THRIFT SHOP BLUES

[ANTHONY ATARI]

A FEW YEARS AGO I USED TO BE ABLE TO GO TO THE TRHIFT SHOPS AND FIND ATARI GAMES.

 

NOW A DAYS, I'M LUCKY IF THEY HAVE ANY VIDEO GAMES FOR ANY SYSTEM AT ALL!

 

HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THIS?

[Mindfield]

It was bound to happen. With the increasing awareness of either the hobby of retrogaming and/or the knowledge that there's money in it, added to the growing "eBay culture" that the Internet has fostered, it's little wonder stuff doesn't get snapped up by those either collecting or looking to turn a quick buck. I've had the occasional good find at the thrifts over the last few months, but little of it I've kept to actually collect -- most of it I just turned around and sold 'cos I knew it was worth far more than I paid and it'd feed my eBay habit for collecting. :-)

 

These days it takes dilligence. You'll come across stuff, but you'll probably have to go early and often to do so.

[Adrian M]

HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THIS?

 

Yes, I've been noticeing this for the last 3 years.

[SimonTemplar]

I still find plenty of atari stuff in the thrifts ; problem is it`s always the common junk like asteroids and combat - and dusty systems and controllers that don`t work half the time.

 

Rarity 9`s and 10`s sell for $$$ on ebay because they are so rare to find... if they were easy to find in garage sales and thrift stores they would`nt sell for so much at auction. The whole thing is pretty logical to me.

[Adrian M]

I still find plenty of atari stuff in the thrifts ; problem is it`s always the common junk like asteroids and combat - and dusty systems and controllers that don`t work half the time.

 

         Rarity 9`s and 10`s sell for $$$ on ebay because they are so rare to find... if they were easy to find in garage sales and thrift stores they would`nt sell for so much at auction. The whole thing is pretty logical to me.

 

Consider yourself lucky to find even commons in your thrift stores. I'd be pleased just to find an Asteroids cart in the wild these days.

 

At best, I'm lucky to find some crappy PS or N64 loose carts, systems which I don't collect for anyway.

[Stingray]

I never check Thrift stores, but there are a couple of local used game shops that always have plenty of 2600 carts in stock. Given that, maybe I should check the thrifts.

 

-S

[mikeftrevino]

I have seen the same around here in my thrifts, but I also have been lucky. We have a used book store that sells used video games for just about all consoles. The atari 2600 and colecovision carts are always 2.00.

occasionally they sell a cart still in it's box, it's 5 bucks. We also have a music store that not only sells instruments but cd's, movies and video games. this is where I go for my atari carts, they always have a larger selection.

I'm tempted to try my local pawn shops,but I despise these places and what they do to people. They are right down there with the payday loan places.

[adams_ale]

Officially one year older today, but at least I can now buy beer! Oh wait.....I could have done that 5 years ago, today I'm 26. Anyway, to get to the point I picked up tooth protectors today at the local video game shop. Not quite a thrift store, but it's still a find in the wild. Well sort of. The name of the store is "Cool Stuff" and they sell lots of game systems, games, dvds, and action figures. I didn't get Tooth Protectors for a thrift store price either. They looked up the name in their digital press book and they stood firm on the price of 80 dollars. I went up to the bank retrieved the cash and returned to pick it up for 84 dollars with tax included. When the purchase was done the guy behind the counter said, "I don't know man, thats all you. I can't see how anyone would want to pay that kind of money for an atari game!". Asshole. Not cheap for sure, but it looks very nice and it plays great. Seeing as how I'm sure to never find anything at a thrift store these days this is what I must turn to for some small savings over ebay. Good birthday purchase and I'm happy.

[pmpddytim]

I do OK in the thrifts around here but my bread and butter is a used games store about a mile away. They have a good selection and are pretty thick on the rarity 4's. I've picked out most of the good'uns but there is still alot of stuff there that I dont have. Today I went and picked up a Pitfall II, Mario Bros., Shark Attack, survival run and some commons (Sworquests, donkey kong.....) for around 9 bucks. I think the 19 year old guys working there think I'm a little odd 'cause I dont get ps2 or xbox games but oh well...My only prob with the store is that loose carts are .95 while a shrink wrapped package of 5 loose carts is $5.95, figure out that math. Usually if you buy in bulk you get a discount. I'm not complaining though becasue sooner or later I'm sure it will dry up

 

-Tim

[Bivotar]

I recently took a bunch of left over garage sale items to a local Goodwill drop-off only location and asked the lady working there is she ever saw any of those "old Atari tapes". She said yes, but indicated that the store that receives the Atari games ends up throwing them out before they make it on the floor!!

 

I used to make excellent finds at thrifts. They just seemed to dry up after some time, and now it's not worth the time to go in them.

[jhd]

Sigh. Earlier today I dropped by a new (to me) thrift shop. I passed on a bare N64 ($40), a bare PSX ($30), and a Genesis with one controller (no price). Someone had kindly removed the memory expansion pack from the N64, thus rendering it an expensive door stop.

 

A through search of the store did not locate any cartridges/CDs for the above systems.

 

Ironically, this is the largest selection I have seen in a single store in quite some time. Bare Genesis consoles are common as dirt around here and this is the second N64 I've seen in six months.

 

Cartridges of any sort are uncommon and anything but SMB/DH and Genesis sports games are rare. Atari 2600 games appear about once per year and other classic systems never.

[SteveW]

Since i've been checking out thrift stores, i've only found a small box of extremely common Atari games in one, and a Space Invaders and Pac-Man in another. I've found a few consoles that i've never owned before, like a couple of Sega Saturns, an N64, a Philips CD-i, and a $5 Vectrex (my proudest find). When I find games for any system, it's almost always sports games. And they're usually carts only, no box or instructions. If it's a CD game, the case is usually scraped up and cracked.

[thx1138]

A FEW YEARS AGO I USED TO BE ABLE TO GO TO THE TRHIFT SHOPS AND FIND ATARI GAMES.

 

NOW A DAYS, I'M LUCKY IF THEY HAVE ANY VIDEO GAMES FOR ANY SYSTEM AT ALL!  

 

HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THIS?

 

Certainly with Atari that's the case in my little corner of England.

 

However, I have an arrangement with my two very local charity shops, to telephone me the moment video games arrive. It's not fair on everyone else, sure, but they offered to do it! I didn't ask for special treatment. And would you have turned the chance down?

[thx1138]

but indicated that the store that receives the Atari games ends up throwing them out before they make it on the floor!!    

 

 

Sad, but true. I have thrown oodles of rareish stuff away too about 7 years ago when I worked for a huge Salvation Army set-up in Sussex.

 

 

Actually a work colleague told me that my local junk shop had an Oric computer, boxed, for sale. I shot down there, and asked them. I was told that they thought it was a fire alarm (wtf.com?) and threw it out. I explained that I thought it was worth around £50 - and they went rummaging through the bins looking. No joy.

 

Altough a week later, the junk shop guy phoned me up, he had a big box of tapes and carts form a house clearance. I gave him £10 sold as seen without checking it. Got 6 MSX carts for my self, 2 atari dupes, and some ZX-Spectrum software I swapped for some Saturn games. :wink:

[Stingray]

Well this thread made me think I might be overlooking a gold mine so having nothing better to do at lunch today I decided to check out the nearby thrifts that I've seen.

 

Stop 1: Totally disorganized garage sale reject shop. Found a Genesis console only. On the other end of the shop, found what I guess is a Genesis CD ROM drive. Didn't want either so I left 'em where I found 'em. The only other gaming related item I found was a decent looking PC game stick. Didn't need that either. They did have a lot of groovy retro TVs that would look sharp with a heavy sixer. Might go back for one of those later as they were super cheap.

 

Stop 2: Damnation Army Thrift Store. Nothing remotely interesting here, but I took a look at their prices. They must be insane. The stuff they had was so high you could almost buy a new one, or in some cases you could buy a new one for the same amount. One example was a 19 inch TV for $100, last time I was in Walmart they had 21 inch TVs for something like $85. Nuts.

 

Stop 3: Not a thrift, actually a pawn shop, but it was on the way back. Decent selection of PS2/ X-box/ Gamecube titles & accessories. One NES cart and a handful of SNES carts. Nothing I was interested in. Again in many cases the prices were so high I question whether or not they ever actually sell anything. A used PS2 for $130? Gimme a break.

 

To sum up, Thrifts seem to be a dead end for vintage gaming stuff in my area.

 

If anyone wants that Genesis CD ROM drive, I'll be happy to go back and get it for you. I think it was marked as $9. I have no way of testing it.

 

-S

[gulag picture radio]

Thrifting is still good in Chicago. I found two of those old Atari binders for $5 each with 8 games in each one. I got Strawberry Shortcake, Donkey Kong Junior, Enduro (didn't have this one for some reason) and Decathlon. The others were mostly super common, but the rare ones made the lot worth buying - especially at $1-ish per cart!

[gulag picture radio]

Thrifting is still good in Chicago. I found two of those old Atari binders for $5 each with 8 games in each one. I got Strawberry Shortcake, Donkey Kong Junior, Enduro (didn't have this one for some reason) and Decathlon. The others were mostly super common, but the rare ones made the lot worth buying - especially at $1-ish per cart!

 

Salvation Army stores suck all over, and I've never seen good deals at Pawn shops. They're sort of set up for their own special economy in there, so I think that it's rpetty seldom you can find deals there unless the shop doesn't know what they've got. I've heard of guys getting really cherry electric guitars and synthesizers that way.

[Mindfield]

I have to admit that thrifting in my area hasn't been too bad to be the last few months. Heck, in the last month I picked up 6 TG16 HuCards for $4, an NEC SuperGrafx w/ battle tap and 4 HuCards (one rare unlicensed Jap Hentai mahjong thing) for $20, and have come across random Genesis, NES and Atari games, few of which I actually picked up. (Common stuff and sports titles. Bleh)

 

Their 2600 selection has become pretty bare though. The last month there's been virtually nothing -- a few fugly-label commons is about all.

 

I've never found and other Atari stuff there (i.e. post-2600) with the exception of an Atari Koala Pad once.

[Wester]

My problems here have recently gotten much worse. A guy opened up a new resale shop just down the road from my local Salvation Army, I didn't think much of it at first because it seemed to be geared toward the more well off tourists. But after a week or so I realized that he has been shopping at the SA. After watching his habits for a while I found that he scours the SA 2 or 3 times a day before noon. Just the other day he beat me to a Sega Master System with all the hookups and controllers for $2.50 and five games for $.49 each. Two days later I saw them in his shop for $12.50 for the system and $4.00 EACH for the games. That really bugged me.

Later my Fiance' was at SA looking at some bagged Hot Wheels cars for our son, and the resale shop guy and his friend were giving her dirty looks because they wanted the cars too.

 

I've made this a personnal vendetta to get my grubby little paws on anything at the SA that he might possible want.

[GammaGirl]

Hi, I still find games at thrift stores, it comes in waves, in between shopping for clothes, I check for Atari games. It works.

[AtariDude]

I know that around here you can usually find Nintendo and Sega Genesis games but it was only a few weeks ago that I managed to find some Atari 2600 games after nearly 2 years of searching. I have no doubt that they must be taking the stuff and auctioning it off eBay first before anyone else gets their hands on it.

[kemsted]

hi, i live in a fairly small town. thrift stores sure arent wat they used to be for video games. the only ones i c are genesis commons, nes commons, almost never atari but if ther is its common. i saw about 20 master system games a few weeks ago but wen i went back to get them they wer gone. damn

[Mr Egg]

goodwilh has really gone down the tube around here. in the main houston store they dont even bother to put stuff in display anymore they just bring out storage bins and you have to rumage trough them . value village is also not that good either since they changed from purple heart they test everithing and if it works they keep it behind the register at exagerated prices . if it does not work or is untestable thay put it out on the flor and label it as is . last atari item i found was a week ago i got an 4 switch woody 2600 for 6 bucks but after trying it out i get the dreaded black screen

[EricDeLee]

Stingray... I wouldn't even bother the Thrifts around here. Nothing for the past year or so that I've seen EXCEPT for the one time I found a game center case. It was the Atari brand rather than the Sears kind. It only cost me $4 so I thought it was great. The one thing you may want to try: Goodwill Thrift Auctions. I try to go once a month, but haven't had the time lately. The last time I went I got my boxed Vader.

[keilbaca]

Yeah, Goodwill went down the tube here all around pittsburgh and the surrounding areas... I just gave my brother the list of games that I don't have, because he told me he was going to Comet Drive In flea market. They always have games there, i hope he runs into some commons, or maybe even a rare or two there. I have to talk to him to find out. Thrift shops at home, they have games and its in a display case, but usually they are all commons, and he wants $2, so no one buys them. There is also a weekly flea market every sunday at perryopolis, they have a guy who has boxes of games, but when i went on leave, the only game i could find that i didn't have was a text codebreaker... i'm calling my bro now to see what he found.