street fighter | My Nintendo Dimension

Last weekend myself and several friends went garage sailing as the area my parents live in was having their annual garage sale event. Honestly, the pickings were really slim this year. It seems to have been in decline every year for the decade that I’ve been going to this event. The odd common Wii game here, and a copy of Namco Museum for the GBA was all that there was… in other words there was nothing even remotely interesting to look at, let alone talk about on here. Who knew that at approximately 11:00am I would strike gold!

I found a box of gaming paraphernalia with the above sign taped to it at an unassuming older couple’s house.

The first thing in the box that caught my eye was a PS1 console and the above games. Nothing to write home about as even though these games are complete, they along with the console are fairly worthless. So I dug a little deeper…

Ahhh… some SNES manuals. Not pictured is a sealed copy of all the manuals for the SNES console. I already have these, but something told me to dig deeper and so I did…

Complete mint in box copies of the above games were found. Now we’re talking! Generally I don’t keep boxes unless they are for a really good game, however I already have a copy of F-Zero and I’m not interested at all in Extra Innings. I used to love to play baseball, but playing the video game versions (regardless of the platform) always seemed really boring. The Sega Dude expressed interest in having these so I’m going to give them to him. Now that I was hot on the trail, I kept digging…

What’s this… Turbo Grafx-16 games?! Even though these are sports titles, you never see games for the TG-16 any more. In fact this is the first I have ever seen them at a garage sale… and I have been to a lot of sales! However, this is fools gold compared to the 24K rock that I found at the bottom of the box…

Holy Toledo a Turbo Express and a copy of Bonk’s Adventure!!! Now we’re talking! When I first saw this I knew I had stuck gold. I knew it was expensive but didn’t know just how valuable this was. I figured it would sell for around $150, but after the Sega Dude told me that the Retro Game Bros. have it currently for sale with a price tag of $500 I was floored! Can you say Cha-Ching! I have zero interest in collecting for what is probably one of the most difficult systems to collect for, but I may be able to sell this and buy a really rare NES game that I otherwise wouldn’t have any business owning. I’m going to keep this for a while to check it out… and see if this puppy actually works. I don’t understand why it is so valuable as it is just a bulky hand held system with a REALLY small screen, but for some reason people are looking for these.

So, I’m $10 poorer than I was when I set out last Saturday, but I feel very lucky! I scored huge!

SEGA Corner: The events described above didn’t happen exactly as I told it… in fact I didn’t even see the sign that said it was all for $10. I saw the mint SNES boxed games first, and then the Turbo Express… and I knew I had to have it. When the guy came out asking for only $10 I was giddy with adrenaline. The other games were just a bonus… if only the previous owner wasn’t such a sports fan but rather was into RPG’s instead:( Oh well I shouldn’t complain… but there was one more find in that good box…

It’s not very exciting… maybe even a bit of a let down compared to the rest, but I’m going to mention it anyway to keep SEGA Corner alive.

Until next time,

Nintendo Joe

I’ve been ripped off! Last week I picked up these Pokemon games at Value Village for $6 each. Sounds like a steal right?!… and it was. Honestly I couldn’t care less about Pokemon, but i do know that they are popular and would sell/trade well. I put an ad up on both Kijiji and Craigslist (I find I get way more hits on Kijiji) with the intent to sell, and as you would expect I received he usual lowball offers. I find it rather funny that even when you price the games well below that of pricecharting.com you’ll always get some dink who wants it for less. Even if I offered it for 25 cents they would offer 20. I guess you can’t knock them for trying, but I usually don’t respond to these offers. Anyways I get a hit from a guy who says he’ll give me $100 for them on Paypal if I ship it to him. I thought why not this sounds like a great offer! Well he ended up backing out, but suggested a trade instead. He offered up a copy of Mega Man 5 (the most elusive of the NES series) plus a copy of Mega Man X for the SNES. He sent pictures and they all looked like they were in very decent… though not perfect shape. It’s a fair trade considering the value of both my games and his were approximately the same. He would have come out a bit ahead, but what did I care as I only spent $24 on the four titles?! He comes back later saying that someone has offered him $150 for the games and wanted to back out??!!?? I sent him a text saying “that was a load of S&%# and that we had a deal that needed to be honoured.” He agreed with me and said he would send the games that day. I agreed to do the same… you see I like to trust people. Well what a fool I am! I sent him the games, and 10 days later still have yet to receive my package. So by my account, he sold the games for $150, and got a free shipment of Pokemon games from me. The Nintendo Museum believes in giving back to the community, but this is robbery. Stupid thing is that I know where he lives and it isn’t that far away. Should I wait a bit and strong arm him? While I might like to, I’m a bit more civilized. I would go to the police, but I really have no proof that he didn’t send it. In my entire life I haven’t had a package not reach it’s destination… and now the one I actually care about gets lost??? I doubt it. I was scammed and feel like a schmuck for being so gullible. Ah whatever, you live you learn. I won’t make the same mistake again.

On a lighter note, I also found this Gameboy Color at Value Village. This will be a nice addition to the museum as it is the second last handheld system that we don’t have… the only other being the Nintendo 3DS. Of course there are other colours of this system, and I’ll pick them up if I find them for cheap, but for now this will do just fine:)

I also manage to pick up these NES titles from a dealer in Peterborough ON called Chumleighs. It’s a family run business whom has done very well over the last 20 years. When we were in university I dropped a fortune there picking up Disney and other VHS tapes. They are now all worthless. Fortunately I also purchased a copy of Mega Man for a mere $7… though you have to remember this was in 1997 when no one really gave a crap about NES games. Now everyone is an expert and the prices are inflated beyond ridiculous! The Pirates game and Street Fighter II Turbo were actually purchased from a dealer in Lakefield ON, whom I find to be more than fair. His prices can be good, but most importantly he is willing to haggle. Funny thing is this guy never has change so is always willing to accept less than his requested amount. I picked up these two titles for $20 which seems like a good deal considering I’ll actually play the Street Fighter game.

This next find was the best of all, and the price was right… free! You see my wife or her sisters were the proud owner of a Galaxian mini cabinet, and everyone thought that it belonged to someone else. My wife thought it was her sisters, both her sisters said it was my wife’s. Well it is in the museum now where it belongs. It isn’t in mint shape… some of the labels are missing or peeling, but it does have the battery cover… and it works! Plus as I mentioned the price was perfect!

So that’s it for this edition. You never know, maybe that package really was sent… though it was from Oshawa ON, which is spitting distance from Toronto so I doubt it. I think what really bothers me is not knowing what happened, though as I mentioned before I suspect foul play! At least it was fun thinking that I owned a copy of Mega Man 5 for a while. That might be as close as I get to it as I will never pay what dealers or people on eBay charge for the game. Maybe I’ll luck out at the Value Village one day, but I doubt it:(