The Official "Thrift finds" Thread

[reedmarlowe]

I saw a Radioshack Tandyvision One boxed at the Savation Army today for $20. Wasn't sure if that is a real good deal or not... anybody know about that system?

 

Not sure if there were any games, didn't have much time, but didn't notice any unless they were in the box.

[SteveW]

I believe it was Radio Shack's version of the Intellivision. Boxed? It would be worth more than $20.

 

 

 

I had a good day thrifting. An all around good day in general, too, which is rare for me.

 

A Coleco Telstar Ranger console, minus one paddle and the gun, $2.92. I asked the guy in charge of the electronics, and he said that the gun had a frayed cable, so it was tossed in the trash. Dang, I would have gladly got it and rewired it.

 

An Atari 2600 6-switch, $2.92. There's no company sticker on the bottom telling me where it was manufactured at, so I don't know if it's a standard 6-switcher, or a Heavy Sixer. They didn't have the power supply or any games, either.

 

2 sets of TI-99/4A joysticks, $2.99 each. The store had the computer, and everything else separated and individually priced. Joysticks, power supply, that kind of thing. But I searched all over the store, and didn't find any cartridges.

 

A brand new, never used Winner 909 IBM/Apple IIe/IIc compatible joystick, in box. $3.99.

 

Primal Rage for the Genesis, Earthworm Jim 2 and Virtua Fighter 2 for the Sega Saturn, all $2.92 each, but it was half off day, so they all came out to less than $5 total. I love half off day!

 

Here's the best find today. A Bit Corporation/Telegames DINA system, with both controllers, $3.93. These things are very rare nowadays, and it's really rare to find one in a thrift! (For those of you who don't know, the DINA system is a Colecovision/Sega SG-1000 clone.) It's covered in food and grime, and there's no power supply (naturally), so I don't know if it works. I've read that a lot of DINA systems have some power problems, that'll eventually burn out the motherboard. I hope this one works. I guess I need to dig through all my storage totes, and pull out my other DINA system and check it with that one's power supply.

[jeepnut24]

My first major wild find and all for only $23.... Not great, but I haven't found any wild 2600 in a while, and boxed hardware is always cool with me. Extra Mario wasn't bad either.... At a brand new Goodwill so maybe there will be more. Passed a few commons that Ill most likely go back for.

 

[vb_master]

Found and Bought:

 

SNES: Faceball 2000 - $2.50

 

Found and Should of Bought :

 

Atari Lynx (older one) with 8 games in really nice condition (had carrying case) - $50

[madmjennifer]

Unbelieveable stupidity story of the day:

Today I was in a pawn shop and saw that they were trying to sell an NES cart with no label. Now, I don't think the store removed the label, but I do have to wonder why they accepted a labelless NES cart in the first place. Who do they think is going to buy an unlabeled game? Maybe it's the video game version of a grab bag. Unfortunately, I didn't see the price so we can't laugh at that, although I'm sure it's at least $3 because all the other NES games were at least that much.

 

Finds this weekend:

Sears Telegame Sports Center console with RF box and 2 things that look like salt and pepper shakers (can only assume these are controllers although they control nothing as far as I can tell) $8 Goodwill

NES Smash TV $2 Game X-Change

NES Advantage joystick $2 Value Village

Quickshot controller for NES $1 Value Village

 

I was really happy to get the Sears Telegame console because it's my first console that you don't have to put games in. I'm sure there's a more concise way to say that but I don't know what it is. It's actually in pretty clean shape - only a few scratches on the "wood" finish.

[Bruce Tomlin]

(one more post so we can get past the page widener)

 

Friday I got an LD copy of The Wizard, starring Fred Savage. $6 and that day's coupon (there were 4 days, Thursday to Sunday) made it 30% off.

 

Saturday I got a FFXI hint book (fall 2003) for 20% off of half off, or $8. I could have done better except I couldn't wait for the store to open the next day to use a 50% off coupon.

 

Sunday I found something a bit odd. At another store in this used books chain, they had a Japanese PSO in their lock case. The price was $15, but I had a half price coupon. But inside instead of the PSO disc was a Japanese House of the Dead 2 disc?!?! There wasn't a PSO reg number card either. Everything else seemed intact, including the PSO instructions, Sonic Adventure 2 demo disc and instructions. After going WTF?, I decided WTF and bought it anyhow.

 

Later that afternoon I was in one of my favorite thrifts and noticed the two boxed SNES games in their lock case were finally the half price color. Lawnmower Man and No Escape, now $3 each. While waiting for them to unlock it, I checked my list and found that No Escape was rated 7 by DPG! Since that thing had been there for weeks, I don't know why I hadn't noticed its rarity before. And it may be rare, but it looks like it has a hard time bringing in more than a dollar on ebay right now. Still, $3 is less than what I'd pay for shipping from an ebay auction, and complete SNES games are uncommon enough to be worth $3 to me most of the time anyhow.

[+FujiSkunk]

I had to attend a wedding (Not Mine), so I missed most of my thrift run this weekend. The only one I had time to visit was Goodwill, so my hopes weren't very high. Imagine my surprise when I found some good games that were also at decent prices! I picked up Arcade's Greatest Hits: The Atari Collection 1, Super Punch-Out and Street Fighter 2, all for the SNES, for $6 total. Not bad. Won't happen again, I'm sure.

 

Is it just me, or is Goodwill no longer offering old computer hardware of any sort for sale in their stores? I'll still find (overpriced) game consoles every now and then, but the computers seem to be history. Gone are the days when I could find a stack of old Macs or even IIGS's to rummage through.

[Flack]

Garage sale season is upon us. I checked the newspaper today and see a huge list of garage sales, so I decided to call my buddy up and hit as many as we could. The FIRST one on our list says, "Unbelievable Sale -- you have to see it to believe it!" It goes on to talk about lots of toys, etc. We decided it would be worth checking out.

 

Holy crap!!! When we got there, it was a house that had been converted almost into a store. Every room had shelves on every wall and most of them had shelves in the middle of the rooms as well. There was so much stuff there and so many people there that quite often we would get stuck in a room for a few minutes at a time until we could weasle our way through the crowds. BOY are we glad we went! Here are some pictures I took of some of the stuff we found today!

 

 

This is a shot of the room to the left of the living room. The tubs in front of us were filled with action figures for .50. The white shelves held sports cards. The shelves to my left were packed with TMNT, Star Wars, and Star Trek toys.

 

 

Looking for collectable glasses? Chipmunks, Looney Tunes, Smurfs, Star Wars ... this place had them all for a buck each.

 

 

The next room over had even more action figures, both boxed and loose. Here are a bunch of Star Trek, Spawn, and X-Men figures.

 

 

The back room of the house had lots of seasonal items, including lots of Halloween and Christmas items. The whole right half of the room was filled with Garfield and M&M collectables.

 

 

This blurry mess shows just some of the TMNT, Coca Cola, and Looney Tunes collectables that were in the house.

 

 

The back wall of the room had more Halloween collectables, including Tales of the Crypt toys and Scooby Doo figurines.

 

 

Yeah. Those are boxed Atari 2600 and NES games, some still sealed. They were a dollar each, so I picked up the entire box and walked out with them. There was also a second box of games next to this one. I bought it too.

 

 

NES decks, with power supplies and RF adapters. $5 each.

 

 

This is the pile as it began to grow in the back of my car. My friend who went with me collects 80's items for his house, so I let him keep the Pac-Man games, the Gremlins game, the plush Smurfette and the boxed New Kids on the Block stuff.

 

 

Here's the second box of games I found. Also a dollar each. There were a lot of loose and Genesis ones down in the bottom of this one as well.

 

 

On the way out the back porch, we discovered even more glasses. If you ever wanted Care Bear, McDonald's, Burger King, Muppet, or Coca Cola glasses, this was the place. My friend and I each found two Pac-Man glass mugs. I also found a few Chuck E. Cheese mugs.

 

 

Stuffed animal, anyone? .25 cents each. I found a couple of Chuck E. Cheese dolls for my arcade. For some reason there were about 20 different Alf dolls. We also dug through the Thermoses and I got a Sonic the Hedgehog, a Pac-Man, and a Last Starfighter. In the distance were a bunch of lunch boxes, but not any matching ones.

 

 

On our way back through the house -- more Star Trek toys. There were toys in every room of the house.

 

 

And when I say every room, I mean EVERY room. Here are shelves of action figures and a bathtub full of stuffed animals.

 

 

Ho ho, what do we have here? I snagged controllers and zappers (grey) for those NES decks for a buck each out of this tub. There were a couple of 4 way NES adapters and a lot of 3rd party controllers that I left behind.

 

 

Here's a parting shot of all the loot we managed to grab between the two of us.

 

 

Last Starfighter Thermos, Pac-Man mugs, Showbiz Pizza mug, Sonic the Hedgehog Thermos, two Chuck E. Cheese mugs.

 

 

NES Punch-Out book ends, The Best of the Super Mario Bros book (hardback), Super Mario himself and MegaMan.

 

 

I wouldn't be me if I didn't pick up something for somebody else. Here are Star Trek Magic Cling Window Scenes, and two Black Hole jigsaw puzzles I picked up for Phosphor Dot Fossils. Enjoy!

 

 

It'sa me -- talking Mario and Luigi! Anyone have any info on these?

 

 

Star Wars books and C3P0. Star Trek playsets, book, and "How to Host a Mystery".

 

 

My son Mason helps carry in the new Cracker Jack clock -- mint in box!

 

 

Maxlords said he was looking for Aliens figures -- here's a complete set!

 

 

More Star Wars goodies!!! Action figures, miniatures, and a candy dispenser!

 

 

I don't even know what this Wizard of Oz thing is but it looked cool.

 

 

These came from a different sale, but they were still in the car. Space Ace (DVD), two boxes of DSDD diskettes (always handy with old computers), and some loose Genesis games.

 

 

Six McDonald's glasses and another Pac-Man one!

 

 

Star Wars board game and a white Sega Saturn brand controller.

 

Here is a list of the games I scored.

 

Atari 2600

 

Air-Sea Battle (CIB) R1

Amidar (NIB) R2

Basketball (CIB) R1

Barnstorming (CIB) R1

Bermuda Triangle (CIB) R2

Bowling (CIB) R1

Coco Nuts (CIB) R3

Commando Raid (CIB) R3

Combat (CIB) R1

Dark cavern (CIB) R2

Frogger (CIB) R1

Frogs and Flies (CIB) R1

Night Driver (CIB) R1

Oink! (loose) R3

Pac-Man (CIB) R1

Sky Skipper (CIB) R2

Space Attack (CIB) R2

Space War (CIB) R2

Stampede (CIB) R1

Video Olympics (CIB) R1

 

Atari 5200

 

Kangaroo (CIB) R1

Pac-Man (CIB) R1

Super Breakout (loose) R1

 

NES

 

Gremlins 2 (CIB) R3

M.C Kids (CIB) R3

Rampage (CIB) R2

Star Trek 25th Anniversary (CIB) R3

Super Pitfall (CIB) R3

Win, Lose, or Draw (CIB) R3

 

SNES

 

California Games II (Game, Box) R3

PGA Tour Golf (CIB) R1

Suzuka 8 Hours (CIB) R4

Game Genie (2x, 1 purple and 1 yellow, both loose w/manual) R?

 

Genesis

 

American Gladiators (CIB) R3

Greatest Heavyweights (CIB) R3

Lakers versus Celtics (loose) R1

Mortal Kombat (CIB) R1

Mortal Kombat II (CIB) R1

NFL '95 (CIB) R1

 

Gameboy

 

Top Rank Tennis (Loose) R3

 

32x

 

Primal Rage (CIB) R5

 

Plus two complete NES decks with 2 controllers and gray zappers for $8/each.

[SteveW]

Holy cow!

 

You got one hella good haul there! And not just games, but glasses and mugs too! Super Mario Bros. toys? Wow! My jaw is on the floor! Congratulations on one of the best finds i've seen in a long time!

[Stingray]

Wow! What a great sale that was! Was that in OKC?

 

-S

[awsomo3000]

ive gotta stop coming to this thread and being reminded of the crapiness of my local garage sales

[gulag picture radio]

I really can't get over that sale above. BOXED games for $1?!?!?!?!?!?! My hat's off to you. THough that house looks like a hell of a place to get murdered in.

 

Anyhoo, some recent finds:

 

Genesis 1 +12 games & hookups - $6

PSone Playstation mini w/ hookups - $5

Vic20 boxed - $2

C64 30 games in 1 (not a thrift find, but KB was blowing them out) - $7

Intelivision III - $1.50

 

 

Several reels of home movie film reels for cheep! The best is some reels of african safaris of lions attacking a whole bunch of different animals. I havne't watched them yet as the titles sound scary: "Lion tears antelope to pieces" doesn't sound like the kind of flick to watch while eating lunch!

 

I also buy viewmasters whenever I can, especially the old ones of tourist attractions, landmarks, science, etc. Lately they've been cropping up a lot. At an antique store there was a great big box of them for $95 which is quite steep, but if I were to resell the stuff in that box it would go for hundreds.

 

Then a few weeks ago, I found a bag with nearly as many reels for $4 at the thrift, and then a day or two later another large collection for $14. I'd suspect that it was all from the same collector if I hadn't found these things at different times all over town.

[SteveW]

Stopped off at a thrift on the way home, and picked up Floigan Bros. for the Dreamcast, $3.88, but half-off, so with tax, $2.10. Looks like it was played once, and never again.

[Malc74]

Paid a visit to my local Sally Army last night, and after not finding any old home computers in the 18 months I've been in Thunder Bay I found 2 last night!

 

First one was a Tandy CoCo 3 - just the machine on its own for $4.99. Tested it and it works fine - now I just need to find some add-ons and software for it!

 

Second was a huge box consisting of a C128, a 1571 disk drive, a Xetec Super Graphics printer interface and a bunch of games and manuals, all for $14.99. Everything works perfectly.

 

There was also a separare 1541 drive in its styrofoam packaging for $4.99, but I passed because I already have about 8 of them (and my wife was giving me 'buy that as well and I'll kill you' looks ).

[reedmarlowe]

not much but cool($0.20):

[reedmarlowe]

oops, screwed up my pics, sorry

[gulag picture radio]

Nice. Pac-Man Fever on LP is an essential part of any vinyl collection!

 

I dug up a Commodore 128 for $3.50

Surgical Strike for SegaCD $3.50

Amstrad PPC640 portable $20

 

I left behind the Colecovision Super Action controller that was missing a joystick and had no price.

[homerwannabee]

I was able to get pretty good finds at swap meet today.

slik stik $2

suncom tac30 $2

rambo 3 $1

Sonic & Knuckles

and the biggy find for the day

Virtual Boy Golf Sealed $2

[guitarmas]

just picked up a Jaguar for $10.

[SteveW]

Hit a flea market today. Bought a boxed Sega Power Base Converter for the Genesis, $10. Cyberspeed and Silverload in PS1 longboxes, $8 each. A copy of Activision's Bomber Raid for the Sega Master System from a classic game dealer out there, $12.

 

And the strangest find today, a nice little piece of 1970s technology, Arvin brand 'psychadelic lights'. It looks like a speaker, but instead of a speaker grill on the front, it has a plastic light diffusion screen on it. It's also got an unlabeled knob on the side, for what I'm guessing, is for light intensity. Since I still haven't gotten my Atari Video Music working yet, I'd like to have another light synth to plug my iPod into.

[gulag picture radio]

That sound reactive light thingy is called a "Light Organ". I happen to really love anything that reacts to music. The knob controls the sensitivity of the built-in microphone. The more you turn it up, the easier it is to trigger the lights.

 

There are lots of these sorts of devices, some are triggered acoustically other electronically. Lots of those plasma globes have a "music" mode where they will flash on and off in time to music. Party lasers can do the same thing; they change patterns according to when sounds hit the internal mic. etc.

 

The Atari Video Music (another of my faves - I've got two!) doesn't have a microphone - it's using the direct voltage of the music coming through is inputs. The AVM is also great because it does everything live - you can plug a guitar or keyboard into it and get realtime results.

 

The Video Light Machine in a Jaguar, the CD player in a Playstation, or music visualizations on MP3 player software all depends on the music being pre-digitized. It builds its patterns based on that. I really wish that there were something that turned live music into crazy patterns so I could hook it up to my accordion or theremin and have a crazy light show!

 

There is software that will do that, but it's pretty specialized stuff for DJ's so it's kind of expensive... though there is some open source stuff that's supposed to do the same thing.

 

Er... I clearly gone on too long about this. Long story short, fire up the lava lamp, pump up the vinyl, and just stare hard into the color organ man... it's Saturday night!

[SteveW]

It's not a Color Organ. It doesn't have the words "Color Organ anywhere on the sticker on the back, and it doesn't have a built-in microphone. It looks like a small speaker (with a diamond-grid plastic light diffusion grill on the front), and has screws on the back for audio input, along with the power cord. I did a Google search for it, and came up empty. I would have thought that someone else interested in light synths would have a little blurb about it.

 

It's got something rattling inside it, like a lightbulb came loose. I can't seem to find a Phillips head screwdriver anywhere, so I can look inside and see what kind of bulbs go into it. Why is it you can never find the right screwdriver when you need it? When you need a flathead, you find Phillips head screwdrivers everywhere. But the moment you need a Phillips, you can only find flatheads. One of those great mysteries in life, I suppose.

[A.J. Franzman]

It's not a Color Organ. It doesn't have the words "Color Organ anywhere on the sticker on the back' date=' and it doesn't have a built-in microphone. It looks like a small speaker (with a diamond-grid plastic light diffusion grill on the front), and has screws on the back for audio input, along with the power cord.[/quote']

"Color organ" is a generic term these days, I don't know if it was once a brand name or trademark, but that is definitely what you have! Go back and read the previous post, they don't all have microphones.

[jeepnut24]

Battle Toads $4.... Cleaned up nice, and played very well. Had some trouble in a few parts, but still a fun game...

[SteveW]

It's not a Color Organ. It doesn't have the words "Color Organ anywhere on the sticker on the back' date=' and it doesn't have a built-in microphone. It looks like a small speaker (with a diamond-grid plastic light diffusion grill on the front)' date=' and has screws on the back for audio input, along with the power cord.[/quote'']

"Color organ" is a generic term these days, I don't know if it was once a brand name or trademark, but that is definitely what you have! Go back and read the previous post, they don't all have microphones.

 

Oh, sorry, I didn't know that "color organ" was an umbrella term. I always called this kind of technology "light synths". At least that's the term I picked up from looking at web sites about the Atari Video Music and Virtual Light Machines. And pretty much anything programmed by Jeff Minter.