NES Pickups - April 5th, 2015 aka "the 'tendo Reno"

I am starting to reap the rewards of networking in the local retrogaming community.  In the past week or so I've made several trades and have picked up a few new additions to my collection.  Today was a busy day and I met with three of the people I've been working with lately.  Out of these meetings I garnered one new game, a wireless retrogaming controller and better copies of about 4 games.  I called this entry the 'tendo Reno because alot of these trades were about acquiring better label versions of some games in my library.  I've said it a few times throughout the writing of this journal that securing games is one thing, but capturing them in good condition is something entirely different.  It is easy to forget (especially with the resurgence of interest in these games in recent years) that they are 30 years and so finding copies that have been given the respect they deserved right out of the box and protected appropriately is a lofty task.

Out of today's adventures I was able to replace (with near mint copies):  Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Double Dare, Heavy Shreddin' and Milon's Secret Castle.  I also managed to pick up a new title which is one I've tried to find for awhile now:  Kickle Cubicle! This one and Battletoads have been the highlights of the year so far. Two titles I didn't think I'd get at such fair prices.  In the lot with Kickle I also got a wireless retro controller by the same company who made some of the unlicensed NES games: Camerica.

This brings the NES total to:  472!!

NES Pickup - April 1st, 2015 - quickie update

I realize that I already made a post today but as I eluded to in the previous blog entry I have made a few new contacts in the retro gaming community in the last little while and I managed to trade one of my doubles for a new title to add to my library.  Peter Pan & the Pirates will be a welcome addition.

The guy I traded with today is the perfect trade partner because he is not really a Nintendo collector and specializes mostly in Sega Genesis games.  Now we can both be on the hunt for each other's areas of focus while swapping finds to help our own collections.  So after this late comer to the party today let's update the numbers:

Nes Carts:  471
Licensed games:  436

NES Pickups - April 1st, 2015

Happy April Fools Day!  It would have been a feeble attempt on my part to use this entry to say that I had got some extremely rare artifact for the NES for next to nothing. Instead I will make a brief entry on something that actually DID happen.  Today I made another visit to my newest game trader's house and this time I picked up Starship Hector and 8 game manuals.  He threw in 3 posters too (most of which is pictured below).

In this mini-lot I, of course, received the cart Starship Hector as well as manuals for: Hogan's Alley, Super Pitfall, Smash TV, Basewars, Robocop, Double Dragon 2, Millipede and Skate or Die.  The generous seller also threw in a few posters as an added bonus:  Smash TV, Double Dragon 2 and a general advertisement for Ultra Games. I don't want to steal the proverbial thunder from a future post, but I will mention that this seller was kind enough to put me in touch with another friend of his and I have a trade lined up that will hopefully take place later in the week.   

Nes Carts:  470

Licensed games: 435/687

Boxes: 50

Game Manuals: 78

63% of the overall licensed game collection

NES Pickups - March 29th, 2015

"Life moves pretty fast.  If you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it." - Ferris Bueller

Sometimes I'm amazed at the speed of life when the internet intervenes.  Less than 24 hours ago I was enjoying a Marilyn Manson concert and bumped into a friend of mine there.  She knows that in addition to loving music I am also a nintendo game collector.  She promised to comment with my name every time she saw someone selling NES games through Facebook and today she did just that.  I looked at the ad she was pointing me to and found that the seller was looking for offers on about a dozen or so NES titles.  Looking at the picture that was posted two titles jumped out right away.  I was happy to see Silk Worm available, but when I saw that he was offering Battletoads I was dumbfounded.

That slippery little sucker has eluded capture by me for a long time.  I have had it on the line before a time or two only for it to wriggle its way off the hook before I could reel it in.  I think 3 or 4 such ads have gone up and I was either a day late or a dollar short on them. I thought for sure when I contacted him he would say it was already sold; in fact my past failed attempts at getting this game have made me think that the only way it would grace my shelves was if I bought it on eBay.

What I found equally shocking was that the seller gave me a great deal on the two games. The whole transaction took place in the doorway of his house and was over quicker than a Mike Tyson bout (during his prime). I walked back to the car a mere 30 seconds later still shaking my head that Battletoads was mine!

Even though my Collection app lists Silk Worm as the more rare title of the two Battletoads seems to be among those upper echelon games like Contra, Zelda and the Megaman Series that resellers know the value of (and quickly snap up) and that even casual NES fans covet highly (and thus hang on to). For these reasons and countless others I thought for certain this game would continue to be a pipe dream.  So glad I was mistaken.

Nes Carts:  469

Licensed games:  434/687

Unlicensed games:  35/90

NES Pickups - March 21st, 2015

Today was a little different than most pickup days because it consisted of two trips to my favorite game seller/trader's house.  The first trip I went with some cash in hand and came home with 5 new games (2 in boxes).  During the first visit I had mentioned, in passing, that I'd really love some of his other boxes and manuals and might have some games at home I would be willing to trade.

A few hours later, armed with about 10 of my doubles, I returned to barter my way to one more boxed game, about 24 loose boxes and 16 game manuals.  There were several stand outs in this lot not the least of was the box, manual and 3-d glasses for the game rad racer.  I also got Jurassic Park which is one I've been on the hunt for for awhile.  With these additions I think I stand at about 48 CIB games now (a collection I haven't really been trying to get but have came across through happenstance here and there).  As with anything that is the better part of 3 decades old there is a varying degree of wear and tear on the boxes and manuals, but I'm going to chalk it up to the proverbial character giving thing. I also got a near mint Gyromite with box and manual! New games acquired are as follows:  F-15 Strike Eagle, Jurassic Park, Wheel of Fortune: Vanna White Edition, Dirty Harry and Smash TV.

Since the boxes and manuals are too numerous to mention here I've provided some pictures below:

 

 

NES Carts:  467
Licensed games:  432/687
Unlicensed games:  35/90

NES pickups - March 5th, 2015

Well another thrift store gauntlet under our belts and I'm beginning to realize that the proprietors of these establishments either know the value of these little gray plastic boxes or collect them too because I have done the local circuit more than a few times in the past months and have come up empty handed.  My wife, seeing my puppy dog woe-is-me eyes, told me we should stop in at a few pawnshops as well and look for carts and so at the 2nd such stop I actually found a few little gems to add to the collection.  Nothing extremely rare in this lot but still nice to find.  I picked up the unlicensed game: Dudes with Attitude, The Great Waldo Search and I think the final WWF wrestling game I was missing for the collection:  WWF Steel Cage Challenge.  The games all show their age in different ways, but despite their flaws they will be welcome additions!

I suppose the irony of these finds compared to my last entry is that I got all 3 games today for about the same price as I paid for the one game in Kamloops (and I didn't travel several hours to get them).

NES Carts:  462
Licensed games:  427/687
Unlicensed games:  35/90

NES pickup February 27th, 2015

If you'll remember from one my last entries (from October of last year) we made a bit of a thrift circuit in the nearby neighboring cities. Yesterday my wife and I decided to leave the kids with my mother-in-law and take another such road trip.  We essentially travelled in a large circle visiting thrift stores in Armstrong, Salmon Arm and Kamloops.  12 hours, 400 kms and a few coffees later we returned with our treasures.  The route took us from Kelowna to Armstrong and Salmon Arm (via Vernon) then on to Kamloops and home to Kelowna (via Merritt).

Although I saw a few artifacts that would have made other retro game system collectors interested such as the Atari Touchpad (aka the Star Raiders controller) and a Colecovision Adam complete with some games on tape, I didn't even get a sniff of anything NES related until Kamloops.

Once we had visited a few of the second hand stores in 'Loops' we went to the local game store: All-A-Board games -- but found it closed. Fortunately they had only relocated and not closed up shop for good. We found their new storefront one street over.  From what I can remember their original location was a lot larger than this one and seemed to have more selection but they had said that a lot of their stuff was still in storage.  Despite that they still had some highly collectible cartridges on display.  Definitely a wish list of sorts with games such as Secret Scout and several of the multi-carts in the display case. Most of your run-of-the-mill cheaper games did not make the move with them and I presume are boxed up in a locker somewhere (waiting for the next season of Storage Wars: British Columbia edition).

Lining the, sparser than I remember, shelves were games priced between $20-80 which ran the gamut from totally worth it to IMO a little overpriced.  They had 2 copies each of a few of the unreleased titles:  King of Kings and Exodus (the former of which I already have), but even though I like the carts that look different than your average joe gray ones I didn't think it was worth the asking price. I almost grabbed Adventures of Lolo 2, but in the end I chose one I had been looking for for awhile: Little Ninja Brothers.  This is a game that satisfied my current game requirements of specialty store purchases: 1) it needs to be a fairly uncommon title and 2) it has to be halfway decent.  There are altogether too many games in the catalog that are rare by virtue of their being monumentally bad. Thankfully this one does not fall into that category and it is a cool looking RPG with above average music and graphics.  I look forward to playing through this game and perhaps posting a review some time down the road.

NES Carts:  459
Licensed games:  425/687
Unlicensed games:  34/90