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The Official "Thrift finds" Thread


Happy_Dude

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You've got a really really good buy. If that PStar4 game ends up not being destroyed and you don't want it,

 

It probably works just has bad corrosion inside. I will likely just swap the chip onto a donor pcb from some crappy sports game that uses an identical board rather then wasting my time cleaning the corrosion of surface mount chips.

 

Well I might have to clean it up as there is no exact replacement donor I am aware off. All the donors that would work are 2 mask roms donors and I would rather keep the same board so I guess I will be cleaning some surface mount chip corrosion, owell. Just realized PS4 has 2 mask roms, all swapped and done. Game plays and saves.

 

I'll just update this. Ghost Lion, final fantasy, and destiny of an emperor also have major corrosion inside. It's still a deal but I have to open every cart up now and see which have corrosion. Plus about 17 of the carts had marker that did not come off.

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To give you s hint of what practically every save game in this lot looks like except DW3 and Crystalis this is what Ghost lions pcb looked like as well as all the other save games. I just swapped boards it was the only feasible thing to do. It's not worth trying to clean that pcb every thing was corroded horribly.

 

The donor cart I used is a slight variant. It appears there really is no 100% match to that GL. I looked a long time. The main difference is the pcb color and resistor 3 was moved from between chr and prg to lower right.

 

At any rate much better. I will disclose the updated pcb when I sell it. I installed a new battery and holder, which that was a PITA too as the battery holder pushed into the plastic peg, I had to move it back as far as I could and still dremel the edge down a bit. I will have to decide if I feel like doing all this for FF and destiny of an emperor.

 

post-25078-0-42429200-1491065869_thumb.jpg

post-25078-0-71250500-1491065880_thumb.jpg

 

...

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A boatload of PS2 games, a few DS games and a Wii game, all with case and manual (about 20 games total) for $30. All non-sports titles.

Also scored a perfectly working PS2 slim with all hookups for $1

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I scored today as far as I'm concerned.

 

Went to a church indoor/outdoor garage sale. Didn't find much at first other than a cool NERF door hoop for my kid, some wind up chattering teeth, a 16 button sound maker thing, a couple berenstain bears books, and a new bug catching little kit. Yet in the back near the books, someone dumped some WIi games. Ended up getting Zelda TP, Metroid 3, Alien Syndrome, and a throw in (I think it's jacked) Wii Sports...all for $9.35. Later found for $3 elsewhere Guitar Hero 3 for Wii complete, and then at the usual ripoff barn Goodwill I don't like so much a basically nearly spotless GBA Glacier for $10, oh and it had Mario kart Super Circuit in the slot w/perfect label on it. :) I had been looking for a cheap GBA for a future project(if I can find another hosed up 101 to borrow a screen from cheap) and Alien Syndrome Wii as well. Everyone won, she got some fun goodies to play with and I found some nice stuff to put to use as well.

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IMG 0001



My pickups for the day. Since I (rather implusively) bought a Colecovision in the marketplace, I headed to a thrift store near my house to pick up one of the Colecovision games they've had around for the last 6 months. Turns out they were doing a sale, so the Zaxxon marked $5 rang up $1.50. :) Seriously considered getting Carnival too, but that's in most of the lots I'm finding on Ebay, so I decided to pass.

There's a church along the way to the thrift store- turns out today they were having a rummage sale. Babysitting Mama is... not my usual type of game at all. But, I am a sucker for unique gameplay experiences, and 'your controller is a damn baby' is pretty unique. Plus it was only a dollar for both game & baby. The pokewalker was 50 cents. I changed the battery to see if it'd still work...

IMG 0003



There's a Dragonair in here! :-D Shame I don't own the right Pokémon game(s) to get it out. (Can I even do that?)I'm not sure it works anyway, I can't make it register any steps. I'll fiddle with it more tomorrow, maybe I'm doing something wrong? Edited by HoshiChiri
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xz1Hns4.jpg

75 cents each. I got:

  • Freedom FIghters!
  • P.T. Barnum's Acrobat!
  • Cosmic Conflict!
  • Computer Golf!
  • Baseball!
  • Thunderball! (label seems to have come loose and slid down)
  • Matchmaker! / Buzzword! / Logix!
  • Hockey! / Soccer!

I can't remember the last time I found O^2 games anywhere outside eBay. Many years. Most of the labels are very nice.

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There's a Dragonair in here! :-D Shame I don't own the right Pokémon game(s) to get it out. (Can I even do that?)I'm not sure it works anyway, I can't make it register any steps. I'll fiddle with it more tomorrow, maybe I'm doing something wrong?

You need a Nintendo DS + Pokemon SoulSilver and/or HeartGold to link to it to drag that critter off there.

 

 

Anyway today I found 5 Wii games, one I'll sell as it has a little value, but the 4 keepers fun fun... $27 into them all: HotD 2&3 Return, Samba de Amigo, COD Modern Warfare Reflex, and Onechanbara. Such a great selection. I found other stuff, backed off the Conduit1 and 2 as I wasn't feeling it, other stuff was either in wonky shape or missing the manual (I can't stand people who lose those things as it shows a lack of care.)

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I decided not to take pictures of the Wii haul my thrift store got in last week, because it was just so much stuff. In the end I opted to sell most of it in the store, because it all made for nice bundles that wouldn't walk off so easily as individual games would. I put together a Rock Band bundle with the game and full drum set; a Rock Band 2 bundle with the game plus a wireless guitar and microphone (the guitar even had its dongle!); a uDraw Studio bundle with its tablet; a Cabela bundle with hunting game and gun controller; and an Ubisoft bundle with Monster 4x4 World Circuit and an Ubisoft-branded steering wheel. Among the remaining stuff were a few games that didn't require extra accessories, a couple of Nunchuks, and several Wiimotes of different colors, including one I hadn't seen before with the same shade of blue used for Wii-U hardware. Surprisingly, there wasn't an actual Wii in the collection. Even more surprisingly, there wasn't a WiiFit board among all the game accessories. That's good considering I already have over a dozen of the things I need to get tested and sold.

 

And now, another vinyl round-up!

 

These came from three different excursions. The first was at Christmastime, where I went shopping for gifts for my roommate's niece and her first turntable. Of course I had to buy extras, so I could have some choices on what to offer as a starter collection of good '80s tunes! The second excursion was to a surprise Sunday-morning yard sale about three blocks from my house. I had enough time between commitments at church that I figured I'd run home for a bit. Instead I followed signs to a yard sale that promised "thousands" of records for sale. They weren't kidding! The guy knew what he had, so there weren't any steals to be had, but he at least priced everything to move quickly. The third and final excursion was to my thrift store, which recently got a fresh batch of vinyl donated in, with lots of good titles I didn't yet have.

 

More good '80s fun!

 

post-6115-0-46787700-1491194715_thumb.jpg post-6115-0-78597300-1491194725_thumb.jpg

 

Not just '80s LP's, though. The yard sale in particular had lots of...

 

post-6115-0-24358100-1491194786_thumb.jpg post-6115-0-51002300-1491196116_thumb.jpg

 

12" dance singles! I love these, both for the rare packaging and the often hard-to-find remixes.

 

But let it never be said that I'm stuck only in the '80s...

 

post-6115-0-54545300-1491194977_thumb.jpg post-6115-0-33430700-1491194989_thumb.jpg

 

Good '60s and '70s classic rock, and in one case, classic funk!

 

These next three were particularly good finds...

 

post-6115-0-98329600-1491195085_thumb.jpg

 

Elton John's Greatest Hits (1974) and Greatest Hits Volume II (1977) do a good job of capturing all the songs of Elton John's "classic" era. In the early '80s, the two albums were combined into a single release, Greatest Hits Volumes One and Two, available only by mail to members of the RCA Music Service record club. That makes this a particularly "rare" release, if not exactly a more desirable one; mail-order record clubs weren't always known for their high-quality record pressings.

 

Next is the British Parlophone mono release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Why a British copy was in a collection of records donated to an American thrift store is a mystery, but who am I to ask questions? It's not mint or even what I would call "very good", but it's still in decent enough shape that I chipped in a few extra bucks above the store's usual asking price for records.

 

I also chipped in extra for George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. All three records are here and the outer box actually hasn't suffered too much abuse. I was quite happy to get this one in my collection.

 

There were a lot more recent vinyl gets, including several old Stan Freberg comedy records, but you know, you can only show so many pictures before people get bored... :)

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You know since you brought that up, what in the hell happened to those wireless guitar hero/rockband guitars?! Very few years ago you couldn't GIVE them away at garage sales, goodwills, flea markets, etc for $5. Now they're like $30 shipped online. I wanted to find one for Guitar Hero 3 for Wii and the only one i could locate was $30, I walked away. I'd rather get comfy playing on easy using 3 buttons on the wiimote than get ripped off that hard.

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You know since you brought that up, what in the hell happened to those wireless guitar hero/rockband guitars?! Very few years ago you couldn't GIVE them away at garage sales, goodwills, flea markets, etc for $5. Now they're like $30 shipped online. I wanted to find one for Guitar Hero 3 for Wii and the only one i could locate was $30, I walked away. I'd rather get comfy playing on easy using 3 buttons on the wiimote than get ripped off that hard.

 

Two things.

 

One, just about all of the wireless guitars require their own dongles. The exceptions are those for Microsoft consoles and some of the guitars for the Wii, particularly those that were smartly designed to integrate with the Wiimote and let it handle connectivity and motion sensing. All the rest, if you don't have the dongle, the guitar is useless. When you find maybe one dongle for about every five to ten guitars, they become particularly valuable.

 

Two, while it's actually still relatively easy to find cheap guitar controllers if you look hard enough (dongle problem notwithstanding), finding good, working guitars is quickly becoming difficult. These are family/party games, and many of the controllers have suffered family/party abuse, the kind of abuse mass-produced $60 plastic controllers just weren't built to withstand. The sort-of good news is, there was no overwhelming single point of failure. Sometimes the frets went flaky, sometimes the strum bar broke, and sometimes the tilt sensor went out of whack. That means that if you are handy with repairs, you could Frankenstein your own working guitar if you found enough parts. But if you aren't handy with repairs, you have to be prepared to pay a little extra for one that does work, especially at game stores and on eBay where money-back guarantees are involved.

 

None of this would matter if the games weren't getting played anymore, but there actually are still quite a few die-hards out there, myself included. Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live can be bought new for the latest platforms, but many players still prefer the older titles, particularly Rock Band 3, for a variety of reasons. The new instruments won't work on the older games, so the market remains alive and well.

 

I think I found the real reason for shortage of guitars:

cxOSvKC.jpg

 

Someone's hoarding them for decoration!

 

Haha, nice!

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Man that's a great vinyl haul! There are several in there I'd love to get like Herbie Hancock, Parlament and a few others. I'm a big Herb Alpert fan as well and that cover seems familiar to me but I couldn't find a match on discogs. Which album is it?

 

That John Lennon Imagine is a great snag to. Sad story about that one: I bought a sealed original copy of it for my wife for this past valentines day since Imagine is one of her favorite songs. We went to play it this weekend for the first time. I was all excited to hear it freshly unsealed and all but as soon as I started playing it started skipping. There was a warp in the record that wasn't noticable untill I tried to play it :( I took put it in the middle of a shelf full of albums to see if it might flatten. We will see.

 

I decided not to take pictures of the Wii haul my thrift store got in last week, because it was just so much stuff. In the end I opted to sell most of it in the store, because it all made for nice bundles that wouldn't walk off so easily as individual games would. I put together a Rock Band bundle with the game and full drum set; a Rock Band 2 bundle with the game plus a wireless guitar and microphone (the guitar even had its dongle!); a uDraw Studio bundle with its tablet; a Cabela bundle with hunting game and gun controller; and an Ubisoft bundle with Monster 4x4 World Circuit and a Ubisoft-branded steering wheel. Among the remaining stuff were a few games that didn't require extra accessories, a couple of Nunchuks, and several Wiimotes of different colors, including one I hadn't seen before with the same shade of blue used for Wii-U hardware. Surprisingly, there wasn't an actual Wii in the collection. Even more surprisingly, there wasn't a WiiFit board among all the game accessories. That's good considering I already have over a dozen of the things I need to get tested and sold.

 

And now, another vinyl round-up!

 

These came from three different excursions. The first was at Christmastime, where I went shopping for gifts for my roommate's niece and her first turntable. Of course I had to buy extras, so I could have some choices on what to offer as a starter collection of good '80s tunes! The second excursion was to a surprise Sunday-morning yard sale about three blocks from my house. I had enough time between commitments at church that I figured I'd run home for a bit. Instead I followed signs to a yard sale that promised "thousands" of records for sale. They weren't kidding! The guy knew what he had, so there weren't any steals to be had, but he at least priced everything to move quickly. The third and final excursion was to my thrift store, which recently got a fresh batch of vinyl donated in, with lots of good titles I didn't yet have.

 

More good '80s fun!

 

attachicon.gif2017-04-01-1.jpg attachicon.gif2017-04-01-2.jpg

 

Not just '80s LP's, though. The yard sale in particular had lots of...

 

attachicon.gif2017-04-01-3.jpg attachicon.gif2017-04-01-4.jpg

 

12" dance singles! I love these, both for the rare packaging and the often hard-to-find remixes.

 

But let it never be said that I'm stuck only in the '80s...

 

attachicon.gif2017-04-01-5.jpg attachicon.gif2017-04-01-6.jpg

 

Good '60s and '70s classic rock, and in one case, classic funk!

 

These next three were particularly good finds...

 

attachicon.gif2017-04-01-7.jpg

 

Elton John's Greatest Hits (1974) and Greatest Hits Volume II (1977) do a good job of capturing all the songs of Elton John's "classic" era. In the early '80s, the two albums were combined into a single release, Greatest Hits Volumes One and Two, available only by mail to members of the RCA Music Service record club. That makes this a particularly "rare" release, if not exactly a more desirable one; mail-order record clubs weren't always known for their high-quality record pressings.

 

Next is the British Parlophone mono release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Why a British copy was in a collection of records donated to an American thrift store is a mystery, but who am I to ask questions? It's not mint or even what I would call "very good", but it's still in decent enough shape that I chipped in a few extra bucks above the store's usual asking price for records.

 

I also chipped in extra for George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. All three records are here and the outer box actually hasn't suffered too much abuse. I was quite happy to get this one in my collection.

 

There were a lot more recent vinyl gets, including several old Stan Freberg comedy records, but you know, you can only show so many pictures before people get bored... :)

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Man that's a great vinyl haul! There are several in there I'd love to get like Herbie Hancock, Parlament and a few others. I'm a big Herb Alpert fan as well and that cover seems familiar to me but I couldn't find a match on discogs. Which album is it?

 

 

Thanks! That's the 12" single for "Diamonds". The original version of the song is on his 1987 album, Keep Your Eye on Me. Since Alpert was not only a client of A&M Records, he was also the president (one of the two, anyway), he pulled in a favor and had fellow A&M artist Janet Jackson sing vocals. People figure that's how the song made its way into the Top 40, one of Alpert's last singles to do so.

 

(Better picture of the 12" single's jacket here.)

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Cool, I didn't know about Janet being on that one. I actually picled up "Keep Your Eye On Me" not too long ago in a thrift store I think but I haven't gotten around to hearing it yet. I have quite a backlog of stuff I haven't gotten around to hearing yet.

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Hmmmm... I had only done the guitar bit on the Wii and it had no dongle. That's why I forgot about that one as I never bothered other than on there or the screwy handheld first one on DS and that original PSP Rockband as well. Totally agree with the other systems as if they're that easy to break and mostly lose the guitar is useless. The $30 one on the Wii got me as it requires nothing but a Wiimote jammed into it.

 

 

Forgot to comment that imagery back on the first, somehow missed it. Great job on the PCB/Chip surgery transplant. As far as FF1 and DotE goes, that's up to you if you can find a truly dirt cheap replacement board otherwise I wouldn't bother as the games don't cost much at all. It makes you wonder why kind of filthy individual would expose a whole stack of games to damage like that. An isolated bad battery or something fine, but all the games with batteries looking like that is abuse.

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Btw, you never fail to surprise me with all the trivia and info you know about things I'm also interested in. Is it just that you recently looked stuff like that up when the conversation or score happened or do you have all that trivia just floating around in your head waiting for an opportunity? I thought I was good with trivia like that but I think you could outdo me in many areas I thought I was pretty versed in. Either way, I'm impressed!

 

 

 

Thanks! That's the 12" single for "Diamonds". The original version of the song is on his 1987 album, Keep Your Eye on Me. Since Alpert was not only a client of A&M Records, he was also the president (one of the two, anyway), he pulled in a favor and had fellow A&M artist Janet Jackson sing vocals. People figure that's how the song made its way into the Top 40, one of Alpert's last singles to do so.

 

(Better picture of the 12" single's jacket here.)

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I have quite a backlog of stuff I haven't gotten around to hearing yet.

 

You and me both!

 

Hmmmm... I had only done the guitar bit on the Wii and it had no dongle. That's why I forgot about that one as I never bothered other than on there or the screwy handheld first one on DS and that original PSP Rockband as well. Totally agree with the other systems as if they're that easy to break and mostly lose the guitar is useless. The $30 one on the Wii got me as it requires nothing but a Wiimote jammed into it.

 

Coincidentally some of the guitar models that connect to the Wiimotes are the best, most durable guitars for the games, in my experience. I'm talking in particular about the controllers that were released in tandem with Guitar Hero World Tour and Guitar Hero 5. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions obviously don't have Wiimote connectivity, and the PS3 design still requires a wireless dongle, but they all have the same almost-full-size design with sturdy fret buttons and strum bars. I'm more partial to the Rock Band series of games myself, but I have to admit Activision made better guitars than Harmonix back then. Of course the better design means they're more in demand, so the game stores are going to ask more for them. I have to agree though, $30 is a bit ridiculous. Keep your eyes peeled and you should be able to score one of those at a thrift store before too long. Odds are it'll even work.

 

Btw, you never fail to surprise me with all the trivia and info you know about things I'm also interested in. Is it just that you recently looked stuff like that up when the conversation or score happened or do you have all that trivia just floating around in your head waiting for an opportunity? I thought I was good with trivia like that but I think you could outdo me in many areas I thought I was pretty versed in. Either way, I'm impressed!

 

Shucks, thanks. :) I do read up on albums as I get them, but I've also been a music chart and discography geek for a while now. A lot of random trivia has stuck with me over the years.

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I did recently figure out why the Goodwills around here don't have much except for the odd sports title in the last couple of years. Apparently, things get diverted to their Computer Works store (it's at a place I rarely can get to) or winds up on ShopGoodWill.

I am in Pittsburgh all the time, I need to check this place out!

 

Sent from my non beer holding hand.

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Oh I intend to keep looking, or at best if I can find one for $20 shipped on ebay I'll do that at the most, seems fairly reasonable because size+weight = higher shipping price. I've bookmarked a couple on ebay that could close in that range that aren't jacked up closing within a weeks time so I'll keep a watch on it. I really don't care for either of the games in general, it's not my thing, but the straight up honest truth of it all is that I'm very into the music choices GH3 has and The Beatles so I can tolerate playing those games on easy (3 button) and normal (4 button) and enjoy my time, but for the life of me I've not been able to handle all 5 buttons. Probably could using a gamepad if it had a normal layout, but the way the Wii does it I get confused so I keep it on 3.

 

I'm kind of surprised Harmonix never cashed in on GH3 and put a CD of the games soundtrack out as I wanted to buy that so much back in the day, I still would now. The Beatles, no point, it's a given and I've got the 1 CD along with that more recent-ish 'Love' remaster done by their original producers family(son, etc) which is fantastic.

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I didn't check it out myself, but I thought about this forum when I was at Savers earlier today, I could have sworn I saw a wireless one hanging off one of the clothing racks. I guess come up to New England if you want them [emoji23]

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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