Unusual but nice finds over the years.

[Elthesh]

I've been collecting for quite a long while now and I've come across some, well... Unusual, yet nice finds.

 

At a flea market, I saw on some random table a pile of junk and a brand sniny new Smurfs Save the Day cartridge. Searching the table revelaed the 3 cassettes that go with it. Those were still sealed in shrink wrap. Yet, there was no box, manuals, Kidvid unit or anything else. It was like someone JUST opened the box, tossed out everything but those items and put em on the table. Those 4 items were and are brand new out of the box quality.

 

Next we have a fellow who prolly had about 4.6 billion NES cartridges fading to death in the sun. Next to the table on the ground, a HUGE pile of Atari, Coleco and Intellivision manuals. No games, none ANYWHERE. He had apparently sold the games at some point and not the manuals. A few of the nicer finds in the manuals. Wall Ball, several Xonox manuals, Chuck Norris, Lancelot, Spikes Peak, etc. 3 of those CCW titles, Big Bird and 2 others WITH the overlays which were unused and brand new. Prolly others but I'm not flipping through 200 manuals to find em. Lots of duplicates though. He gave me all the manuals because he was just about to toss them all in the trash.

 

Looking at a clear plastic square box holding a huge pile of junk and seeing the end label of Pigs in Space. No idea HOW i spotted that from 10 feet. Of course it was in god awful shape, no manual or box.

 

Finding a Neo Geo, 2 controllers, the BIG ones, and 2 boxed games for 20 bucks. The lady said take it for 20 before "someone" arrives and tells me what this is... Unfortunately it didn't come with an AC adapter. Pain in the tail trying to find one.

 

Finding some guy selling the largest pile of Coleco Adam stuff I have ever seen in my life. He then sells it to me for 25 bucks. He digs around and finds a gigantic canvas duffel bag. Looks like something a circus tent would fit in. So I wind up lugging around about 150 pounds of Coleco Adam stuff for quite a long time in the hot sun.

 

Finding a Vectrex at a pawn shop for 25 bucks in 98. They said the guy that owned it was a regular and the only reason they gave him money was because he was a regular and always paid. He lost it that time though. Then a year later finding another Vectrex, no controller, and running, at a thrift shop for 5 dollars. I later found a Vectrex controller and a bunch of boxed games at the flea market.

 

Finding a guy whose son used to own ALL sorts of rare Atari games. The father really had no clue what any of it was worth, but he was adamant about jacking the price up on everything regardless of whether it was Frogger or a prototype just because it was old Atari stuff. The only thing I could afford at the time was Mogul Maniac with the manual and Joyboard for 20.

 

Finding a bunch of Emerson Arcadia boxed, still sealed games at a thrift shop stuffed on a bookshelf.

 

Digging through some cassettes for no real reason and finding Sword of Saros, Survival Island and Phaser Patrol.

 

Finding the empty flat box for Taz. Then a week or two later, at another seller, finding the cartridge, then another week or two later at another seller, finding the manual.

 

Finding a 3DO FZ-10, bare at a pawn shop on a clearance shelf for 1 dollar. Finding a top loader NES at the flea market, bare for 2 dollars.

 

Finding an Starpath Supercharger with no cassette player. and I still don't have one to play the games.

 

Finding 5 brand new Fairchild Channel F boxed games still in the original shipping box they were sent to the store in.

 

Eh, that's all for now. That I can remember at least.

[Rob Mitchell]

All interesting finds .. Now where do you live?

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Elthesh]

Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Thrift shops galore and probably the largest flea market in existance, the Swap Shop. Can't really argue with the variety of places to find goodies. http://www.floridaswapshop.com/ if you wanna read about it.

[Mindfield]

Haven't had too many great finds in the wild myself. My best would probably have to have been an NEC SuperGraFX with 3 controllers (one Avenue Pad), Battle Tap, AC, RF, and 4 games (including a rare Jap "adult" game) for $20 at a VV.

[SteveW]

One day I went into a thrift store that opened up next to where I work, and instead of finding absolutely nothing (as usual), I found two 4-switch 2600s, and an Atari Video Music. I didn't even know what it was, I just picked it up because it was all $4.95 each. When I got home, I Googled around for "Atari Video Music", and pretty much every website that had info about it, hammered home the fact that it's really rare.

 

Found a bare Vectrex in a thrift for $5. Found a couple 5200 consoles in thrifts, the most recent with functioning controllers (!!!!), both with the plastic still over the aluminum strip on the front, almost like they had hardly been used. Found a bunch of 3DO controllers and SNES-to-3DO adapters, all 25¢ each, along with a couple Genesis/SNES compatible VR helmets for $2 each. Just last week, found a Telegames DINA console for $3, which I'm sure i'll never come across in the wild again. Got a Nintendo Game & Watch at a thrift, still boxed, with it's instructions and everything still in it. Mario Bros., dual screen, from 1983.

 

I've got more great finds and stuff, but it's late, and I can't remember everything that clearly.