Your local thrift store prices?

[silverjazzzoo | 1]

I live a baby breath from G--dwill. I notice the price increase in the more lavish

towns. How do these prices sound?

PS2-3-PSP GameCube-WiiU Xbox-X360 games $2

SNES-NES-GEN carts $2-5

PS3 WiiU 360 consoles $25

Boxed PS1 $40

 

Only the cardboard box PS1 and loose NES-SNES-SEGA games get put into the

jewelry case section.

I think these are good turns for every week when they restock the store?

Edited December 21, 2019 by silverjazzzoo

[nrslam | 474]

Prices are all over the place here.  Most CD/DVD games are $2.99, but carts, especially anything Nintendo, get 'market' priced, usually at ~50-70% of the going online rate.  Sometimes they screw up and their prices get ridiculous (one Value Village was trying to sell a loose SNES Pilotwings for $99.99).  There are a couple local stores that use flat rate pricing (usually $3) for carts, but they so rarely get anything in that it doesn't really matter.

I'm so glad I got 90% of my collecting done back when the standard price was $0.39 at the local Goodwill and $0.99 at most other thrifts.

 

Edited December 21, 2019 by nrslam

[Tulpa | 3,492]

I haven't seen a game at a thrift store here in years.

[acromite53 | 337]

Mine is pretty consistent at pricing games 1/3 to half of market value. So you aren't paying thrift store prices, but they to make it to where you are still getting a good deal.

[drxandy | 3,225]

Prices are all over the board here.

Goodwill has games at either 5.09 at one, 3.09 or 1.09 at another

Volunteers of America has them for 2.xx or I've got a bunch of ps1 for $1.xx

They never know what to price consoles at, but I've seen a lot of ps2s and Wiis for around 20, 360 for 20-30, nes from 4 to 60$

[Tanooki | 4,933]

It depends on a store by store basis, even if it's the same chain of them, and yet even underlying that whoever at the time has the price gun and/or how much time they have to waste on product.  It seems to go in waves.  The store within the earliest parts of the year that I got like a total Virtual Boy Set with a few games for $75 was obviously low, but today I go in there they want like $25 on Street Fighter II SNES and about that on a loose Hey You Pikachu with another $10 on the dumb mic.  I really can't give you a fair moment as it just depends on who is looking and what their motives are.

One exception I have noticed at any store, if the game is in a jewel case they tend to stuff them just in with the CDs and put the 99 cent to 1.99 value on those as well so I've had decent luck every month or two scoring a few fun PS1 games on the cheap but it's kind of an exception to the rule (as are PS2 games in DVD areas too which I don't have interest in.)

Now while not thrift exactly, the second hand spaces like mom and pop local to the chains like Half Price, they have not re-adjusted their values to reflect the hammering a lot of old games have taken this year in value over the 2018 and before prices.  Right now I could go in one and find Super Metroid for $40-50, but I could go on ebay and get a legit one for $20-25 shipped which just either proves they don't keep up, or they're greedy and hoping to find someone who hasn't caught on and won't be checking their iphone/android phone before buying.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Tanooki

[GeeksTreat | 8]

1 hour ago, Tulpa said:

I haven't seen a game at a thrift store here in years.

Ditto that!

[Link | 2,709]

That’s pretty good.

Here disc games are $4. Of course they’re mostly trash. I will pick up a couple when I see something that might be moderately fun. 

For the first time in many years, I saw NES games a few months ago. About 9 of them. They were all junk and all $15.20. 

[A_Feisty_Pickle | 244]

I have a Goodwill I pass every day on the way home from work. I've had some pretty nice finds there over the years. Typically $2 for disc games no matter the console. They never really get cartridge games but when they do they're marked up pretty high. I think recently a new manager started because pretty much the cheapest disc game you'll find will be $8. These are common PS2 sports games that sell at the game store for a couple bucks. I don't really expect to find any steals from there anymore... 

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

On 12/21/2019 at 11:14 AM, Tulpa said:

I haven't seen a game at a thrift store here in years.

 

On 12/21/2019 at 12:54 PM, GeeksTreat said:

Ditto that!

Very rare to see games here.

disc stuff every once in a while. 
consoles get wrapped in plastic and prices are ebay. $60-$70 for n64 , GameCube, Xbox...

I know it’s may be paranoias but I’m pretty sure someone working at the thrifts gets all the good stuff because yard sales around here are pretty good.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

I haven't done much thrift shopping here in Georgia, but when I lived in Washington I made occasional trips. Unfortunately, I never found anything good because the employees in that area were pretty savvy and always bought the valuable games immediately. On more than one occasion Imet a seller for a Craigslist purchase outside the store he had just bought the games from. The sellers always made sure to loudly proclaim this every time as well. Needless to say, I soured on this routine quickly.

[Nes Freak | 584]

50 dollars for an nes. if one ever shows.  its been years.  the manager there is kinda a short armed Egyptian looking dick with glasses though.  i think he sells the good stuff on ebay.

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

$0.50 for any disc or tapes/cartridge (per disc, so Final Fantasy 7 would cost $1.50, and a blu-ray box set of Breaking Bad would be cheaper than the DVD version). Obviously there isn't ever much there. Sometimes I pick up a decent blu-ray. Once a lot of big box Sierra PC games showed up and the cashier had me open and dump them all out to count the discs. Seems like a silly way to price things but that's how it goes.

[Nintendo Historian | 43]

I dunno ,but I do know a friend of mine /fellow collector did score a “loose “copy of Stadium Events for next to nothing in a bargain bin at a local thrift shop ..

[Tanooki | 4,933]

On 12/30/2019 at 11:48 AM, DefaultGen said:

$0.50 for any disc or tapes/cartridge (per disc, so Final Fantasy 7 would cost $1.50, and a blu-ray box set of Breaking Bad would be cheaper than the DVD version). Obviously there isn't ever much there. Sometimes I pick up a decent blu-ray. Once a lot of big box Sierra PC games showed up and the cashier had me open and dump them all out to count the discs. Seems like a silly way to price things but that's how it goes.

Nothing wrong with that, even if it is weird as it's still just 50 cents a disc so it's a steal even if it had 20 discs in there.

Mine just price by the wall, and on the multi-disc boxes, it depends how the cashier is feeling that day if they care to look, ask, or just ring it up as a box.  The other day I slipped into one, found the MIB trilogy on blu-ray, charged me the wall price of a dvd/br of $2 -- I'd call that a big freaking win, same with the Diamond Ed of the Little Mermaid (we had a touchy DVD.)

 

Personally I love it when they miss.  I'm talking about when jewel case games end up in the music section so that usually amounts to PS1 and PC.  I briefly mentioned the general pricing on that other post I did earlier on.  The same place that's crap now but where I got the VB last January, they're fairly lazy about CD media, and they also don't value the case/art/insert(ie manual) if the disc is ripped off.  I got Warcraft PS1 for $2 there, also a Breath of Fire 3 and Parappa the Rapper missing disc only given to me free as I asked nicely which I was able to buy disc only for a fraction of their real value.

[RH | 4,903]

On 12/21/2019 at 12:14 PM, Tulpa said:

I haven't seen a game at a thrift store here in years.

This, with the exception of PS2, or later gen sports titles or ridiculously common games in series like Medal of Honor. Rednecks love football and war games.

[Teh_Lurv | 254]

I pass by a Savers on my commute home, so I regularly stop in to check it's inventory. I'd say up until 2015 or so, the store would double up cartridge games in plastic bags for $3. At some point either corporate or the manager realized how in demand vidya gaems were and the prices skyrocketed. The current prices are now:

• Any pre-sixth generation console commons: $8 flat pricing
  • 1st party games or games that might be desirable: $25 flat pricing
• Sixth gen console commons: $4 flat pricing
• 360/PS3/Wii games: $1-3 pricing
• PS4/XBO games: $8 flat pricing
• WiiU games: $20 (I shit you not) flat pricing
• Actually valuable games: Whatever pricecharting says

Once in a blue moon the store slips in their pricing, but in general it is no longer worth buying games from there.

I've moved on from hunting retro games at thrift stores and more towards keeping an eye out for board games and graphic novels. The recent fad of board games and superhero movies has meant a glut of graphic novels, comic omnibuses, and pricey board games are winding up at the thrift store with no one wiser to their value. I've walked out with board games and graphic novels for $3-4 a piece that would cost me $30-60 a piece at the Newbury Comics store down the street.

 

[TDIRunner | 2,735]

I don't see as much in the thrift stores either, but don't forget, that more and more people are looking for that stuff.  It's possible that just as much is coming and going through some of those stores, but it doesn't last as long because the number of interested parties visiting the store is up.

Overall, I would be willing to bet that it's a mix of both, less stuff coming in, and more people buying what is there.  

I still hit up my local Goodwills, and I tend to find stuff that I will end up buying at least once per month, but it's probably been a year or two since I've found something really worth talking about.  

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,012]

On 12/23/2019 at 11:00 AM, skinnygrinny said:

 

Very rare to see games here.

disc stuff every once in a while. 
consoles get wrapped in plastic and prices are ebay. $60-$70 for n64 , GameCube, Xbox...

I know it’s may be paranoias but I’m pretty sure someone working at the thrifts gets all the good stuff because yard sales around here are pretty good.

My buddy worked at a thrift store and they got to buy everything for the standard rate before it hit the floor. Granted, they never got a ton of video games in and when they did they were just OK lots, nothing rare or value. He ended up just getting a nice little collection for himself after about 6 months of working there.

[RH | 4,903]

In my near 5 years of collecting and hunting, I have yet to find a cartridge game on a shelf at a thrift shop, except at Goodwill (more on that below.) I did get a chance at my local Salvation Army to go in the back because I asked if they had any additional parts for a Sega Saturn I'd found.  In the back, I ended up finding 6 Saturn games and 4-5 under $5 SNES games.  That's all I've ever found.

Most disc games have been for the Wii, occasionally I find PS1 games sandwiched in with Music CDs and there are usually 1-5 titles for all of the other, later gen systems, but they are always sports titles or cheap shooters.

Salvation Army and the Re:Store are the same.  They price their media as the type of media it is records are $1, cassettes and VHS are $.25-.50 and discs items are $1.  At the Salvation Army, disc games are $3.  There's no checking to see if they are rare, they are just marked $3.  This is unfortunate for them because those sports titles will sit on the shelf until they toss them.  If I could get them to sell them to me, I'd pay $.25 each, mostly for replacement cases in great shape, since the PS2 and XBox titles have very specific cases.

Goodwill, I think, looks up the most expensive prices for all of their games on eBay and marks them as that and puts them in their display case.  I guess it works, because I have rarely seen their inventory stick around, but it's annoying seeing a $10 NES title I would want, I could get shipped to my door from eBay for $15 or less, but they want $20 for it and there's a rental sticker on it.

Oh, I said I haven't found cartridge stuff.  I actually did find 6-7 CIB Atari 7800 titles at my local Salvation Army.  They actually put those in their display cabinet.  Luckily I got to them soon so getting their price tags to come off wasn't a problem.  The most valuable game was Kaboom!

[ALTQQ | 87]

Thrift stores out here mostly have garbage, not really any tape stuff.

[Pikkon | 19]

My local goodwill charges 5 bucks I think for any game,most of the time it's just disc based games,movies are 3 bucks.

I did spot a famiclone in the box there,they wanted 30 bucks but I grabbed a ps1 slim with all of the hookups for 15 so not to bad.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Pikkon

[PineappleLawnchair | 88]

Goodwill here still has 2.99 or 3.99 on the price stickers but charge 4.99 now anyways. Even the PC games, which they used to sell for like a buck. Local thrifts aren't much better. Sometimes they'll have decent enough deals on retro items, but majority of the time, it'll be crap like a dirty old NES with controller, zapper and Mario/Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet for 100 . I remember Goodwill had a gameboy color in a plastic case once, they wanted something like 70 bucks for it. Just a plain GBC, no  games or anything. Didn't see it the next time i was there either, so...

[Mogg | 4]

Like a few others have stated, all over the place. I've purchased good/expensive snes games for around 5 bucks a pop and sometimes I see wii or ps3/xbox360 games for 30 dollars.