The Official "Thrift finds" Thread

[snorlaxnut]

I made a trip to the local thrift stores. In one store I found a Virtual Boy with a Galatic Pinball cart for $3, but it didn't have the controller, stand, and battery pack, so I didn't get that. Instead I found and bought, at another store, a DJ Boy cart (no box or instructions) for Sega Genesis for $3.50.

[A.J. Franzman]

Minor find on Monday: 2600 Frogs and Flies, and No Escape! bagged together for $0.35 ($0.38 w/ tax).

 

Also, the "boutique" cashier at another thrift said she's going to clear out all of the (~200) overpriced video games ($3 each for Atari 2600, others similar) that are in one glass case, bag them up in bunches and put them out on the floor. I think they probably only sold less than 10 in the past 6 months, 3 of them to me. I told her there are about 4 more 2600 titles I would buy if they were $1 each or less, but for me to buy the rest they would have to be in the $0.10 to $0.50 range because they are so common that almost everybody already has them.

 

The strange thing is, this same thrift store moves a LOT of consoles (Nintendo, Saturn, etc.) but I only saw 2 2600s during that time, 1 of which I bought.

Edited November 8, 2005 by A.J. Franzman

[shining slade]

By far the best find I've had for the value of the item. A Sega Nomad system for $1.99!! I tested it with an AC adapter when I got home and it works great, sound and all!

[SteveW]

Today, at my beloved Disabled American Veterans thrift store, I bought a TRS-80 Model 102 portable computer in a slipcover for $4.94, and a Thrustmaster snowboard PS1/2 controller for $4.94. I passed on a TI Home Computer data cassette recorder in a badly damaged box for $8.98. I've already got a few.

 

At the next thrift, I bought The Rocketeer, NARC, and Ikari III: The Rescue, all for the NES, for $1.91 each.

 

At a Goodwill store, I found a few TI-99/4A cartridges for 59¢ each. Yahtzee, Munch Man, a blank beige cart that looked like it was left in a mudpuddle, and the good one, a Milton Bradley Gamevision copy of Hangman. The store also had a copy of Combat for the 2600, but no other Atari carts. The Combat was left there by someone else, to let me know that I missed out on an Atari haul.

[Trooper]

Ok, my latest finds then

 

I stumbled on this nice package on my last trip:

 

1 Atari Mega ST 4 + manual

1 Atari SM124 B/W monitor + manual

1 Atari Megafile 30 Harddrive + manual

 

Books

Atari ST/STE Hårdfakta by Magnus Zagerholm

Atari ST User's Handbook by Gilbert Held

Atari ST/STE Handboken by Pär Lundqvist

ST Applications by Brian Flynn och John J. Flynn

ST Boken by Andreas Ramos

 

Magazines:

Atari STen 1-89

Atari Varlden no 2

Atari Varlden no 4

Atari Magazine No 15 (French)

 

Applications:

1st Word Plus inc box & manual

LDW Power Spreadsheet inc box & manual

Microdeal Hard Drive Turbo Kit inc manual

NeoDesk 2.0 inc manual

Superbase Personal Database System inc manual

Turbo ST inc manual

 

Misc

Atari ST Basic Quick Reference Guide * 2

Manual for the Atari mouse

Misc Ads

Ataristicker

 

It cost me about $60

 

And a couple of weeks ago I got my first Falcon, including 16Mb RAM and a 250Mb harddrive, loads of books, games, applications and other stuff. That also cost me about $60. Quite the happy fellow I am

 

/Troop

[homerwannabee]

Nothing really to write home about

here's what I got

Atari 2600

Dark Carvern(no label) $1

Circus Atari $2

Venture(Coleco) $2

Football(sears)

Atari 7800

Dig Dug $2

Atari 5200

Popeye $2

Colecovision

Space Fury $2

Space Panic $2

[+FujiSkunk]

Question: How much is an early PlayStation, with the standard A/V ports and the parallel port, worth? Goodwill has one that they're asking $80 for. I'm betting it's not worth anywhere near that, since it's been sitting on the shelf for three weeks, but I'm still curious.

[SteveW]

It's going to sit there much longer than three weeks. I'm coming across early PS1s in thrifts constantly. It sounds like it was priced by a little old lady who doesn't really know how little it's worth.

 

 

Trooper: Jaw-dropping haul you got there! I've only found a couple of Atari 520ST consoles in the wild before, and i've never personally seen a Mega ST in the real world before. Plus all those manuals, books, and software with it makes it even better. Great find!

[n8littlefield]

Not a thrift, but at the little shop I hit I picked up Double Dribble, Excitebike, Blades of Steel and Castlevania for $7 total. The sports games were .50, the others were 2.95. I just started collecting in the Spring, so obviously I have some holes in the collection to fill!

[Atari Rescue Group]

Found something interesting at the flea market today, a NES Miracle Piano by Software Toolworks. I don't even own a NES, but now I may have to get one to test the cartridge. The cover box is mangled on the back side, but it looks like all of the parts are included--even the pinkish plastic bag covering the keyboard. Looks brand new and it works!

Edited November 13, 2005 by Atari Rescue Group

[shadow460]

Found this at the local Blockbuster of all places!

It cost me $4.95 plus tax. If I remember correctly, this is the most accurate home light gun ever made.

 

What's weird, though, is that you have to step on the dual shock pad in order to play Time Crisis well with this.

Now I just need to find a Time Crisis CD to go with it!

[vb_master]

All I found was a Saturn, passed it up.

[20eyes]

At goodwill today:

 

Boxed intellivision games:

Hover Force

Microsurgon

Pac-Man

Utopia

Vecron

 

There were like 15 others but they were all $4.99 and all extremely common

 

Also at goodwill

 

atari 2600:

 

Sears Stellar Track (loose)

Skate Boardin' (loose)

[SteveW]

I went out to the flea market after work, and not only was the place jam-packed, but everyone was selling videogames! Mostly modern games, and a large amount were sports games, but still, pretty nice to find.

 

Final Fantasy for the NES, $2

Pirates! for the NES, $4

Rad Racer II for the NES, $4

Wardner for the Genesis, $3

Valis for the Genesis, $3

The Typing of the Dead for the Dreamcast (shrinkwrapped), $7

Silent Scope for the Dreamcast (shrinkwrapped), $7

 

 

A guy had a 4-switch Atari 2600 for sale, but he only had two games. Loads of joysticks, but two games. I passed.

[+FujiSkunk]

Question:  How much is an early PlayStation, with the standard A/V ports and the parallel port, worth?  Goodwill has one that they're asking $80 for.

964319[/snapback]

 

It's going to sit there much longer than three weeks. I'm coming across early PS1s in thrifts constantly. It sounds like it was priced by a little old lady who doesn't really know how little it's worth.

 

Goodwill has gotten really exhorbitant with their video game pricing, ever since someone got the idea that these things are collectible. Usually the prices will drop after a few weeks, but the three PlayStations they have now have been sitting at $80 each (or higher) for quite a while now.

 

I seem to recall that some PlayStatoin hacking could be done through the parallel port, so I wouldn't mind having this console just to play with, and that's beside the novelty of owning a Sony game console that actually used standard A/V ports. I ain't payin' no $80 for it, though.

 

Found a complete boxed copy of MacOS 8 for $2 this weekend. Now I have a legitimate OS for both my Macs!

[RickHarrisMaine]

Some nice Goodwill finds

 

Friday, nice 2nd Generation Sega Genesis, one controller, no games, $5.99

finally got it working right last night!

 

Today, Goodwill, 4 boxed games, $2.99 apiece

 

Road Rash 3

Sonic 2

FIFA soccer

Risk

 

I also picked up Sonic 1, for the ungodly price of $5.00 at a flea over the weekend, so now I have a little Sega system and a few games.

[trueyanksfan]

Original 1972 Magnavox Odyssey:

 

Original Shipping Box

Original Box Inside

All overlays never used

Poker chips sealed

One additional game from mail in

Complete as could be

 

Price: Free! (being thrown away)

[masschamber]

not a thirft store but for free from a professor an atari 130 xe with disk drive, and several carts including zaxxon and star wars arcade.

[A.J. Franzman]

2600 Gorf, Infiltrate, Video Pinball (Uppercase LVAR), Stargate $0.80 each after taxes.

 

Lots of video games for several systems, including Odyssey^2, Intelly, NES, Genesis still left at Bargain Town thrift at Francisquito & Sunset in West Covina, CA, USA. All at 50% off marked price (typically $1.48, $1.98 or $2.98) this week, dropping to 75% off (50% taken twice) next week, with an additional 30% off on Saturday mornings between 9:00 and 11:00. Some straight back in the electrical section, and some in the cage with the TVs in the back corner.

[SteveW]

Original 1972 Magnavox Odyssey:

 

Original Shipping Box

Original Box Inside

All overlays never used

Poker chips sealed

One additional game from mail in

Complete as could be

 

Price: Free! (being thrown away)

965452[/snapback]

 

Whoa! That's a very good find! If you were anywhere near Philadelphia last weekend, you could have gotten Ralph Baer to sign the unit. That would have been really cool.

 

 

 

Bought an unopened 10-pack of Zip 100 Disks for $4.94, a weird little strategy game, still shrinkwrapped, called Hack Attack for $1.91, and a copy of Grind Stormer for the Sega Genesis, $1.91. Over at Goodwill, I bought MegaMan 3 and 4 for the NES, and Altered Beast and Rampage for the SMS, $1 each.

[NightSprinter]

Ok folks, update to the BallBlazer cartridge I found at FleaWorld in Sanford, FL for $7 sealed in the box. After tearing open the top of the shrinkwrap and opening the box I discovered that my cartridge is actually the RED end-label version. So I officially have an R3 cartridge as my first 7800 game. Plus at the Gameware in downtown orlando I found a Wisdom Tree game for the NES for about $4 or $5

[SteveW]

Today, I picked up a Mad Catz Xbox controller for $3.99, and a weird looking thing that i've discovered is a D-Link video capture device, with loads and loads of cables (not to mention three Xbox controller breakaway plugs) for $3.99. Next store, I buy three videotapes (still shrinkwrapped) of Flash Gordon (the God-awful '80s movie), Vengeance of the Space Pirate (Captain Harlock), and William Shatner/Leonard Nimoy-The 25-year Mission, all for $1.91 each. 1942 and Track and Field II for the NES were 95¢ each. And Fly II, a Macintosh flight simulator, for $3.93.

[Wester]

Today picked up

NES:

Ring King

Image Fight

Slalom

 

Gameboy:

Boxed Game Genie

 

Gamegear:

Boxed Powerback Battery pack without A/C adapter

 

Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon video tape with 2 episodes on it.

[SteveW]

Hit the local flea market. Lots of overpriced games, didn't buy much.

 

The Ultimate Stuntman for NES, $4

Baby Boomer for NES, $5

James Pond II: Robocod for Genesis, $2.95

Warsong for Genesis, $3

The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin for the Sega CD, $5

Laser Lords for the Philips CD-i, $5

 

Also bought a DVD video box set of Final Fantasy 10 (Japanese imported) for $3, I have no idea what it's about.

 

The game collector out at the flea market saw that I had a copy of Baby Boomer, so he bought it from me. He swapped it straight across for a sealed and shrinkwrapped copy of Immercenary for the 3DO.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Yesterday I found a stack of Genesis sports games at Goodwill for 99 cents each, so I went through the pile to find what I didn't already have. I got a couple because I was only missing the instructions, and I passed on a few I didn't have because the instructions were missing, but I did get ten games that I needed.

 

Then there was another copy of NBA Showdown '94 where something had happened to the cover sheet, so the kid made one from scratch. I wouldn't have noticed except that I didn't have one yet, and there was another NBAS94 in the pile. The back of the new cover sheet was some kind of Secret of Mana promo page from a magazine or something. Then a bunch of bits from an NBA Showdown '94 game review were taped onto that. And to be completely complete, he taped an "NBA officlial licensed product" logo to the spine, and a chunk of NBA holofoil to the front. It was such a masterpiece of absurdity that I had to buy it for 99 cents just for the "limited edition" cover sheet.

 

 

Today I found a copy of Sears Dodger Cars complete (text label, but box in nice condition) for $3. I was really impressed that someone cared enough to stick the price sticker on the side of the cartridge, and NOT on the box! I passed on the Sears Pac Man with box in not as great condition that was also $3. Then I found SNES Super Caesar's Palace w/instructions for $2. The heathens shot the bag-closing staples and hang-hook right through the instructions, but it didn't hurt them too much.

 

 

Hmm, I just noticed something on the Dodger Cars box. The price label area has "D>49" and "MY75158". The D> must be the department number. Since this is an older text version, 49 was probably the Sports department. I'll bet 6 was either Electronics or Toys and they changed the item numbers after moving Atari stuff out of the Sports department.