The Retro Game Collection of A.S. – What We Got

I can’t say enough good things about A.S. and his amazing collection, but if you missed the first part of this post set, you should check out my previous, similarly-titled entry.  This post is meant to showcase the great find that we acquired recently for a total sum of $300.

All consoles acquired came with their hookups, but they don’t make for nice photos so they were not included.  We are still in the process of testing everything out, and so far, about 99.9% of things are working well.

Atari 2600 and Intellivision

We received six different kinds of Atari 2600 consoles, including a heavy sixer (top left), a light sixer (middle right), a Darth Vader version (all black, middle left), a Sears Tele-Game (fabled to need some repair, top right), and two Atari Juniors (bottom).  We also received a variety of joysticks/paddles for this system.  In addition to this, we also received an Intellivision I and an Intellivision II, along with the Intellivoice Voice Synthesis Module.  We received a huge number of games for both systems, both boxed with manuals or loose.

 Nintendo Entertainment System

We received a console with two controllers (one we found after the photo was taken), 3 light zappers, as well as 53 games.  Most excitingly for me, we got Megaman 2/3, a second set of the Super Mario Bros. games, River City Ransom which I have been told is excellent, and two multi-carts: Super 190 in 1 and 42 in 1.  My boyfriend was particularly excited about finally getting his hands on Super C.  There are lots of other great titles in there that I’ve never played or heard of.  Also, despite our best efforts to avoid it, we’ve now officially become proud parents of Jack Nicklaus Golf.

Note: We’ve also been invited back to A.S.’s to pick up some extra cartridges.  More on those when we know what they are!

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

We received the console, two controllers, as well as a few games and their manuals.  Growing up, I completely missed out on SNES and all of the RPGs that came along with it, which is something I’m trying to make up for now in my collecting.  For me, this was probably the most exciting part of the find because I finally, finally got my hands on Secret of Mana and its manual!  I’ve been looking for this game for years now, and the price was always far too heinous for me to pick it up.  I’ve only ever seen it at hock shops or gaming events for $60-$80 Canadian for just the cartridge alone, so to find it in the pile of treasures with its manual was like Christmas.  Lufia & the Fortress of Doom has also been on my list to play for a long time as well, and that one came with its manual and map.  We also finally own Super Mario Kart!  I tried the Monster game and died within 5 seconds of starting… that one is not my favourite at the moment.

Nintendo 64

We received the console, one controller, two memory cards and a rumble pack along with 14 games.  Of particular interest to me was the gold Zelda cartridge (I only had the grey one until now), as well as Pokemon Stadium and Starfox 64.  I’ve been told that the 007 game is also a lot of fun, but I’ve only ever tried playing alone (it was not the best time I’ve ever had.) I also missed out on owning an N64 growing up, so to expand my game collection through this acquisition was a nice touch.  I’m sure the WWF game is better than that tag-team “Wrestling” game on pirated multi-carts where you glow red and get extra powers for a short time…

Nintendo Gamecube

We received the console, two controllers (one with a damaged analog stick, top in the photo), and a memory card for the system along with four games.  I just recently started collecting Gamecube games and was quite happy to see each of the four games we got pop up.  Super Smash Bros. Melee is not a game I’ve ever played, but I had a go with the N64 version and enjoyed a lot it at friends’ houses in the past.  I have also heard that the music from Luigi’s Mansion is pretty excellent as well.  Zelda and Mario are Zelda and Mario… no need to go on there!

Sega Dreamcast

We received one console, three controllers, two Visual Memory Units, two memory cards, a Jump Pack, and a fishing rod controller along with 28 games.  Being an enormous RPG fan, I was extremely excited about Grandia II, D2, and Shenmue.  There are a few horror titles in the mix that look interesting and terrifying, like Shadow Man.  All the games save two came with their instruction booklets and original cases, and all the disks are in good to near perfect condition!  Considering that we ran into a guy at a thrift store selling just the case for Shenmue for $10 last week, this was a welcome find.

Playstation 2

We received three (yes, three) PS2 consoles, all of which appear to have their own unique problems: one doesn’t display video via HD or regular RCA, one doesn’t read discs, and one doesn’t power on at all.  Perhaps some Frankensteining will work to our benefit, here.  In addition, we received two official wired controllers, one after market wired controller, a memory card and three games: Men in Black II, Ace Combat 5 – The Unsung War, and Peter Jackson’s King Kong.  These were in worse shape than everything else because they apparently spent some time with A.S.’s nephew and were not well-taken care of.  I haven’t taken photos here because we are still expecting some more games in the recent future.  I will post photos when I have everything!

So there you have it.  This was probably the best find I’ll ever experience, and it all feels downhill from here, to be honest.  I’ve  been looking at prices of things online and cringing since many people want payment for a single game at a third of the price we paid for all of these lovely items. Although I understand that there’s a price to be paid for collectible items, it’s just frustrating to see arbitrary price-setting happening for so many great games that are not particularly rare, or that people know are in demand because they’re good.  Just a humble reminder: in general, all the good games used to be the same price as all the bad ones when they were new.

This experience has definitely changed my perspective on collecting, and I will keep it close to my heart moving forward.  A.S. has practically donated his collection to us because he knows the love of collecting.  He also seemed happy that we don’t just collect things to put them on a shelf to look at them or turn them around for a quick buck.  We fully intend to play them, and how!

Thanks for reading.  I will continue to update this as I come across more goodies!

-GG

The Retro Game Collection of A.S. – $100

I cannot even begin to express the feelings that I have after something that happened this weekend.  My boyfriend and I collect video games and have been doing so more seriously since moving in together a few years ago.  You might call me a bit of a collecting junkie: I’m always looking through ads online and contacting people to see what they have.  Most of the time though, I miss the boat.  There are faster people than me out there, and they normally lay claim to awesome deals first.  In true Canadian fashion, people selling are loyal to the first people they speak with unless the deal falls through, and are exceptionally kind at letting you down gently.  This weekend, I had a truly awesome experience with a man who wanted to sell his entire retro video game collection for $100.

I read the ad early on Friday morning while having a coffee.  I realized that I was the first visitor according to the visitor counter at the bottom of the ad.  I froze.  This guy was claiming to have NES, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, Atari and Intellivision games, plus consoles and accessories, all for the low low price of $100.  I was entirely skeptical and it took me a few minutes to realize that if I didn’t act soon, I might again be the one standing on the sidelines while someone else scooped this up.  I noticed that the person had listed a phone number along with an email, so I called.  After four rings, I heard a voice on the other line that sounded like the most contrived elderly man’s voice I’ve ever heard in my life.  After asking a few questions and not getting much of a reply from the man, I thought for sure that this had to be a joke and hung up the phone.  I felt defeat wash over me, and after refreshing the page again to see that a few more visitors had stopped by, I decided to call again.

This time, I ended up speaking with a man who sounded in his 30s or 40s (I will abbreviate his name to A.S.).  He sounded a little bit shocked that I was calling so soon because the ad had just gone up about 20 minutes prior.  I told him that I was extremely interested in his ad and wanted to know when I could come by to see /pick up his lot.  A.S. started telling me about all the things that he had, and my eyes grew wider and wider in disbelief: he had everything in the ad and more.  He said I could come by the next day to pick it up, and my heart was set a-flutter… it was going to take everything I had not to dwell on the idea that he might change his mind (this had happened to me recently with another potential purchase of someone’s collection, and those wounds were still a little throbby.)  I made plans with my boyfriend to drive to the next town where this guy lived, and the countdown to go-time began.

Although I busied myself with other things during the day, I couldn’t stop thinking about this collection because it seemed far too good to be true.  After many failed acquisition attempts locally and a few over-priced gaming events, I was feeling a little worried that somehow it wouldn’t work out.  Around 4:00 that evening, I got a phone call from A.S., and he sounded a bit frantic.  My heart initially sank when I saw his number on my phone as I anticipated the worst, but much to my surprise, he was asking if we could pick it up that night instead of the next day.  He went on to explain that he had gotten an obscene number of phone calls from people asking for the items in his ad.  Some had been accusing his ad of being fake — who on earth would sell their entire collection for $100?  Others were trying to push him into selling to them for more money and to abandon the original deal he had struck with us.  He was receiving offers of double and triple what we had agreed to, and the stress was getting to him.  To ease the pressure, I promised we would be on the road shortly and would take everything off his hands as soon as possible.  We gathered a ton of boxes and set off for the next town.

A while later, we arrived at A.S.’s house.  My boyfriend went in to see the massive amount of stuff while I gathered boxes from our vehicle.  When my boyfriend emerged from the house with the first box in hand, it was like we had reached the Gamer Promised Land.  I was in total shock at seeing an entire milk crate full of NES games, a shoe box full of N64 games, another filled with SNES games as well as console after console coming out of this man’s home.  About 6-7 boxes later, a significant portion of this man’s collection had been transferred to our vehicle.  A.S. mentioned that he was incredibly happy that we were going to give his collection a good home and told us of the ins and outs of some of his items, like what kind of work he had done on some, which ones needed a little TLC, etc.  I decided to give him an extra $100 on top of our original agreed-to price at the end of it all, which A.S. seemed to really appreciate.  I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night knowing that he had been loyal to us and could’ve gotten more money from other people.  That, along with his great attitude, cute jokes and welcoming demeanour sealed it for me, not to mention the sheer volume of items we were receiving from him.  We thanked him profusely and backed away slowly, waiting for “the catch” to come up.  Either that or for the sky to fall, for lightning to strike us, or to see a letter in one of the boxes outlining our eternal debt to the man in the form of washing perpetual dishes.  None of this happened.  It was real, and we had essentially just doubled our current collection of games for $200.

The ride home was a bit euphoric.  Despite the fact that our car now smelled like someone’s musty basement, we had boxes stacked in the backseat and trunk area with wonders we hadn’t uncovered yet (we promised ourselves we would only look when we got home so that we could see it all together).  We arrived at home and hauled everything  into the house.  The piles and piles of stuff made me feel overwhelmed, but we soon started organizing and categorizing everything.  We started with wiping down each NES and SNES cartridge until we had gotten through about 40-50 games and then decided to quit for the night.

We did notice the lack of Dreamcast stuff in our sea of treasures.  My boyfriend was feeling particularly disappointed, especially because we had just recently acquired a Dreamcast console and were excited about finding some of the games for a reasonable price.  Because Dreamcast had been specifically mentioned in the ad, I ended up calling A.S. the next morning to inquire about whether or not he had decided not to sell the Dreamcast stuff, or if he was still interested in selling it.  He mentioned he had completely forgotten that he had put it in the ad at all and had been thinking about selling it separately for another $100 (he was clearly having some kind of remorse after the previous day’s sale.)  I inquired if he would be interested in selling to us, and he agreed.  He also promised to look into what else he had hanging around in his basement for us.

After another drive to the next town, we picked up a substantial number of Dreamcast games along with the console and accessories.  He had also found a number of Gamecube games he had forgotten to send along with us the previous day, as well as a couple of PS2s that we were grateful to pick up.

This time, I decided to ask the guy why he had decided to sell.  He told me that he had spent a great deal of time collecting these items and that he had put a lot of heart into his collection.  He spoke of a friend who had passed away, and whose family had thrown his friend’s prized possessions into a heap at the side of the road for the garbage man rather than knowing their true value or what to do with them.  He said that he felt he was nearing hoarder levels with his collection and didn’t want something to happen to him and see it all go to waste.  With respect to the low price, he simply wanted his things to go to someone who would take care of his collection and give it a good home rather than to a reseller that would turn his merchandise around to make a quick buck.  He reiterated that he thought that we were a good fit for his collection, and knew that we would take good care of his things for the long haul.  He simply seemed grateful that it was one less thing to worry about.  He also invited himself over to our place for the future date when we would have our Nerd Room set up in its entirety, and had managed to merge our collections.

Despite this man’s haunting reasons for wanting to purge his collection, I was extremely grateful and lucky to have been on the right site at the right time.  We are still in the process of going through everything, organizing and cleaning it, but I’m hoping to post an update soon with some photos if anyone is interested in seeing what we got.  Here’s a bit of a summary for those of you who want a preview:

Atari + games
Intellivision + games, accessories
NES + games
SNES + games
N64 + games, accessories
Gamecube + games
PS2 + games
Dreamcast + games, accessories

-GG