A bad day for rare stuff at a flea market...

I don't know if this should go in the Off Topic section, or remain in the Rare & Obscure section, but moderators, if I made a mistake, sorry about it!

Today I had a bad day for rare things at a flea market.

I went to one flea market. Inside, there were many shops. In one video gaming shop, I saw 5 boxed SNES consoles!!!

I asked the woman how much they were, & she told me $50!!! No way! :-(

Just when I was about to leave, out of the corner of my eye at one corner, I saw an original Top Loader NES console!!! Way!!!

I asked the woman how much that was, & she told me it wasn't for sale! :smt022

I was so sad! I looked around for a bit, then asked, "So it's still not for sale?" Same thing! Man, what a bad day! :die
It would have probably been less than half the price of the SNES consoles since they don't consider them rare over there...

I'll probably go back days later when someone different is there!

 

I've NEVER found anything good at a flea market. I scoured a bunch of fleamarkets once in search of an MSX, but you couldn't even get a C64. All we have here are illegal immigrants selling bootlegged mobile phones, piles of loose car radios (hmm... wonder where those came from...) and of course those ubiquitous "one-million-games-in-one" systems for 50,- Euros.

 

you should have made an offer, cause you never know, and it cost nothing to try.

 

Yeah, I kind of feel bad I didn't try. I guess I kinda didn't want to seem too interested before she would have made it the same price as the $50 boxed SNES consoles. I would think if she were to actually sell it, it would have been around $20, but I don't know...

 

return there as soon as you can, because those kind of things fade away very easly.

 

It's tough to get anything good at the Flea Market anymore. I used to frequent 2 Flea's in the Bay Area about 3-4 years ago and would LOAD up on all kinds of goodies. Now, you're lucky to find anything worth mentioning..... :smt100

 

depends on where you are i guess.

 

I was about to buy an Atari 2600 at the flea market once, and sadly it was gone when I went to pick it up the following day .

 

One of 'em Laney in Oaktown?

 

i havnet been to a flea market in a long time, though a friend of mine that goes to one around where i live says he often find sega cd and at times saturns there, me think i should one of these days pay a visit there.

 

Same here, Jay. I went to our local flea market about a month back with my wife and there were a few gaming-oriented booths/areas. The only one worth a damn (as far as what games it had) was unbearable; $70 per Super Famicom game, and $39 for a Famicom game!

It seems that the only way to find a decent haul is to go to a) a larger flea market, or b) one quite out of the way. I'm just not finding much anymore. (However, thrift shops I've found some awesome stuff at.)

 

Heh, most of the people at my local swapmeets still don't know the value of these things. I'm usually able to talk down prices on lots of good things like box consoles and parts. I usually just tell them if they can verify it works and when they say they can't I tell them "I'll give you half then."

That usually works when the people have no idea what they have and just want to make a quick buck. (Which there are a lot of people around here.)

Another thing I do is just call all the systems "Nintendo". If they have a Sega Saturn I will say "$5 for the Nintendo." and for some reason they always agree.

Also, the local Goodwills and Pawn Shops are filled with some neat stuff. A lot of boxed consoles and games. I've actually seen a Sony MSX in one of the Pawn shops here for like $30!

The Swapmeets are every Saturday and Sunday here and I'm going to go today to get a few more things. Wish me luck!

 

Yes excactly! Or Mario Bros/Duckhunt carts for E15 :smt009

 

Man, people price there just completly stupid around here since all the thrift stores and stuff near me are in West Virginia, home of the rednecks. One cool one near me had some Jaguar games strewn around....but no Jaguar and the games were 20$ each, along with the old PC games and Fear Effect. Used CD's were like, 3 for 20 too...and it's WV....so nothing good. There usually isn't much anyhow, it seems like people would rather throw there stuff away, like some kids Iknow who threw away there NES and 20 games, PS1, Dreamcast, and whenever they get CD games they put the CD in a carry case and toss the case with the book and art away......pisses me the hell off. I hate when kids are spoiled brats who don't take care of there stuff (stuff listed was usually broken and REALLY GROSS.) I think a large reason there's less and less games circulating in flea markets, yard sales, blah blah, is because of freaking GameStop and EBgames ripoff trade-in garbage.......everyone gives there crap to them. Arggg I hate places like $^%$^$ GameStop........I use to have a blast scouring fleas, goodwill, thrifts, yard sales....but no, of course some people have to turn something people really really like into a thing to ripoff kids and make money...

 

I agree with you PhreQuencYViii. GameStop is a real ripoff, before they were changed from FuncloLand. Once, I sold my Yoshi's Story N64 cart for $7, the next day, I saw it for $40!!! I don't know what I was thinking, I really needed that $7 at that time though. Even now, they don't let you sell games for cash, they make you do some kind of store credit.

I used to like GameStop from other electronics stores because they had retro systems & games there, something most electronic gaming stores lack nowadays. Now, it's like they're all trying to be the same as everyone else & only have the newer games.

 

The one here NEVER has anything older then a few PlayStation games. Now EBgames never does, making the places around me pretty damn crappy. I use to like EBgames a lot too, I hear the GameStop takeover is suppose to happen in early 2006 too. :smt009

 

Our Gamestop must be the exception. I sold 2 3rd party PS1 controllers and got $16.

 

Gamestop sold me Tail Concerto for $5, not really a ripoff there.

 

Wow, those must have been high tech PS1 controllers! The controllers at the GameStop here are priced at $2 each!

 

Flea markets can be good, but you need to be at the right time/right place. I once found a MegaDrive/MegaCD combo with a few games for 5 euro's, which was 5 euro's lower than the lady was initially asking. ;p

Most of the times people tend to rip you off though, like asking 25 euro's for just a GameBoy cartridge (with some pretty obscure/crappy 'games') and 60 euro's for a used GameBoy Pocket without anything else...