trj22487

I bought this deck of sealed Pokemon cards from a record store owner who got it from the Ames Department Store in Portland, Maine. This is the first time I've physically seen and held one of the original theme decks since '99

NBA 2K11 is the last game I believe I rented from Video Headquarters in Keene NH, so I would be 2010. The Blockbuster had closed the Summer before that. I didn't have enough cash to buy it at launch like I normally did so I rented it for the weekend before getting it. Was totally worth it as the game blew away every NBA game before it. Maybe still hasn't quite been topped in ways.

I remember in my area this used to air on UPN at ungodly early morning hours around 2000-01.....maybe 5:00 AM on weekdays?

I was back in Holyoke Massachusetts this afternoon and stopped in Stateline Video Games again. They have a case near the back of the store full of nothing but clamshell cases and some retail display racks. I grabbed five more of the SNES style clamshells for $5 each, and five more Game Boy dust cases for $2 each. At this point I once again have a 1/1 ratio of Game Boy games to dust cases. Also got a copy of Twin Darius for $20. Tanooki - If you are still looking this location is loaded in-store with authentic SNES dust clips for $2 each. I'd say they have about 50 in the case, not even counting ones that are actually connected to games in the shelves and CIBs. It might be worth calling them up and seeing if they would do a deal or to put them up on their eBay store in a lot.

I have been searching for an authentic copy of this game at a good price for about 12 years now, my childhood cartridge was stolen when i loaned it out without realizing how valuable it had become. I always held on to my guide book and scratch & sniff cards though. I'm only missing two of the cards, and the original box. This is probably my favorite videogame of all time. To me it's the greatest RPG ever. Best music in any Nintendo game. I got it the day it came out back in 1995, but it was a commercial flop in America and sold very poorly due to a poor advertising campaign and little magazine coverage. I never realized that at the time though, me, my stepbrother, and our best friend all had our own copies. I framed the original magazine ad that made me beg my Dad for it. One of the screenshots features a character saying, "I just farted....sorry." That was all it took for me. I even have the stub for the coupon I used to get $10 off at Walmart. I have the soundtrack on vinyl, I bought it locally in 2015 at Bull Moose for like $20, now it's worth about $200 alone. Everything in this picture is easily worth $1,000 at this point. If my Dad hadn't thrown out the box I'd be closer to around $5,000. Of course at the time adults thought video games were mostly a waste of time and didn't see them as becoming valuable one day.

I've managed to snag a couple cheap lots for multiples of these Nintendo of America clamshell cases. One of the NES cases had a Toys R Us sticker on the back for .89 cents, I never realized these were ever sold in stores, I only remember seeing them in the Nintendo Power catalogs. I can't even say I remember actually seeing a rental store use these official brand. At this point I've run out of room on my media shelves for all three consoles so my favorite and valued games are going to start transferring to these style. I know there are Game Boy ones too but they are impossible to find.

Paid a visit to Alan Parrish's parents this morning

I picked these up at my local mall this weekend. About $220 including the Zapdos. I had the full base set as a kid and sold them off about a decade ago, now that is the one card I have. The SNES games are in impeccable shape. Tinstar is a nostalgic one to me, when I first moved to my current town and met my eventual stepbrother, he had just gotten it and I had never played it. It's the first thing I ever remember playing in the town I now live and brings back good memories. Shadow Dancer is a game I had never played growing up and was blown away by how great it is, I think I like it more than Revenge of Shinobi. The dog attack mechanic is so cool and reminds me of Shadow from Final Fantasy III/VI

Picked this up locally for $50 complete in very good condition w/box protector, about time I got one of these to go with my Genesis and NES copies! I thought this was a really nice deal on a copy in this good of shape though so I was happy I waited. It had been quite a while since I got a new Crash Dummies item in my collection

I was back in the mall tonight checking out sports cards and Pokemon cards, but I ended up taking the lure of this. I'd seen it a few days ago and ended up deciding it's way too good of a deal to pass up. The coin alone is probably worth $20 and commemorates Kobe's jersey retirement with the Lakers in 2017. As for the game, I've always loved it and was still playing it years after release, still vividly remember getting this at my Grandparents house for Christmas 1999 and playing it on the big TV, blown away by all of the improvements from the original and how superior it was to every other N64 basketball game. The animated faces, eyes, mouths, and accuracy of the superstars and the motion capture by Kobe himself was so far above any N64 game before it. I still feel the 3 point contest in this game is better than any NBA game that has ever come since. And having Chick Hearn and Stu Lantz as the announce team in this game shortly before Chick passed away was magical and impressive for a cartridge game. This was also the last game to have Charles Barkley as an active player. And this is when Kobe was just starting to really explode as a mega star and still had a golden image in the public eye. The era where Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft all had their own exclusive NBA franchises and each console truly had its own identity. Those were the days. I think this game is very underrated, it was arguably better than the original NBA2K

Those were the days

I went to the Holyoke Mall in Massachusetts twice this weekend, there is now a retro games store in the mall called Stateline Video Games that has loose/cib games and systems for just about every major system with prices ranging from good finds to premium prices. They even have a rack full of magazines loaded with Nintendo Powers, and an original Turtles in Time machine in the shop. The store is about 4 times as big as this one picture makes it look. The best finds were definitely the two Master System games, rare 1990 late release USA games at European prices. Both are steals, particularly Dick Tracy. NBA Give N Go was $10 and I also picked up a Ken Griffey's Winning Run for $5 and a CIB After Burner II for Genesis for $25. The most expensive items I saw were a cart only Earthbound for $500 and a CIB Pokemon Red for $500. Also a CIB Gold N64 for $400. Tons of "desirable" games in the shop for sure

This popped up in my Facebook timeline today, this was me in my front yard using the Game Boy Camera in 1998

Got a new "grail" in my collection....I feel blessed and grateful to have been put in the position to buy this and have this in my home......this is a one of a kind purchase for one of my favorite entertainers of all time, NORM MacDONALD. Last week I started talking with a guy named Steve, who has been a professional photographer for over two decades, doing all sorts of sporting and celebrity events. He also has a pretty nice autograph collection at this point, and there was one item I knew I had to have at all costs. He even cut me a deal. On March 22nd, 1998 Steve attended a comedy show, only a handful of days after Norm had been famously fired from Saturday Night Live. On that night, Norm signed this VHS copy of 'Billy Madison'.......23 years later it belongs to me. I was also shown Steve's ticket to the show, and the photo he took with Norm while holding the movie. Norm wrote "It's October", referencing the start of the movie when Billy asks "What's today?" I never imagined Norm would be gone so soon and there will be no more specials and no more podcasts. I miss just hearing him talk about things. But now having this on my shelf, I'll always feel like I have a small piece of the great Norm MacDonald in my house forever Of course now the mission is to meet Sandler in person with a "What's today?" inscription

It's definitely mint, it just doesn't have the original batteries or warranty card. My black one has the batteries and warranty card and I only paid $50, that was highway robbery.

I got the clear and black ones in the late 2000s (2007-09ish) for absolute steals, I got the clear for $40 and the black for $50 on Buy It Nows, and even back then could barely believe I got them for so cheap, and then the Green one my Dad paid $50 for in 1995.......the yellow one I paid $299.99 for in 2021 but I had plenty of money to throw down on it and wasn't willing to wait any longer to jump at it. I would definitely take a unsealed red at the same price in mint condition in a heartbeat at this point.

I've been enjoying playing Doom on my Xbox One the last few weeks. Back in 1995 my best friend had a good enough computer to run Doom properly, hadn't played it since those days. Still holds up to me

These are my local pickups for Summer 2021, maybe the best 90 day stretch I've ever had as an adult locally finding games. All of these were found at the same store, spread across the season. The store is a chain store that sells music and movies, but they also take trade ins for a pretty ridiculous range of items, not just videogames but toys, board games, there is a section of the store with somewhat of a flea market atmosphere The thing that really amazed me about all of these pickups is what great shape they are in. Most of them were pretty decent prices with collector condition cosmetics. Street Fighter Alpha 2 was $49.97. Magical Quest and Circus Mystery were both $16.97. Batman Returns SNES was $18.97, NES was $24.97. Mario All-Stars and Super R-Type were $15.97 each. Krusty's Fun House was $14.97. Mario Tennis $18.97. Mario Party $47.97. Cruis'n World $9.97. Some of these games I honestly don't think I've seen in public since Funcoland, not including conventions. Certainly not locally. I've found Tuesday through Thursday is the best time to check and see if people have cashed in their collections. It seems to be happening a lot in my area lately. I've also seen a ton of super high value PS1 games like Silent Hill that I haven't gone after.

It isn't necessary to refrigerate ketchup. I prefer to keep it room temp like a restaurant. If frustrates me how hard glass bottle Heinz is to find.

Haha wow that is it! Definitely wasn't 1997 though, 100% 1996. I got my N64 for Christmas '96 and wouldn't have cared about the contest after that.

I've always regretted not keeping a box of the Mario 64 Rice Krispies Treats Cereal from 1996. I remember it had the 3D Boos on the front of the box. I tried for weeks to win a Nintendo 64 through that contest in Summer '96. I've never seen an image of the box pop up online.

There are actually two sealed ones on eBay right now, which is actually pretty amazing, both asking $1000+. But these systems rarely appear at auction whatsoever. I'd say the Red and Yellow are the rarest two. In the past I've had droughts of years without spotting an auction for either. Things seem to be creeping out into the open lately. The fact that 5 or 6 of them are even up on eBay all at once right now is pretty unheard of. As far as CIB Nintendo systems go, these things are just really rare. They probably had a shorter shelf life than any other version of Game Boy.

I honestly thought the Yellow would be the last one I would ever be able to find, not Red. I missed my chance on a Red one back in July While I don't anticipate I'll ever be able to land one, and I don't really consider it to be part of this set, there actually is a 1995 version of the original Grey Game Boy as well. It is a variant that promotes Killer Instinct and the Super Game Boy on the back of the box, and included the same 'Play it Loud!' poster that came with the colored releases

Nope, only the USA ones interest me. Just that memory of being at Walmart with my Dad, my parents freshly divorced, and seeing the big rows of all 5 colors behind the glass and how cool they looked. I've always wanted them since I began collecting. It's honestly my first memory of even being at a Walmart store. I don't think I had ever seen a Walmart in person before that, only the scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

I have always had a massive soft spot for this line of Game Boy systems, the Green one pictured below is my original from childhood and I always kept the original packaging and posters in extremely nice shape. I was born in 1987 and wanted a Game Boy for many years as a young kid. My mother ran an at-home day care in the Early 90s and I would usually have about a dozen kids over to my house after school or during the Summer, and a lot of them would bring over their Game Boys and we would play Tetris on the link cable. But my parents would never buy me one because we already had a Super Nintendo and Genesis and they thought a third system was unnecessary. A few years down the road though, my parents decided to divorce and I needed something to do on the long rides between custody swap. So in 1995 I finally convinced my Dad to let me get a Game Boy. I still remember going to Walmart and seeing the rows of new Play It Loud merchandise for Nintendo, the rainbow of Game Boy and Virtual Boy systems behind the glass shelves. I decided to pick green which was basically my favorite color as a kid, and got a copy of Super Mario Land 2 and Donkey Kong. I remember turning on Donkey Kong in the car and being blown away. And so for the rest of the 90s that Game Boy got me hundreds of hours of entertainment. As of this post I have 52 carts, with 52 official dust cases, and enjoy playing on the DMG still. As an young adult in the late 2000s I managed to strike deals on copies of the Black and Clear versions in mint shape for extremely cheap. The Black one still has the original batteries and registration card in mint shape, and the sticker seals on the bottom. Once I managed to get those, I really wanted to find a Yellow and Red to complete my set. And so I looked....and looked....and never got a good opportunity at a CIB. Got scammed on a few auctions using stock photos that turned out to be nothing more than loose Game Boys. Those little pieces of cardboard are the key necessity for me, those are what I am looking for. As prices started to climb higher, and Yellow & Red systems seemed to almost never pop up at all, I figured I was probably stuck at 3/5. But lately a trickle of these systems have started to appear on eBay at extremely high asking prices. And then this week, it happened, finally a Yellow appeared at an asking price I could afford on the spot. I did not hesitate. The only issue in the photos, is in every shot, only 3 out of 4 sides of the cardboard seemed to be there, but I knew there was a chance that the cardboard was just improperly rotated, and the 4th side was being hidden by the front piece. As soon as I received it today, I could tell I was right, and opened it up to turn it and find the cardboard is in fact flawless. And the system is super mint. I'm so happy. Can't believe I finally got a Yellow and am at 4/5! It would be a dream to land a Red and finally complete a collectors fantasy that I have had for over 25 years! As a bit of an added bonus, I've always had this pamphlet since I got my Game Boy back in '95 too. I picked it up at the service desk of a little electronics shop, the address is even still on the back. I've always thought this pamphlet was really cool, not only is it really uncommon, but I find it really cool that the same pamphlet contains both an original model NES, and a clear Play it Loud Game Boy. I remember grabbing this in case anything ever went wrong with my system. 25 years later and haven't needed to call the number.