5 dollar GC controllers. 2 dollar Mario Tennis 64. Boxed Neo Geo PC games. Stunt Racer 64 for cheap. Hor GC pad for 30 bucks in mint shape. PC Engine Duo R boxed shipped to me in mint condition as a replacement for a yellowed, unboxed one that was broken when shipped to me on eBay. 150 dollar Wii U Deluxe. Etc Etc..

 

I've had a good last couple months...

[82-T/A]

That is cool... and like others have said, it's been a really long time since I've seen anything like that for sale.

 

~10-12 years ago, I used to go to the $wap $hop in Sunrise, and it was pretty common for me to pick up literally a storage bin of Atari stuff for like $20 bucks. I remember I once bought a big storage bin that had two Atari 5200s, (one 4-port and one 2-port) a bunch of controllers, some random games, some manuals, cables, a bunch of Sega Master System games, and some odd 2600 controllers, and I paid $20 bucks. Now... I can go to the same $wap $hop, and I don't see anything for sale that even comes close to 10 years old. The Oldest stuff I see are N64 games, no Jaguar stuff... and no Saturn or Dreamcast games either... just don't get it. I know times change, but where did all this stuff go?

[The Usotsuki]

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