Flea Market Madness

[anticitizen]

http://playthenes.com/pat_the_nes_punk/ ... adness.php

Discussion topic for Pat's latest video, a guide to buying games from flea markets.
For those of who you ever wanted to know a method for how the Punk builds up his massive collection.

[Armageddon Potato]

This was a great episode! The flea market really is an amazing place to find all kinds of stuff!

I used to hit the flea markets every Saturday/Sunday. They're were 2 major resellers there, and both are just like you described in the video. Neither cared whether or not the games worked. Neither knew anything aboot the games besides "Mario's face sells games", and both overpriced things ricockulous. When I say ricockulous, I mean 28$ Tetris's, 39$ Yoshi's Island's, and 70$ Mega Man X2's.(If I ever get an adaptor for my phone to hook up to my computer, I have pictures of 30$ fisher price perfect fit, etc!) I am not making this up, they really ask those kinds of prices! Everytime I saw them make a sale it made my stomach turn, and eventually I just figured I could out-do them 100 ways from Karnov.

So I finally tried selling at the flea market, and I got such a positive reaction I decided to do it every weekend! No more will people have to pay more than 5$ for a Tetris! Plus I sell cleaner so they can clean the games they have at home, and I sell newly refurbished units/refurb-your-unit!

On another note, it's crazy how much stuff the resellers get a jump on at 4/5am! If you REALLY want to ensure you find some amazing stuff, show up at around 3/4/5am. I am not kidding, you will not believe what you are missing out on by showing up at 6/7/8am. Not to mention you'd be surprised how many other "hardcore" collectors ONLY show up at that time to find stuff. It's quite a frenzy at 4/5am!

[Lavender]

Yeah, those smegging dealers are ripe jerks. I can't stand them. The one place I found at a flea market a while back was just a kiosk from another store. Their games were priced as "retail" (Laughter ensues!!!), but I thought paying fifteen dollars for Dracula's Curse was all right -- the people were super nice and stuff.

But since finding the hock shop here in town my mind has changed. smeggin fifteen dollars??? smeg son i bought double dragon for 3 dollars and wizards and warriors 3 for five dollars.

... though admittedly, the owners of the hock shop have been bumping up their prices -- I think because they realized these games are WANTED (and they do get the odd "not so frequent" game. From that hock shop alone, I scored Crystalis, Mach Rider, Gargoyle's Quest Double Dragon GB, X-Men 2: Clone Wars, Actraiser, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4, and Super Return of the Jedi -- to name a few, all for mad humping great prices) , and there's aboot three or four of us who completely rape them of retro game stock. And now they're just left with the junk no one wants. It's pretty funny.

I haven't been fleamarketing/garage saling in years though. I always work weekends, sadface.

[Ashton]

You're right, eBay sucks. Unfortunately it's the only place you'll ever find any of that really rare stuff. Unless you're extremely lucky.

I do also hate resellers. I got my SMB1/2/3, SMW, Tetris, Zeldas, etc for free from people who were just getting rid of them. I honestly would never pay more than 5 dollars for any of those popular titles.

I've been getting really good deals at local pawn shops. Been getting new, clean, working systems for mere 2 dollars. I also have a ton of extra Playstation, Nintendo, and Sega cables that I got from them for dollars each, in case I come across non-cabled consoles. I mostly look for broken consoles or hardware though, because I love to fix them. And what's more fun than playing games on a console that you fixed yourself? Nothing!

One thing I love picking up at these places are PC games. They're soooo cheap and usually are CiB. That and I played PC games the most, so finding games like H.U.R.L. or Total Distortion CiB for a dollar and playing it again is awesoime.

[Lavender]

Yeah, one thing I'm pretty excited aboot getting a new laptop is finally being able to play my copies of Quake, DOOM II, and Hexen I've had laying around unused from my pawn-shop days.

[Ashton]

Yeah, one thing I'm pretty excited aboot getting a new laptop is finally being able to play my copies of Quake, DOOM II, and Hexen I've had laying around unused from my pawn-shop days.

I'm pretty sure there is a build of DOSBox for OS X. That'll get them games working.

Edit, Random: Haha, all of those Wii games weren't stolen or anything. "Buying them for a couple of dollars and reselling them." Not wanting them video taped.

[Pat the NES Punk]

Featured on GT:
http://www.gametrailers.com/usermovies.php

There's a semi-small flea market near me where I've been battling an EBAY reseller for a couple years now. I built a decent amount of my collection for years until a few years ago, when I started noticing less and less good stuff. I finally figured it out a couple years ago that this kid was getting there before 8 and buying stuff to resell it on ebay.

We've had it out a few times, but it just stopped being worth it to get up at 6AM to beat him to good deals on snes and n64 games (which I've done quite a few times). So I go there only every once in awhile now. :/

[Roth]

Awesome! I'll go get you another view over there

[Armageddon Potato]

Featured on GT:
http://www.gametrailers.com/usermovies.php

There's a semi-small flea market near me where I've been battling an EBAY reseller for a couple years now. I built a decent amount of my collection for years until a few years ago, when I started noticing less and less good stuff. I finally figured it out a couple years ago that this kid was getting there before 8 and buying stuff to resell it on ebay.

We've had it out a few times, but it just stopped being worth it to get up at 6AM to beat him to good deals on snes and n64 games (which I've done quite a few times). So I go there only every once in awhile now. :/

I've had to deal with the same thing, but I know much more than they do aboot what's things are worth, and what's rare. The guy who goes around doing it has to call his partner on a cell phone everytime he finds something before he buys it to ask what it's worth.

If you really wanted to get a jump on him without losing too much sleep, you could try getting there at 1/2/3/4am(depending on how late you already stay up), and going around asking all the people if they have games to sell. That way you get to pick through it before it even gets out onto the flats. Then afterwards you can go home and get some sleep! That's pretty hardcore though!

[Nicpezer]

I usually go to thrift stores nearby but their pretty knowledgeable on what they carry and charge accordingly. I've only been to my local flea market once, it's kind of far away and there's mostly crooks there.

[OSG]

Pat can we be friends?

[Pat the NES Punk]

Pat can we be friends?

Sure, my friendship can be bought for a copy of Bubble Bobble 2.

[Lavender]

THE PAT

...

oh wait wrong thread.

[OSG]

Pat can we be friends?

Sure, my friendship can be bought for a copy of Bubble Bobble 2.

Hmmm.... well I do have a copy...

No, no! Must resist the urge to purchase intangible concepts!

[Lavender]

Pat is now an official member of this forum.