Your Best Pickups: on NA, in the wild, on ebay

[Sign Collector Guy | 334]

Here was the original craigslist post photos for an original WON cabinet. Had original keys and locks as well. Had been sitting in a storage building since 1993 until this guy decided to have a garage sale. Was listed for 6 days until I found it. One person came to look at it and wanted to make a gun cabinet out of it and passed. Paid his asking price of $100.  Was able to track down an original marquee for it later in 2016  

Dug and found an older pic of when I had much less stuff  

 

Edited November 16, 2019 by Sign Collector Guy

[Pats1717 | 62]

On NA I got a flintstones 2 cart for $200 which I thought was crazy at the time.

on eBay I got a mint deluxe set along with some mint black box games that included a mint donkey Kong 3 screw that @guillavoie kept messaging me about on eBay and @Braveheart69 bought off me on Chase the Chuck wagon ( before it was called game gavel)

in the wild probably the Nintendo ceiling fan complete in box for $5 or $10

[Strikezone1 | 154]

I didn’t join NA until late 2016 IIRC and I only had a couple transactions. Nothing to speak of.

Never got a lucky to score a blockbuster deal on eBay.

I’ve also never been much of a garage saler (or Craigslist, FB Marketplace, etc) so I got nothing there either.

I did buy around 60 or so games from my local Funcoland in the mid-to-late 90s, so my best pickups to speak of would be getting Snow Brothers, Contra Force, & Ninja Gaiden III all for a few dollars each.

 

[T-Pac | 7,531]

On 11/14/2019 at 2:29 PM, DarkTone said:

Ebay: my Miya 2000 CIB. Crazy that I own the thing! 

That's neat - I've never heard of the Miya 2000 before. Care to give some background info?

-CasualCart

[ap123 | 112]

On 11/14/2019 at 2:29 PM, DarkTone said:

NA: got a boxed Terranigma for half the price, bundle of GameCube games for £4 each including paper mario, or a CIB kirby's adventure for free. All from the same member (I miss you man).

Ebay: my Miya 2000 CIB. Crazy that I own the thing! 

Wild: Duck tales 2. CIB. £20 

How is it possible that I have never heard of the MIYA 2000? I want one!

[Andy_Bogomil | 815]

NA: Either at 85+ gold 1st print Mario 64 for $500 or a purchase for a CIB X2, X3, Drac X, and Wild Guns for roughly $1200 I think. They were all in excellent condition. The seller actually messaged me several months after the transaction to buy them back at a premium which was declined. Basically the bigger the transaction back then the better the deal looks now haha.

eBay: A lot of SNES boxes which included a dead mint copy of SMW black label and a few other gems for a great price. I also got a $100 credit because a few of the boxes got crushed on top which was a nice bonus on an already great buy.

Wild: So many great deals but getting Panic Restaurant (CI), Mighty Final Fight (CI), and a few other uncommons from a single pickup at a local pawn shop will never be topped. Made some killer trades for the carts and the manuals went for the going rate on eBay. Also bought a bunch of CIBs from my rental store in the late 90s but a lot were in poor condition even at $10-$20 a pop.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Andy_Bogomil

[Deegs | 2]

On NA/SA: Nothing particular comes to mind.  Everything I picked up was at a fair price.  Typically current FMV minus 10%.

On Ebay:  Can I count other online retailers?  If so, probably my CIB copy of Popful Mail which I got for $130 several years ago.  If eBay only maybe my CIB Mega Turrican which I got for $75 last year with a "fair" condition manual.

In the Wild:  Got a CIB copy of Sonic Adventure Limited Edition (with no Hollywood Video stamp) as part of a $150 game lot off Craigslist which also included a sealed Typing of the Dead, Mark of the Wolves (minus manual), Maken X, Capcom Vs SNK, and Record of Lodoss War. 

[DarkTone | 984]

11 hours ago, CasualCart said:

That's neat - I've never heard of the Miya 2000 before. Care to give some background info?

-CasualCart

Sure. Found it with luck on ebay, and won it with luck too. 

It's an unofficial peripheral that let's you play Jack Nicklaus with a real golf club and ball. It was actually an item on it's own that let you see how far the ball would have gone, and which direction. Then they somehow got it to work on an NES. After hitting the ball in real life, it shows your golfer hitting it at the "same strenth".

[DorkOverlord | 684]

In the wild, Tengen Tetris for $9. I was working at Funcoland back in the late 90's and a customer traded it in. We weren't supposed to take this version of Tetris, so I bought it at the regular Nintendo Tetris price before the manager found out. I wasn't the one who took the trade, so it's not quite as unethical as it sounds.

[KrystalsOfZongWater | 5]

Learning about various home-brews that would confuse me from NA threads.

I found a Master System with the paper shredders at a goodwill once

I bought Faselei! on eBay for about 10 dollars in 2004. 

[loopie | 51]

Prices below are in CAD!

In the wild:

• Funtastic Orange N64 with cables and a controller for $7.99
• Lot including Kid Dracula, Sega Genesis, GBA SP AGS-101, and a handful of other games for $30

Craigslist/Kijiji/FB Marketplace:

• Atari Lynx II, 7 games, AC adapter, all mint CIB for $50
• Gamecube game bundle: Ikaruga, F-Zero GX, SSBM, Super Monkey Ball 2, TLOZ OOT, Animal Crossing, Viewtiful Joe for $50

On Ebay:

• Silver Game Boy Light for $40

[zeldaboy | 41]

Got this for free on Craigslist! That said....never really got anything much else on CL other than headaches....for the most part.

[CT | 90]

I found a Smoke Grey N64 with controller, pretty much brand new at a church rummage sale about a year ago.  Paid a couple of bucks.

I found a few Sega Genesis games at an obscure thrift store.  All were a few bucks a piece, sold the ones I didn't want and kept Gunstar Heroes. Ultimately paid zero for it.

From a Craiglist wanted ad, I bought Bucky O'hare for $20.  I cherry-picked a few game from what he had, I thought $20 was fair since he had no idea the value of anything.

[Mega Tank | 960]

16 hours ago, zeldaboy said:

Got this for free on Craigslist! That said....never really got anything much else on CL other than headaches....for the most part.

When? What's the story behind it?

[zeldaboy | 41]

17 hours ago, Mega Tank said:

When? What's the story behind it?

This was actually a week-long correspondence (also probably around 9 years ago). Apparently it was left behind by his son who went off to college and he just wanted it out of his house. I think he got tired of all the emails he was getting about it, so he ended up just saying that he is leaving it outside his house and I can just pick it up whenever. When I got there, he had all sorts of tools laid out like he was working on something, but I couldn't find him anywhere. The sign was leaning up against his house behind a boat. I just threw the thing in my trunk and headed home. Never saw him, lol...

Edited November 29, 2019 by zeldaboy

[Craigly1234 | 110]

 None on Nintendo age.

In the wild, probably when I got a Hitachi hisaturn at a record store. Still spent about 100 bucks but finding one randomly locally was super neat

On ebay I think my best get was a sealed sonic adventure 2 pack for gamecube for 300. Box is a little rough but considering some opened ones have sold for over a grand I'm more than hally with what I spent knowing it's sealed!

[Reed Rothchild | 9,514]

NA - Sword Master for $75.  Or any of the many charitable SNES sale people gave me, especially Casper from @spacepup

Wild - $12 Bronkie at a reseller, or the CIB/like new King Arthur and the Knights of Justice for... $30?  $50?  I have forgotten.

edit: or the CIB Go Go Hypergrind I got for peanuts

eBay - Dunno.  Probably the NES lot with Shatterhand that never showed up

[Ausden | 323]

On NA, one of my first transactions was the purchase of Crusader of Centy cart near mint for $35.00. What a great game that has seen a huge jump in price.

[DarkTone | 984]

Any new stories?

[Code Monkey | 2,006]

I found a sealed Fritz' Chess for DS at a thrift store for $3.

A few months ago I found a test market Deluxe set with both matte sticker seal games inside (graded 8.0 and 7.5) and bought it for $750 CAD.

I found a Casino Kid II cartridge in a $5 bin.

I was at a local flea market and saw a complete Dragon Warrior IV on a reseller table but didn't even bother to ask about the price because I knew I couldn't afford it. The following week I got up super late and decided to go check out the very end of the same flea market at 3pm, knowing I wouldn't find anything. When I got there, the same Dragon Warrior IV was on the table across the aisle at a different reseller, that was odd. I asked how much and he said it was $50 CAD. SOLD!

I was looking at local game listings on Kijiji and saw a table with a bunch of SNES games on it but didn't see much of interest so I moved on. An hour later a friend of mine sends me a link to the same listing and I told him I already looked at it. He asks if I saw the Gaiden game there and when I opened it again, I realised I had skipped over a complete Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for $60 CAD. Knowing the listing has been up for over an hour, I decided to message him anyway and somehow he still had the game. I drove over there and when I got there he told me someone messaged him that it's worth more so now he wants $120. I usually don't do this but I agreed to pay the higher price since it was still a good deal.

I went back to Newfoundland to visit my parents a few years ago and went into this electronics store I didn't even know existed and I saw a PlayStation 2 cabinet in the main showroom with a bunch of laptops and cameras inside it. I asked if he would sell it and he said he would for $150 but I passed. He said he had another one just like it upstairs but I don't collect PlayStation so I didn't even go to look at it. The following year I went back to visit again and decided I would buy it if it was still there so I went back and it was so I offered him $150 and he said he changed his mind on that one but I could buy the identical one upstairs. Okay, sure, doesn't matter to me. So we went upstairs and when I turned the corner, the identical cabinet was actually a vintage World Of Nintendo cabinet with all original glass and it was full of fabrics and hats. He wanted $250 CAD for it so I instantly paid him and went to pick up my dad's truck.

In a Newfoundland game store I saw a complete Power Blade in the cabinet and asked how much it is. The guy at the counter looks up every game individually so he says, "Ah, let me look, probably the same price as just the loose cartridge." Immediately I think it's a good deal because this $120 game could potentially be just $40 but after a minute he says the price is $10. SOLD!

A few months ago I was in a different local game store and the owner had a Space Tunnel for Atari 2600. There are 2 versions of this game, there's the 8-Bit company version which is very uncommon and the Puzzy company version which is legitimately rare. If you look up the game on eBay to get pricing, all you find are the 8-Bit versions which are about $150 but because the Puzzy version is so rare, there are no sales .The price of this one is about $1200. The owner must have used eBay to price it because it was $150 so I immediately bought it.

Every morning when I wake up I check the local Facebook group for games being sold. One morning I saw a listing for a Sqoon box / manual for $100 CAD and a Chubby Cherub box / manual for $200 CAD, no games. I already have the games and I'm aware of how uncommon Sqoon is so I immediately said I wanted that one. I knew Chubby Cherub was about a $50 game and wasn't aware of how common the box is so I passed because the box is usually twice the cost of the cartridge, not quadruple. Well, the Sqoon box and manual would probably grade a 9, they're amazing, and the Chubby Cherub was probably the same but I'm super bummed I didn't get both now. I am glad I got Sqoon for so cheap though.

My girlfriend likes to help me out with my collection so she keeps a donation bin in her office and tells everyone her boyfriend collects video games. Every month she brings the bin home for me and usually there are a few games or a system in there, I've gotten complete N64 consoles, Silver Surfer for NES, some 3DS games. One day she brought home a fully working Virtual Boy with stand, totally free.

I don't often look at eBay because my per hour billing cost for work is way more than the amount I would make from eBay finds so it's just not worth my time to spend on it but one day I did load recent game listings and right at the top was a newly listed NES Ducktales. Tt was in a really strange box, it looked like the new lunchbox release artwork from the time. I was curious so I clicked on it and the cartridge was silver and the description talked about how it's actually licensed by Capcom and was made specifically for the Timewalk team members that worked on the gold cartridge release so there were fewer than 10 known to exist. I took a pretty good risk with the high purchase price, not knowing if this was some scam but it turned out to be real, one of the members that designed the artwork for the lunchbox listed this game on eBay and I bought it within about 5 minutes of it being listed and now I have no idea what it's worth but it's way more than I paid. I only know of maybe 3 other copies that have escaped the original team.

My girlfriend wanted to start going to garage sales and I had never done it before but I'm up for anything she wants to do. We go to our very first garage sale on our very first day and I ask about old Nintendo games. The guy says he has a few games and a console but when he comes back, it's actually a top loader NES and all the Super Mario Bros. games plus about 12 more. He says he couldn't get the system to work, it just goes to a grey screen so I offered him $60 for the entire lot, he accepted. When I got home I pulled the entire top loader apart and it was super clean inside, no problems, I had no idea why it only showed a grey screen, I spent hours on it. Someone on the Nintendo Age forums suggested I look to see if the channel switch was set to 3 and not 4. When I looked, it was indeed on 4 so I changed it back to 3 and it worked perfectly.

I'm sure there are more, I've been collecting for more than a decade. None of these were resold, I collect and keep everything I find so this wasn't just taking something and reselling it for money.

[Foochie776 | 1,051]

My best Nintendoage started deal is when @Quest4Nessold me my 2009 8 Bit X Mas. Still my favorite piece 

[RH | 4,898]

My best NA score was someone (who is hear, and I'm sure will call me out on it) sold me a lot of 7 Chrono Triggers in varying degrees of condition and completeness.  Whomever it was, I think, had pieced together a mint set with every part down to the dust cover and the baggies.  Not wanting to deal with selling them off individually, I bought them all.  It was the most I ever spent on gaming and at the time I think it was $1,400 for the lot.  I sold the 6 in the lower, worst condition over the years and basically ended up with a "free" CIB Chrono Trigger that's in better condition that 95% of all CIBs I see sell on eBay.  Can't beat that, and "thank you", OG seller!

[Tabonga | 2,317]

Several years ago a laseractive player showed up at one of the local thrift stores for $100.   I gambled that no one would know what it was and that it would be a really high price for just an ld player.

A week or so later when that color tag went to half off I scooped it up for $50.  Great price - especially since it had the very hard to find pac bay cover.  (No remote though - not surprising,)

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

Hmmm...every game I ever bought before 2010?

As for NA, one that stands out is: I remember PM'ing a guy named Nistle about a minty CIB DKjr Math he had up for sale, and he wanted $100 for it (this was many, many years ago) and I hummed and I hawed for like a week and he wouldn't come down on the price, so finally I agreed and pulled the trigger.... and now I'm kinda glad that I did!

PS - does it still count as a necro-bump if the thread's less than two years old, and yet almost as old as the site itself?

Edited February 11, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[cgfeelit | 25]

Best NA deal was traded a Casino Kid II cart that I got Complete and kept the IB from trading in free DVDs to the local gamestore for CIB mega man 64, CIB American Tail, and couple other boxed games back when they were still $20-$30 games. 

Best in the wild deal would have been an Gottlieb Incredible Hulk pinball machine I picked up for $25 that was said to be non-working. Got it home and plugged it in and it worked perfectly sold it next day for $1k.

Best Ebay deal was a complete boxed set of the 7 North American released N64 controllers Extreme Green, Grey, Black, Blue, Yellow, Red, Green for $120.

Sadly I sold all of those when I quit collecting and now going to have to pay a premium to get them back.