Such a loooooooong flight from Japan; but I haven't been back home in almost 4 years (or back to the States for that matter). Any good retro stores in the Wichita/ Hutchinson area, or should I stick to the pawn shops?
Shit. That's brutal. I try not to bother unless it's 10 days. Although I have a new found indifference to 13 hour flights after I left the UK 12 hours after a friend going to Australia (me to Haneda), and we arrived within an hour of each other. That had to suck for her.
I actually live in Hutchinson an work out of Wichita. Unfortunately the pawn shops and game stores around here aren't to special. Most pawn shops won't even carry anything earlier than PS2. There's a store in the Hutchinson Mall called Game On, that does cater more to retro gaming, but generally over priced and nothing incredibly uncommon to be found. The rarest thing they might carry is my copy of Beggar Prince or a handful of Saturn RPG's and Famicom games I sold one day when I needed to pay a bill immediately... Occasionally you can get good deals on items when they don't realize what they have. Aside from the owner, don't expect the staff to be to knowledgeable either. One of them thought a 3DO goldstar I brought in was a dvd player...
Wow! Hutch mall got a new store! Times HAVE changed! So do they pay a lot for import stuff? I could bring a box with me and get rid of stuff I don't need...
Check for a CD Tradepost in your area (there's a million - website has locations). A lot of them have some retro stacks behind the counter (not always easy to look at without some serious squinting). They have an online catalog of stock but I don't think they keep the really old stuff on there (SNES, NES, etc) or at least they didn't in the past. Village Flea Market on Pawnee and Seneca - Open I think 9-5ish on Fri,Sat,Sun. There's at least 3-4 video game vendors. A lot of stuff is overpriced as expected but there's always the bargain that slips through. I got my copy of Earthbound there for 10, and numerous "good" titles (like, say, Kirby Super Star) for $5-10. I don't know if he's still around, but I used to work for a hispanic guy (long hair, metal band shirt, bad teeth) in the back center. He has/had big red glass cases and a serious selection of NES stuff, and probably a lot of junk sitting on the floor if he is in the buying mood. I wouldn't expect any fantastic deals since you don't know him, but he's an outrageously great person. GameXChange on 833 N. West St. and 2556 N Maize. Most pawn shops have nothing but junk, though I believe all the proper retro stuff within all of the A-OK Pawn locations got moved to their location on 410 N West St. - though one of the guys that works there actually knows what some stuff is worth... that being said, he sold me a Hori HRAP3 for $49.99, and I didn't even ask him to knock off anything. If I find the time, I'll buy you a drink. Also, the W of Oz jokes are hilarious.
Yeah, put it this way, for every one store that opens, five close. The glory days of having 3 arcades in that Mall are gone. Your chances are 50/50 getting good prices on imports. Unless it's last two gens, the current staff will have no idea what they're buying aside from Mario junk. I wouldn't even bother going to CDtradepost if you're looking to sell. Think alecjahn covered most the Wichita locations. You'll have to either catch the owner of Game On while he's in, or just bring your stuff in bulk and ask them to call him in or do it by phone. Generally, they seem to just go by pricing off ebay listings, and offer you a third of whatever game you're unloading sold for. Sometimes you can get a good price if ebay prices are inflated. Other times they'll offer you laughable low amounts. Oh hey, look, Chrono Trigger mint an sealed in box..uhh..we'll give you 10 bucks.
And I'm bring my Japanese GF with me. t's her first visit to the States and she's seeing the Hutchinson/ MCPherson area. Oh, Lord....
I'm sure she'll be pleased by Hutchinson, what with our lovely Cosmosphere, Giant world class grain elevators, random underground gas leak explosions, and of course the Underground Salt mine (she'll need an extra pair of shorts after hearing about that one) along with our nation high crime rates, especially involving violent crimes. In fact, I almost swear I saw a severed human hand laying along side of the street going down east 4th ave two days ago. I forgot to drive back by and investigate though. Maybe you should leave that fun fact out of the tour guide for her. http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ks/hutchinson/crime/ On a scale of 1-100 (100 being the safest) Hutchinson scores a 6. "With a crime rate of 65 per one thousand residents, Hutchinson has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One's chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 15. Within Kansas, more than 97% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Hutchinson.Separately, it is always interesting and important to compare a city's crime rate with those of similarly sized communities - a fair comparison as larger cities tend to have more crime. NeighborhoodScout has done just that. With a population of 40,787, Hutchinson has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size. Regardless of whether Hutchinson does well or poorly compared to all other cities and towns in the US of all sizes, compared to places with a similar population, it fares badly. Few other communities of this size have a crime rate as high as Hutchinson. The crime data that NeighborhoodScout used for this analysis are the seven offenses from the uniform crime reports, collected by the FBI from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, and include both violent and property crimes, combined. Now let us turn to take a look at how Hutchinson does for violent crimes specifically, and then how it does for property crimes. This is important because the overall crime rate can be further illuminated by understanding if violent crime or property crimes (or both) are the major contributors to the general rate of crime in Hutchinson. For Hutchinson, we found that the violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation, across communities of all sizes (both large and small). Violent offenses tracked included forcible rape, murder and non-negligent manslaughter, armed robbery, and aggravated assault, including assault with a deadly weapon. According to NeighborhoodScout's analysis of FBI reported crime data, your chance of becoming a victim of one of these crimes in Hutchinson is one in 150. In addition, NeighborhoodScout found that a lot of the crime that takes place in Hutchinson is property crime. Property crimes that are tracked for this analysis are burglary, larceny over fifty dollars, motor vehicle theft, and arson. In Hutchinson, your chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is one in 17, which is a rate of 58 per one thousand population." She's in for a real treat, when she gets to see bottom of the barrel mid-western's for her first impression of Ammurricca. Thank god when I lived in Japan the only trip my girlfriend and I ever took to the states was Hawaii.
Yeah, the last serial rapist we had around here generally prayed upon old ladies in nursing homes, so you're probably safe for a few years. Maybe check out the old FOX Theatre if you pass through here. That's one of the few cultural marks my mind can conjure up at 3:22am. I managed to swipe some pretty pristine classic film posters when they were renovating years ago. Oh, and you'd probably have more luck making dough smuggling back some of that Yakuza speed, and selling it to the locals here.
Being from Kansas myself, I concur with Assembler's statement. The Cosmosphere is nice though. And I love to eat at Hog Wild when I go back to Wichita.
