The Official "Thrift finds" Thread

[Swingtown]

Yesterday I got a 2600 Track & Field controller in box (too bad the top of the box is missing), a 5200 Competition Pro joystick, and a Super Multi-Play Performance controller adapter for Sega.

[wrenchien]

one was a stuffed pac man 'hungry for you' stuffed toy at this thrift still hiding its games behind a wall of stuffed animals.. still,

 

but what he's sitting on, at the goodwill was noteworthy, as i found a digital derby from tomy that was in remarkable condition (despite being now 29!! years old!!!!)... with one film reel only slightly worn, but the game functions as expected.. even the lightup thing when you crash.

 

pac man, of course, will have to go leave for greener pastures, as he hasn't the proper papers.

 

the game stays, though. god knows how the gorillas get when they have to make do with cheap c... o...l...aaaaaa.

 

ehm, next i will show you a picture of the digital derby in play...

[wrenchien]

oooh, that's leaving a mark.

[SpendTooMuchOnAtari]

That pac-man with the "hungry for you" shirt and white gloves on is frightening.

 

 

Those usually are disturbing though. Someone should be a "stuffed pac-man" for Halloween.

[Atariman]

I've got a pacman just like that. I think I paid about a quarter for it at a garage sale. As for the digital derby, we had that game ever since I was a little kid. Hopefully I still have both of those items around somewhere... otherwise you may find me knocking at your door and asking for my stuff back. cool find.

[Bruce Tomlin]

That Pac-Man looks too much like he's related to Homestar Runner.

[DeV0]

Re, my last find. If anyone is after a red label BMX airmaster just let me know. I got 2 of them in one haul and both are in good condition, pretty sure they are pal, It was a strange lot, some pal, some ntsc and a seacam cart,

 

Anyhoo, im just after a cart or 2 and apparently this is a rare one

[King]

Well I picked up Metroid Prime and Fortress, all for under 20 bucks at gamestop. I'm about to go play Prime!

[egdinger]

I got a boxed commodore 64 for $3.85. A dragon warrior for nes stuck to a game genie for $2.75. an palm 3 and cradle for $2.85.

 

Any one know anything about rca selectavision disks? My thrift has about 16 of them. Even some old playboy videos on one.

[SteveW]

I found a universal cartridge cleaning kit, $1.91, an Atari Jaguar controller (with the AvP Predator overlay still on it!) for $2.92, which was nice, although I searched the entire store and couldn't find the console or any Jag games. That would have been nice, to have a backup Jag.

 

Bought a Dreamcast with controller for $12.91, and an Atari CX-40 joystick, an Atari XE joystick, and a Suncom TAC-2 that has a bunch of scrapes and burn marks on it. Total of $2.67. Every one of the joysticks have the little rubber feet either torn off, or melted off the bottoms. And yet again, I searched the store looking for the console they might have belonged to, but turned up nothing.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Monday I had made a special trip to San Antonio so that I could go to Atex Electronics. It's the surplus parts store that was spun off of Altex a few years back when they went catalog. My main objective was PC-mount S-video jacks, and I got 50 of 'em for 50 cents each. The guy needed a part number to write down on the invoice, and I followed him to a still-sealed box on a different shelf which was easily big enough for 5000 or 10000 of the things, so I know they won't be running out any time soon. I also got some old junk Ethernet boards with GAL chips on 'em, and a 100 pack of 75 ohm resistors (which Fry's doesn't stock for some reason).

 

Thrift store-wise, I got a couple of C64 power bricks for $3 each, and I had a discount card which was worth $20 off of $40+, so I grabbed the two big bags of assorted Lego that were marked $15.99 each. There's not much at Thrift Town that I can find any more worth that much that I want, so making them six bucks a bag was a good deal.

 

And at Bussey's flea market, I got half a dozen random NES and SNES carts. I didn't get the 7800 (no PS) that some guy was selling, but it turned out that someone I know did get it. I definitely passed on his shrinkwrapped 7800 games that he wanted $10 for. I don't know where he got them from, but I don't think he realized just how much they weren't worth.

[SteveW]

There's a Thrift Town in Austin too? There's one in Arlington, and I hit it on a regular basis. Most of the time, they have something i'd like. I went there today, and didn't find anything too interesting, but I did spot a foosball table for $69. My brother has been looking for one for a while, and this one looked brand new. Not a scuff or mark on it. Once my brother gets off work, I need to tell him about it, so hopefully we can pick it up tomorrow.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Um. They're a chain, you know. There's a Thrift Town in San Antonio and Austin, and like 4 in the greater Ft. Worth area. Strangely, I don't think there's one in Houston.

[SteveW]

Actually, I didn't know. The one in Arlington is a store benefitting the American Retarded Citizens foundation, and I thought it was only here and one other location I once saw on a flyer, but didn't look too closely at.

 

My mom's a schoolteacher, dealing mainly with children with learning disorders and such. Even when I was a kid, we donated old clothing to the ARC, but I never knew where the donations were actually going to. I just realised that Thrift Town was owned by the ARC recently. Maybe I need to check the racks and see if they still have my old Return of the Jedi T-shirt my mom donated without my knowledge.........

[Atariman]

Any one know anything about rca selectavision disks? My thrift has about 16 of them. Even some old playboy videos on one.

 

Selectavision discs are a lot like laserdiscs. As a matter of fact, they ARE laserdiscs to some extent. If you pop them out of their cases (which I don't recommend) they are actually the exact same size as a laserdisc.

 

They play in a Selectavision disc player, but as far as I know RCA is the only company to ever support that format. I guess you stick the whole 'case' into the player and pull out the cover after inserting it. (keeps the discs in good shape, etc I guess.)

 

Anyway, that's about all I know about them, except that apparently they use a stylus of some sort inside the player that eventually wears out...

 

I have a few selectavision discs and have been patiently waiting for a player to show up locally. They go for a bit more than I want to pay on ebay (and the shipping is pretty high, too due to the weight of the machine).

[Bruce Tomlin]

Selectavision discs are a lot like laserdiscs.  As a matter of fact, they ARE laserdiscs to some extent.  If you pop them out of their cases (which I don't recommend) they are actually the exact same size as a laserdisc.

Ewwwwww! Needlevision!

 

They are NOTHING like laserdiscs, except for the size and that they play videos! For one thing, if you bump the side of a laserdisc that's playing, you don't permanently scratch a skip in the disc.

 

In fact, the crappiness of CED (Capacitance Electric Discarge, the generic name for the format), probably did more to kill laserdisc than anything LD did on its own.

 

/has over 1000 LDs

[wrenchien]

.. you the most about a flea market.

 

today, while looking for varied things of interest, i left behind 2 sega genesis systems for $5 and some 5200 carts about the same price each.. but what i did find, in addition to the stuffed animals i found that might be of use in short films one day.. was a 25-year old bankshot by parker brothers, that i haven't tested yet..

 

and a joystick for atari, which is closer to me being able to have an independent unit.

 

perhaps another week i'll check out the genesis stuff, as i'm still starting to look for the older stuff like ataris.

 

the gutted playstation demo console that was there last week moved.

 

btw, the bankshot got lucky.. it rained on me as i awaited the bus back home.. which i didn't take, but a stranger gave me a ride part of the way home.. funny thing is i actually thought it was kind of cool to do so.

 

the bank shot will go nicely with last week's find of that derby game at the goodwill, but i'll probably not use my rechargables with that one until i get new rechargables.

 

i wish i could go to corpus christi. or even nearby kingsville, to test the thrifting waters there... nothing much in kingsville, texas, but the 2 thrifts as well as the white elephant thrift.. are kind of intriguing.

 

despite the rain and having brief chest pains as i drank a spicewood lime soda that must have been off (it must have been so good it almost KILLED me)! , it was a better day than it might have been , had i not even bothered to go by.

 

btw, if you ever go by the 77 flea market.. don't bother much with the area known as roof 1, bother with roofs 2 and 3, maybe they'll turn up once in a while... nice things.

[Atariman]

Selectavision discs are a lot like laserdiscs.  As a matter of fact, they ARE laserdiscs to some extent.  If you pop them out of their cases (which I don't recommend) they are actually the exact same size as a laserdisc.

Ewwwwww! Needlevision!

 

They are NOTHING like laserdiscs, except for the size and that they play videos! For one thing, if you bump the side of a laserdisc that's playing, you don't permanently scratch a skip in the disc.

 

In fact, the crappiness of CED (Capacitance Electric Discarge, the generic name for the format), probably did more to kill laserdisc than anything LD did on its own.

 

/has over 1000 LDs

 

that's odd. I thought they worked similarly... of course, I suppose the stylus should have given it away. How exactly do these work?

[Jasoco]

I'm curious too. I'm facinated by old technology, particularly technology that didn't take off.

 

I'd love to buy a LaserDisk player one of these days just to have. Maybe also to watch, but mainly to have as a conversation piece. Maybe I'll buy a few movies, but mostly it'd be there to make people ask questions.

[SteveW]

There's a Goodwill Superstore in a neighboring city that has piles of Selectavision disks, sometimes two or three copies of the same film. There's a sign on them saying "Do not open the cases, they aren't made to open up". Which means that some idiot managed to pry a few cases open in the past.

 

There were, I thought, two or three different formats in the early 80's that ended up with Laserdisks winning out on. Were Videodiscs the same format? Because I thought that it used a stylus also. I remember watching a news program in the early 80s about the formats. I'm having trouble recollecting it.

 

And on a related note, what format did the RDI Halcyon use?

[Atariman]

I'm curious too. I'm facinated by old technology, particularly technology that didn't take off.

 

I'd love to buy a LaserDisk player one of these days just to have. Maybe also to watch, but mainly to have as a conversation piece. Maybe I'll buy a few movies, but mostly it'd be there to make people ask questions.

 

I'm the same way with old technology - which is probably why I own a laserdisc player. Sure, I could have easily found all of the movies I own on laserdisc on VHS and DVD (except perhaps Krush Groove. I pray that this never made it to DVD...), but there's just something about popping a disc the size of a record into the laserdisc player and listening to it spin up to speed.

 

I personally blame the 5200 for getting me on the 'bigger is better' mentality. You don't even want to know how much I want to go down and pick up this desk-sized computer console and a few mainframe-type racks down at the salvage place at Purdue... (I could spend days looking through all of that old equipment)

 

But anyway, my 'thrift find' this week wasn't so much of a find, but I think it merits posting. Was digging around some of the old computer games in the back of my local EB (almost picked up Return to Castle Wolfenstein for about 10 bucks or so) when I happened to come across a game that had most of the title covered with the stickers that they 'seal' the cases with CDs inside with. Trying to peek underneath as best I could, I then noticed the price tag.

 

$0.00 - not tampered with and apparently not in error. I took it up to the counter and had them ring it up. I even asked for a receipt. I don't recall what the game is other than that it is a racing game (recommends a 233MHz pentium and a 4MB 3d card), but that somehow just made my day.

[Bruce Tomlin]

There were, I thought, two or three different formats in the early 80's that ended up with Laserdisks winning out on. Were Videodiscs the same format? Because I thought that it used a stylus also. I remember watching a news program in the early 80s about the formats. I'm having trouble recollecting it.

The third format was VHD by JVC. That was only ever released in Japan, but I know it was actually released because I have an old Japanese anime magazine with an ad for some show being available on VHD.

 

VHD technology was similar to CED, except it didn't need a needle for tracking.

[Atariman]

a few decent SMS finds today at the local game shop. I got Wonder Boy, Wonderboy in Monster Land (I'm pretty sure that's what it is called anyway) and Penguin Land (which is insanely hard).

 

3 bucks apiece for the Wonder Boy games, 7 bucks for Penguin Land.

 

I've found that I prefer Wonderboy III (already owned it before today) over the other two (everything is just so much... better... in every conceivable way...)

 

I will probably be going to back to pick up the U-force controller for the NES on Wednesday.

[wrenchien]

as one of the more noteworthy tieins of the first renaissance of the arcade video game.. namely the 80's before a lot of companies just made... too many... and found at the local goodwill instead of a $13 sims 2 game that wound up there...

 

the pac man fever, the pac man fever record.... it still had that sheet in it with some games, and yes i checked ,the record with the label on it.

 

not really a game, but music about a few games that many don't play much any more.. unless arcade emulation (cough cough) is their path to video game nirvana.

 

i once wanted this more than a lot of things back in the 80's... namely to be in school for one for years yet to come. i got it so maybe, i'd think.. it would be better in my hands than in ebay's.

 

took me a while to get home with that, 9 little bottles of spicewood blue cream soda (worth stopping by for on the way home from the goodwill), a toy stingray fish used to design a spaceship for a comic book shapewise, and a somewhat ruined lobster toy i'm sure could be recycled into a lobster/ gorilla hybrid.

 

the .. striped tights? let's say it's for a very interesting superheroine character design.. i'd thought up not long after taking this picture, to show honestly my gains each time i go thrifting... in a scene you genuinely can't fake.

 

not long after, i saw the local carnival had come into town.. and i saw carnevil at this local billard hall i've been going to for years..

 

... of course, going thrifting on halloween day rather than going in costume that night.... might be better off for me.

 

behold the green zebra,

 

wrenchien

[Wester]

My family used to have a Selectavision system with a few movies I remember having "The Great Muppet Caper" and "Dr. Detroit". There was also a place in town that used to rent them, surprising for a small town. I still have a couple of Laserdisc players and movies, torn as to whether I want to get rid of them or not.

 

Anyway, thrift finds today.

 

Genesis-

Pele' $.49

 

NES-

Dusty Diamonds All-Star Softball $1.00

MLB $1.00