General Category > General Discussion
Need advice collecting
FritzWhite:
Yeah, but will your kid's kids still play? ??? :P ???
My bad, I didn't mean to derail the topic.
kingjohn3:
I have a "Hall of Fame" collection that, to me, is what I grew up playing and also what is considered to be the best of the best by several different sources, in case i've missed a really good unknown title. Rather than be trapped by the "more is better" mentality I've finally decided that quality over quantity is the way to go across the board. I dont think the retro game thing will go away as long as there are people talking about it and enjoy reliving fond childhood memories or are newly discovering these old gems. Just remember to not be tied down to big numbers. Go with the best first
Head of Desserts:
--- Quote from: larryinc64 on December 31, 2013, 05:29:37 PM ---It's good to have a goal, and a list of what you want, but don't have it very strict and leave room for impulse buys. Also set a budget, and leave more room for wild finds than internet. I normaly leave internet buys for stuff on the top of my list that I was not able to find in the wild.
You also don't have to have everything all at once. Games will occasionally pop up in the wild for good prices.
Whenever I buy a new system, I always look for some cheep games, just to have something to play on it.
Here is how I got some of my stuff, maybe you will get some inspiration.
I started collecting in 2009, and the biggest places I got games were from friends/ adequateness, Goodwill, Creg's List, eBay/Amazon, and local game stores.
Early on, I knew I wanted a NES, SNES, N64 and Genesis.
I did not have a personal credit card or a store near by that sold old games, so I had to scrounge.
Tag sales were my first method, but I never got anything too good, My first find was a PS1. I never found anything older but I got some N64 stuff later on.
I got a N64 system from my sisters freind, no chords, and some crap games. Got the chords off-line.
I later found a old video rental store and got some random SNES, NES and Genesis games CIB for cheep.
My SNES was from a friend.
I eventually got a NES and Genesis from the internet.
Stuff like the Saturn, 3DO, Atari 2600, Xbox, and Dreamcast were impulse, I found a good deal and got them.
The Xbox, 3DO, Xbox and Dreamcast were from Goodwill. Atari from Creg's List, and I got a rare game for the Saturn from GW, and later bought the system to play it on.
For games, I put a price limit on used retro games of $30 for average games, with a few exceptions for games I really want. Most of my pricy games I got for cheep, Only paying market value for Mario 64, Zelda LTTP and Yoshi Island.
I got games like SSB 64, Mario Kart 64, DKC2, Super Mario Kart, Mario World, Mega Man X, Banjo Kazzoie, Both Zelda 64s, Dragonforce, Mario Sunshine, Luigi Mansion, All 3 Zelda NGC games, and Yoshi Story were gotten cheep or free from Tag Sales, Good Will, or Friends, not paying more than $5 for any of them.
Big lots can be good, bus it's hard to find some that are not overpriced. I got a huge NES lot with great titles from Cregs list, for around $2 a game, and got Zelda 1 & 2, Castlevania, Contra, and Mega Man 3 in it. I sold Duplicates here a while back and made back most of the money. Cregs List is probably better for this, but eBay can be good if you dig around. I recently won a Famicom lot of 170 games on ebay for around $200.
It's fun to build up a collection from nothing, slowly getting stuff from where you can. I have pictures from early on to more recent times if you want to see how my stuff grew. I need to post new pics. http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=11412.0
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THanks for sharing your story, you seem to have better luck than most of us went it comes to Goodwill and Craigslist. When I lived in South Florida, Craigslist was below average, now that I moved a little north from there, Craigslist is abysmal, but I check it once in a while. The only thing I ever bought from Craigslist was this huge SNES lot with the best of the snes library and that was a huge battle because a lot of resellers contacted the seller, so I had use all the charisma I could to seal the deal. In regards to Goodwill, never have found anything videogame related except for some nasty ass yellowed Dreamcast. Pawnshops rule though, great experiences with them.
Now here's my next question to you guys, how do you use search box in Ebay in the most optimal way. For instance, it's easy when I just want to buy one game, say for example Abadox (NES), I get about 70 or so results, which is easy to browse through, but I am having trouble finding a Sega Genesis (Model 1) with the box, and some games to go with it, but I am not getting good results, how can I use eBay to find that specific inquiry. If I do find something it's outlandish prices like 500 or so. And if I type let's say NES Lot, I get so many results and none of them are pleasing. Any suggestions regarding the search engine on Ebay?
Head of Desserts:
--- Quote from: kingjohn3 on December 31, 2013, 06:07:40 PM ---I have a "Hall of Fame" collection that, to me, is what I grew up playing and also what is considered to be the best of the best by several different sources, in case i've missed a really good unknown title. Rather than be trapped by the "more is better" mentality I've finally decided that quality over quantity is the way to go across the board. I dont think the retro game thing will go away as long as there are people talking about it and enjoy reliving fond childhood memories or are newly discovering these old gems. Just remember to not be tied down to big numbers. Go with the best first
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Yeah we got the same mentality. I go for quality over quantity. Quality is subjective, but I think we can rule out sports titles (Madden 99, 2000, 2001), unless it's a fun sports game like Blitz or Mario related sports game. In other words, it's got to be games I would enjoy playing.
larryinc64:
When searching eBay, I look by price, I work by way down from the highest price for a lot, and from the lowest up for something more specific.
For a boxed Genesis. try "SEGA Genesis system box" Or "Sega Genesis Model 1 box" I got a few results.
For quality, for me if I can get some enjoyment out of it, its good. Troll 2 is not a great movie, but it is fun to watch. It is a good movie to watch.
I had fun messing around with Tomb Raider Angel Of Darkness with a friend. The game is not good, but fun with a friend. It is a game worth having. I love getting random games I never played or seen and just exploring it. That's one reason why I want to do Power Plaid Plays with my friend Matt. Our first episode released, Gun Griffon Blaze, was a game I bought for $1 and never played. We had some fun with Karate Champ, a crap NES fighter, I have not posted that episode yet.
Keep your mind open when getting games.