I enjoy reading all of your stories. My collecting started in 2001. I bought a bundle from a guy for $50. In that lot came an Atari 2600 and NES that "didn't work". Luckily for me I knew how to replace the pin. All the "hit" games came with each, 15 games for Atari and 40 games for the NES (Tyson, Zelda, etc). Didn't get into sealed collecting until about 2007.
The very first sealed game I bought was Mortal Kombat for Genesis. I thought it would be a crucial game to have sealed considering the controversy surrounding it. I had the SNES version as a kid, so "no blood" was the downside. The SNES version set had much better gameplay, but I'll never forget playing it on the Genesis for the first time at a friends house and I believe the reaction was "WHOAAAA BLOOOOOOOD" and it was a big deal because all the daily talk shows on TV said all of us kids were having our brains warped.