NES pickups October 4th, 2014

Just a quick update to the collection. After work I picked up 4 more games from Shayne that he had kept aside for me: Alien Syndrome, Genghis Khan, Flying Dragon, and Xexyz.  I can't express how great it has been to meet all these other collectors and NES fans out there who so far have all been very helpful and friendly.  I found another contact that wants to trade games this week and perhaps even buy a few of my doubles.  It is always nice to be able to recoup a little bit of the money that I have put into this hobby, but like most things it usually goes right back into what your passionate about.  So given the contacts I've been making lately I see 500 games on the horizon and maybe not in the too distant future.    Highlights from this lot would be the Tengen game, Alien Syndrome (which I have on my M.A.M.E. machine and play from time to time and Xexyz which is really an underappreciated game in the NES library.

Checking on the score... these additions have the totals at:

Nes carts:  458
Licensed games:  424/687
Unlicensed games:  34/90

NES pickups October 2nd, 2014

Today Missy and I left the kids with Nan and went for a thrifting trip a few towns over.  Like a fool, I forgot my GPS at home so we were left to tracking using google maps and whatever free wifi hotspots I could find along the way.  Even with our technology challenged navigation we managed to find several of the second hand stores I'd made a list of the night before.  The first stop was the best for me as there was a Fantasy/board game specialty store two doors down from the thrift store stop.  While Missy went into her shop I ducked into All a-board Games and found a couple display cases brimming with retro goodness.  There were Retron consoles, a turbo-grafx 16, some n64 titles, snes and then finally I saw the NES section.  Wow.. there were so many great games. I had visions of supermarket sweep and imagined the damage I could do with an empty buggy and 60 seconds on the clock.  This was definitely an example of one of those 'if money was no object' situations.  After perusing the 40 or so cartridges for about 10 mins (while a group of guys behind me sat at a table playing a rousing game of dungeons & dragons or whatever today's equivalent board/dice/card game is) I came up with 3 games that were within my price range.

From this store I got:  Orb-3d,, Ninja Kid, & Vindicators.  Something that I found interesting was the sticker that is still on the back of the Orb-3d game.  It is (what I assume to be) the retail sticker from the original store it could have been purchased and/or rented from.  Not sure what other stops it made along the way, but at least at one point in this game's history you could walk into Rob's Video in Newport, KY slam down $95 and this classic was yours.   I love these stickers.  I like that they warn the renter to *please rewind before returning.  Apparently the Format of this game is Beta?  Hmm... pre-release?  or Betamax?   At any rate I got a chuckle out of that sticker and think I might just leave it on there for nostalgia sake.  If anyone has any idea when this business might have operated feel free to comment on twitter using the hashtag #8bitbobby   the Facebook page I found was:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robs-Video/117909535002280?sk=info

Anyway back to the blog.  There were a few other stops on our trip that had games, but the one place only had the very common ones and the other that had 1 or 2 I didn't have were asking too much for them so I passed.  I did find a very curious 'nintendo-related' artifact at Value Village though.  It is a Mario's Cement Factory Mini-classic keychain game. (Unopened from 1998).  Not the original LCD handheld unfortunately but a smaller, playable, re-release I presume.   A quick check on ebay showed an average sell price in around the $20-25 mark.  Not sure whether to trade, sell or just display it.  It is a neat little item.

All and all it was a really good day.  We managed to spend all of the money that we had taken with us on the trip and, without a solid backup plan, --night before payday and no plastic with us-- I was tasked with calculating the exact amount of money to hold back for gas to get us home.  At that moment I felt like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, pacing back and forth and repeating.... about $10, yah... $10.  We had a wonderful dinner out @ BP and spent all that we had in our pockets on vintage goodies, save for the slim fuel budget I guessed at.  Needless to say  I shaved it closer than a Quattro razor.  When we got back into town.. literally 2 mins from home, the gas light came on.  Whew.  The perfect end to a fun-filled day!  Stand-outs for today:  The cement factory mini-game, Vindicators (because it's a darker shade of gray) and I guess the sticker on the back of the Orb-3d game that makes for an interesting conversation.  Let's check on the score, shall we?

Nes carts:  454
421/687 Licensed*  
33/90 Unlicensed*

*  = totals are based on my own exclusions from Geekbox's List.