My recent flea market finds

[Enternal]

I started collecting games in the late 90's. Stopped around 2005-2006 and started back up in 2010 hitting up thrift stores, pawn shops, and flea markets. My flea market visits are about once a month and pawn and thrift about 20 stops a month.

In that time I've only found turbografx stuff at one of those locations 3 times.

-Splatterhouse With case and manual and Blazing lazers (just case and manual, no game) at salvation army for a dollar they were in with the music Cd's.

-Turbografx with cover and final lap twin for 50 at a flea market. (I should say the guy tossed in a sega power base convert, master system, and 3do for 5 each)

-Order of the Griffon with water damaged manual, and Dungeon Explorer for 100. (Because thats what ebay said) I got Order of Griffon for 30.

I also keep my eye out for ps1 and tg games when two weeks ago I while doing a quick scan of CD's I got tricked for a moment.  (Pictured above) This stack wasn't in front of me it was to my left behind the table I was looking at)

Anyone still go game hunting outside of game store? How have your games finds been the last year? When was the last time you found any tg games?

[PCEngineHell]

What tricked you? I see nothing in the pic that makes me think there is a gold mine of TG goods sitting there...

[ShaneRC51]

C'mon, man, really? The orange label on the corner of the jewel case could be mistaken for a TG16 case if you see it in your peripheral...

[Enternal]

C'mon, man, really? The orange label on the corner of the jewel case could be mistaken for a TG16 case if you see it in your peripheral...

This, like I said once I actually looked at it, it was nothing.

It like walking in a crowd and seeing some short shorts out the corner of your eye but when you look over its a dude.

But no one else has any stories of TG finds in the wild?

I will say I've out of all the systems and consoles Ive come across in the last 10 years ive never found anything for the Atari Lynx.

[Warbucks]

When I am at Flea Markets, I always look at the CDs for Turbo games.
One day I will find one in the wild.

[ginoscope]

I have given up at finding turbo games in the wild in the Dallas area.  I have found everything but them.  Closest I got was craigslist but that is not the same as a yard sale or flea market score.

What I been doing is finding games for other systems to fund my turbo games at retail.

[BigusSchmuck]

When I am at Flea Markets, I always look at the CDs for Turbo games.
One day I will find one in the wild.

I found Space Ace for the CDI once with that method over at a antique store in Richland Washington in a Beyonce CD case no less. Also found a loose Laserdisc of Popeye in a Rolling Stone record sleeve.  99 cents for the both of them, can't go wrong with that lol. It goes to show to just take your time and shop around.

[Medic_wheat]

The only story of my finding any in the wild occurred


Right after I joined this forum. As I had stumbled on a Cl find with a guy selling off left over games from what I belive to have been a mom and pop rental store. That was what? 3-4 years ago


About two years ago I found some loose PC Engine games at a flea market.



And that surmises all my finds in the wild.

[Sparky]

I have not found 1 F@cking TG16 hucard in the wild believe it or not.  just an empty case for TV Sports Hockey and that was recently, last year.

But i have been really lucky at finding all sorts of other games common and rare for cheap which has helped me with trading towards Tg16/CD/Duo games i want.

I have got most of my games from this forum, local games shops, video game meets and in the beginning even ebay but that was back in 2002 i think when things were sane.

[esteban]

A: No.

[Enternal]

When I am at Flea Markets, I always look at the CDs for Turbo games.
One day I will find one in the wild.

I found Space Ace for the CDI once with that method over at a antique store in Richland Washington in a Beyonce CD case no less. Also found a loose Laserdisc of Popeye in a Rolling Stone record sleeve.  99 cents for the both of them, can't go wrong with that lol. It goes to show to just take your time and shop around.

My lone CDI find... a sealed Space Ace, same flea market that had 2 of my TG finds. though not at the same time. However the day I found Order of the Griffon last month I also found a CDI controller and 6 boxed master system games.

There is a store called 2nd and Charles,a chain under Books a Million that ours turned into. Its been one of my best sources for game finds.

They get a lot more traffic and product than the 2 retro game stores here. Unfortunately no tg games yet.

[PCEngineHell]

C'mon, man, really? The orange label on the corner of the jewel case could be mistaken for a TG16 case if you see it in your peripheral...

This, like I said once I actually looked at it, it was nothing.

It like walking in a crowd and seeing some short shorts out the corner of your eye but when you look over its a dude.

But no one else has any stories of TG finds in the wild?

I will say I've out of all the systems and consoles Ive come across in the last 10 years ive never found anything for the Atari Lynx.

It looks like giant orange stickers to me, wrong size and all. Wouldn't be even remotely fooled. I see this kind of stuff all the time. Maybe part of why you were fooled was because you go in with expectations set too high when doing retro treasure hunts.

[o.pwuaioc]

Yeah, I check stuff at stores with the expectation of finding nothing and anything I do find being way too high. I'm never wrong.

[LostFlunky]

It has been a long time since I have found a Turbo game, accessory or anything in the wild... probably since the 90's...

One time I found a case for "Deep Blue" at a Value Village, and I picked it up thinking they might have the hucard at the counter..  A kid came over to me and said he found something that looked like it went with what I had over in another area of the store.. I followed him over and there was the box and shrinkwrap.. someone had brought the boxed, shrinkrapped game over to the "textiles" section, torn the box open, and stole the hucard...

[Scillianaire]

There is a guy in mexico on facebook finding like 5-10 new mvs carts locally a week right now i dont even know what to think.

[jelloslug]

I have never seen a TG-16 anything in a fleamarket.

[johnnykonami]

It's funny, you guys got me thinking about a local flea market we had here when I was a kid.  It was one of those indoor ones, and I remember picking up R-type there new.  This was like 1990 and that was the fourth game I ever got for the TG-16, so not quite the same but I just had to regurgitate the memory!  Same place was raided several times for bootleg this or that (not my game though, would have been damn impressive to have bootleg hueys back in 90).

[technozombie]

My original TurboGrafx came from a garage sale probably in 91. It had ninja spirit,fanasy zone and a busted rf plug. I always had to wiggle it just right to get it to work.

[xcrement5x]

It depends on the definition of "the wild" for me. 

I consider like thrift stores that are under-priced and garage sales "wild", flea markets have so many pro resellers anymore I don't really consider it a decent chance to find something cheap anymore. 

Flea markets and retro stores are more "in the zoo" than the wild for me, as I can find stuff cheaper but prices can be hit or miss.  Ebay is just ebay though

[JoshTurboTrollX]

C'mon, man, really? The orange label on the corner of the jewel case could be mistaken for a TG16 case if you see it in your peripheral...

This, like I said once I actually looked at it, it was nothing.

It like walking in a crowd and seeing some short shorts out the corner of your eye but when you look over its a dude.

But no one else has any stories of TG finds in the wild?

I will say I've out of all the systems and consoles Ive come across in the last 10 years ive never found anything for the Atari Lynx.

It looks like giant orange stickers to me, wrong size and all. Wouldn't be even remotely fooled. I see this kind of stuff all the time. Maybe part of why you were fooled was because you go in with expectations set too high when doing retro treasure hunts.

I can see being mistaken for a split second at first glance sure.  That sinking feeling, like you just found that sweet obey in the wild.

Let's be honest now... nobody will ever find anything in the wild again....

[CGQuarterly]

Let's be honest now... nobody will ever find anything in the wild again....

That's pretty much how I feel.  I rarely bother going to thrift stores anymore.  Back in the day, I never came home empty-handed.  This hobby was way more fun when games were worthless.

[Jason_dicarlo85]

I have also never found anything turbo in the wild .... At flea markets... Yard sales.... A few times in the last few years I have seen loose tg16 console for around $150....

[Moosehead]

Let's be honest now... nobody will ever find anything in the wild again....

I think thanks to sites like eBay, the same applies to LPs, sports cards, guitars, action figures etc. On the other hand, if you catch eBay on a bad day you can sell a copy of Power Golf to a store for $40.

[shabba]

Most of my finds for video games that were real scores came pre-2012. The last real find, which wasn't even mine, was a boxed Duo at a local thrift store here in Richmond. I walked in as a young guy was buying a boxed Duo for $50 bucks. I followed him outside and offered him $100 cash. Dude looked at me and said "$250 cash and it's yours". Of course I walked away but that there was one and I was 10 minutes too late for it was crushing. I did get consolation sex that night because my wife felt badly for me. She said I looked visibly upset. No shit.

I've scored things like a Neo Geo Pocket, A Wonder Swan, a Master System and games for them at thrift stores. I bought a complete Apple IIe system at the same thrift store the Duo came from for 10 dollars once. I have more luck with older computers like IBM or Apples than I do consoles. No complaints though as they are more cash for my own collection. I found a boxed TRS-80 about a month ago that I picked up for $50 and sold for $325 on fleabay. Bought a complete in box Kings Quest 1 with the overlay at that same thrift store for 49 cents once. I still have it and it works. 

I think the days of scoring cheap games is over though. Games in the wild just don't exist much any more.

[cobrad12]

Also to blame is the rise of smart phones. I've been doing flea markets for about 4-5 years now, and I will agree the finds seem to get worse. More and more I will see people selling small amounts of games, who used to just sell them cheap ,individually price them based on price charts or ebay because they can always look up a price on their phone.

Still I do find some decent gaming related stuff. Mostly ps1/ps2/wii stuff at the moment is really cheap. My best find of last year was picking up a bunch of ps2 shooters (shmups) for $1 each which I was pretty happy about. People seem to be nes/snes/n64 crazy at the moment. As far as turbo finds, I saw a keith courage once for $2 but passed because I already had it. I do see a few resellers with occasional turbo games but they don't count, and their prices are usually higher than ebay.

[Enternal]

I manged to pick up legendary Axe two weekends ago in Daytona, guy recently purchased a Sega Cd, Turbo Grafx, and CDI lot. Most of the good things were already gone. I got part of it on film though.

My brother and two friends were testing a camera for our flea market trips. This was a test summary

44 seconds in you can see the seller for those interested. This place is called the Dungeon at the Daytona flea. The seller gets a good rotation of games and he is usually 10-20% below ebay if anyone is in the area check it out.

http://daytonafleamarket.com/vendor.cfm/mode/details/id/2099