The Official "Thrift finds" Thread

[elliott]

Sega Master System I + 2 Contollers

Choplifter + Box

Fantasy Zone + Box

Kung Fu Kid + Box

Thunderblade + Box

F-16 Fighting Falcon (Card) + Box

Blade Eagle 3-D + Box

3-D goggle adaptor but no goggles

 

All for $20

 

The system didn't work when I got it home, so I popped it open and started poking around with the multimeter. The voltage regulator was bad so I swapped it for a working one off a junk board and now the system works great. I also got an empty box for Black Belt, no cart or manual.

[SteveW]

3-D goggle adaptor but no goggles

 

Wow, I only tend to find the glasses and no adapter. That is, on the very few occasions I come across the glasses at all.

[gulag picture radio]

I love the SegaSMS 3D system! It's the most advanced 3D system in a videogame ever... awesome stuff. I've always been a fan of weird 3D stuff (just saw the new Superman movie yesterday at an Imax theatre with chunks done in 3D).

 

As for the Vectrex, if you don't care about collecting the overlays or the carts, you can always get the VecFlash multi-cart. Wish that someone would doa print run of the overlays tho...

[elliott]

If anyone has a working set of 3D glasses let me know, we may be able to work out a trade.

[SteveW]

I came across more than I expected today. Bought a couple USB cables (one regular, one designed for recharging Nokia phones like my N-Gage) for 99¢ and $2.99 respectively at the Irving, TX Goodwill. Second thrift had nothing, neither did the third. But on the way back, I stopped at my beloved DAV Thrift. I picked up a couple EPYX joysticks and an Atari 7800 stick that for some reason sounds like it's got microswitches inside it. Either that, or the little dome switches inside are really noisy. $2.92 each. After I rang up, I noticed that behind the counter they had a boxed Colecovision console, for $19.95. One half of the box looks great, the other looks like hell. Got it home, opened it up, and the console looks fantastic. I can't see any wear and tear on it. There wasn't the pack-in Donkey Kong cartridge inside it, but there were a bunch of Coleco catalogs (including one for their line of desktop arcade games and handhelds!), a couple Coleco game manuals, a few assorted Atari 2600 catalogs and manuals, and an Atari Logbook. I've never seen the Logbook before. It looks like something that was mailed out to customers.

 

The box back for the Colecovision lists Spectar as an available title, although it was never released until this year when Scott Huggins made it. I think Scott's version looks better than the one on the box, though.

[shadow460]

My most recent finds:

 

 

They included the wrong book, as you see, but it's not all bad. I may try to get the book and map for the NES game. I am planning to buy the Gameboy cart, too. I'll have a book for that when I get it.

 

 

I thought Gunslinger was an R6. I guess it's worth a couple of bucks or so as is, or zillions in Brokeback Atari.

 

Didn't know Baseball was a R5. I thought it was an R2 or something, but I guess not!

 

 

There was an entire stack of 2600 game at that thrift the other day, but they're gone now. I got the Atlantis cart from it thinking that with the value of the games there, that person might have had an Atlantis II cart. Knowing my luck they did and someone bought it who doesn't know exactly what it is. I'm going to keep the Atlantis anyway, since it's in mint condition like the others, and my copy of that label was pretty much trashed.

 

The 2600 titles were roughly $2 each, and Zelda was $15.

 

@ Steve: You lucky dog! I wish I could find a ColecoVision in the wild!

Edited July 13, 2006 by shadow460

[Prodos8]

I found several carts for $0.59 each and an original NES gameboy for $2.99 at the GW in N. Garland today. The carts were as follows:

 

NES

Home Alone

Paperboy

Marble Madness

Roger Rabbit

 

5200

Space Invaders

Centipede

Defender

Countermeasure

 

2600 Target Fun (missing end label and peeling other label)

 

Genny (these were cib)

Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures

Virtua Racing (the one with the "SVP" chip in it)

Sonic 2

 

I haven't tested the carts but, except for target fun, are in good shape. The gameboy works great with no dead pixels, just a few scratches on the viewing lens.

 

I don't have a 5200 at present, so I hunted around the place looking for one to no avail, just the carts. I do have controllers and PWSs for it so I'm ready once I come upon one.

[ussexplorer]

Well, I'm on the track of a free C64 and some games or something like that. Apparently beat up or something. Also some atari carts. The guy found one cart for me. Of all things a combat cart. LOL So as soon as I get a sec and he gets the key back. I can go undig from a pile of boxes the rest of it.

 

Thrift store find:

 

Sega Genesis

 

Klax 1.00

Dino Land 1.00

Raiden TraD? 1.00

Thunder Force II 1.00

Eternal Champions 1.00 (Might ALready have this one.)

 

All in plastic cart holder some without manuals. NO these are not for trade.

 

Then a bigger find. A Vendolator VF56 coke machine. Free from the local junk yard. The compressor deck works so This weekend I'll be swapping it with another VF56 machine + parts to make one machine. Can't decide on bottle or can stack. Oh and the other machine was also free from the junk yard months before.

 

Later,

 

ussexplorer

[+FujiSkunk]

Found this little curio this week:

 

 

Except for one of the styrofoam inserts, everything is here. I have to say, this is the coolest light gun I have seen for any game system. Besides the fact that it actually looks like a gun (none of that sissy blue or pink here), you can actually cock the hammer.

 

The system itself works beautifully, and the paddles are pretty much jitter free. The gun doesn't seem to want to register any hits, but it may be that my LCD monitor doesn't have high enough contrast (or it may be that I plugged it in after I powered the system up, which the manual implies is a no-no).

 

As interesting as this system is, I don't have any burning desire to keep it, so I'm putting it up for sale or trade if anyone wants it.

[super_dos_man]

great find!

[gulag picture radio]

I don't think that light gun games work with anything but a CRT screen. Perhaps that's it?

[+FujiSkunk]

I don't think that light gun games work with anything but a CRT screen. Perhaps that's it?

 

Systems that use the flicker trick for gun games, that is, blanking the screen for just a frame or two, won't work all that well with an LCD, since LCDs have a slower refresh (it's gotten much better, but CRTs are still faster).

 

However, this system relies on simply looking for a bright spot. In fact, the manual even tells you not to aim the gun at the score, or any bright light source, because "that would be cheating."

 

Still, it may just not be bright enough. I'll have to hook this thing up to the living room television at some point to be sure.

[youngskywalker]

Congrats, Skunkworx.

What an excellent find!

[SteveW]

I love finding Pong consoles in the wild. I've never been lucky to find one boxed. That's a fantastic score!

 

Quick edit: That's not true, I actually did find one boxed. I got into Tulsa a little early for OVGE, so I stopped at a church sale and bought a neat little boxed pong unit that was also filled with dead beetles.

Edited July 16, 2006 by SteveW

[Dusk2600]

found:

 

free nes action set box mint with inserts and inst found in a recycling bin

 

boxed keypad controllers 1.00

crypts of chaos with inst 1.00

hide and seek dvd 2.50

dvd player 3.00

atari 8 track storage case 6 all together 5.00

brand new cd scratch fixer 1.00

 

atari heavy 6 with 20 games also has telegames woody style case 8.00 Edit*

 

also got wolfenstein 3d complete for gba 10.00 at eb games

Edited July 16, 2006 by Dusk2600

[bones]

Love this thread, figured it was time to contribute to it after lurking for 5+ years.

 

Found a Sears Video Arcade II (2600) complete in box with all original packaging, parts, and 7 games w/ instructions including the pack in games Pac-Man and Space Invaders. The box and console are minty, and the combo joystick-paddles appear unused. Goodwill, shelled out $7.99

[n8littlefield]

Hit an indoor flea market and a pawn shop I've never hit before this weekend (drove 30 min or so). Found a few games for $2 each (loose carts).

 

2600:

Venture

Keystone Capers

Freeway

Journey

Jungle Hunt

Cosmic Ark

Crytal Castles

 

NES:

Pinball

 

Nothing spectacular - all the NES games tended to be sports games I already had, but some good Atari stuff. I'm getting near my stopping point on the Atari - only a few games left on my "must buy" list.

[Wester]

Had my best find in a while yesterday at a garage sale.

 

A working Nintendo Gamcube w/ two controllers, memory card, and all nessesary cords

Super Mario Sunshine

Resident Evil

Sonic Adventures 2 Battle (loose inside console)

 

$10

Edited July 15, 2006 by Wester

[SteveW]

Nice find on the GameCube! At garage sales, I usually only find SNES consoles for $50 or something.

[Almost Rice]

I picked up a Mac G3/300 beige for $6.16

[super_dos_man]

I found batman:the video game (sunsoft) for gameboy. I already have the nes version but now I can play batman on my game boy too

 

I also found kirby for the nes,

wayne gretzky hockey for the nes,

[Bruce Tomlin]

I thought Gunslinger was an R6. I guess it's worth a couple of bucks or so as is, or zillions in Brokeback Atari.

The rarities are different for picture label Sears carts, which are usually rarer than the corresponding text labels (when the text labels exist).

 

So I've had some good finds this weekend while down in San Antonio dog-sitting for my mom. One big thing was an electronics store going out of business, so I got a good supply of certain chips, most notably our friend the 74LS170, key to making a Parker Brothers bankswitch cart. I'm going to try coming up with a combo using a 74170 and a GAL20V8 to do PB bank switching. I also snagged 400 each of 6.8K and 75 ohm resistors, those being useful but not usually stocked values.

 

I found some assorted PS1 games for $6 at a Dollar General, but DPG's database says they're all 1s and 2s. It's okay, as at least they're not missing instructions, etc. Speaking of instructions, I found a copy of Mario Is Missing (NES) with instructions for $6 at a thrift store. It was in with a stack of carts that weren't there the day before, most of which I instantly knew were commons/uncommons. The day before I found a copy of Sesame Street Sports for PS1 in apparently mint condition for $4, six zip disks for 50 cents each, and three N64 cartridge snap cases.

 

I got half a dozen boards with EPROM/flash chips on them from a dollar bin at the Goodwill computer store, plus what appears to be a PS/2 keyboard adapter for Gamecube. There's no writing on this thing anywhere, so I really don't have any easy way of figuring out what it is.

 

But the best thing I got this weekend was from an old friend of mine dating back to the TRS-80 days, and most recently to whom I had been giving divxes of current Dr. Who episodes. It was number 331 of this. The first thing I'm going to do is get a real frame, rather than the stupid clip thing that it's got right now, and from which a misplaced clip has already messed up a bit of the edge. (but at least it's got real glass covering it)

[EricDeLee]

Here are my finds today.... (I'm back in Oklahoma until Sep 1st.... but this is my only day off so I had to go searching)

 

Keep in mind I've been searching Tulsa for years... and most of these places I go... NEVER have anything new.

 

But I got these at the flea market on Admiral:

 

Chase Sears Pic (bad condition)

Poker Plus Sears Pic

PacMan Sears Pic

Berzerk Sears Pic

Swordquest: Waterworld !!!!!

On the label... someone wrote there name in ink. Regardless... it was a great find in the wild.

 

$3 each

 

Jawbreaker $1

 

 

Turbo Grafx 16:

 

Neutopia $6.95

Double Dungeons $9.99

 

7800 ac cord.... (untested) $1.50

 

 

 

Not a bad day!!!!

[jferio]

Super Punch Out!, Starfox and the combo cart of Super Mario World and Super Mario All Stars for the SNES. Since I had two of the three (I have the separate carts of Super Mario, and Starfox already) I gave those to my friend, whose own SNES collection is pretty small. He was very appreciative of it.

 

I also got the NES Dr. Mario game, which has proven to me beyond a doubt that I need to pick up a couple of things, and extract the lockout on my NES toaster.

 

And my friend, in his thrift run that same day, got me the old Star Trek 25th Anniversary CD for Macintosh. In box. With the manual and everything. Now I just need to see if my OS9 box will run it.

[gulag picture radio]

NES

mario/duck hunt/track & field - $1

720 - $1

Skate or Die 2 - $1

Silver Surfer - $1

 

SNES

Alien Vs. Predator - $1

Robocop Vs. Terminator - $1

 

PS1

Need for Speed - $1

Kiss Pinball - $1

some kind of Bowling - $1

 

Atari six switch + Adventure - $10

 

ST:TNG season 2 DVD's in Chinese packaging (not sure if shows are in Chinese) - $6

 

S-VHS vcr - $6

 

a veritable buttload of classic board games (many I'd never heard of) 75 cents each

 

Totally sweet 1960's Sansui speakers - $15 for the pair