The Australian retro hunting rant thread

LOL sure, not with your voltage

 

at least we're not taxed for breathing air...
oh wait, we are...CARBON (fraud) tax. :concern:
it's just as murder in the UK, but timing is CRUCIAL for a good bargain, and it helps to know folks working different aspects of the trades.
ga$hCON-verters (or SKAG generators) has some of the worst prices known to man, even the standard retailers are getting a foot back in because of the greed, ABSOLUTELY love it when 'bizzees' fueled by greed, powered by avarice turn on each other, opens the door to SUMMARY LIQUIDATION and even better, really good deals on the street. (rare though)
another is knowing folks working is such places, they know your tastes, and can telephone you if the have something of requirement in.
don't get many of those calls, timing and that. (shifts, other workers, circumstances...blah!)
roll a few fatties for a walk around town, or use transport to other areas of nation, luck for me, manchester usually takes up the slack, being a CITY and crazed mini-metropolis, something for everybody, at GOOD prices. (where i live, it's a two hour average journey to manchester, so fuel is factored into it) would like to go more often, the sake bars are great..:smile-new:
good will shops (now THAT'S RICH!) aka: 'charity' shops are one of the worst offenders for greed, been a LONG time i've seen ANYTHING of fair price or even interest there.
...
they'll come a day when the shop as we know it WILL cease to exist, it will be online order/dispatch ONLY, and if you don't have a viable package address or the online resources, you get nothing.
(half way there myself, ca$h plays it's part, only because of a good friend lets me whore his paypal account for readie$ when needed)

 

RATS! FOILED AGAIN!

Plus they'd all be like "WTF is a Sega Genesis, mate?"

And then hop off on a kangaroo.

(all I know about Australia is from that Simpsons episode)

 

And we deal in "dollereydoos" and we call bull frogs "chazzwazza's".

 

There's barely any decent deals here, we barely have any flea markets either so only place I've ever gotten some deals is cash converters, usually where staff don't know anything. This is for XBOX stuff, anything retro is over priced.

 

Anything gaming is overpriced period.

 

the only n64 games you see in aus are 5 copies of F1WGP at every cash converters,Ii live in a small mining town so its ebay or nothing usually.

 

I'm in Melbourne and still eBay is pretty much my usual source. As much as I don't want it to be though.

 

Oh I wasn't even going to mention the censorship. Though it did produce a funny bit in the new South Park game

 

QLD'er here. I don't go out looking for games often any more but I've had some good scores. One day I walked into one of the big lifeline shops and checked the book section only to find a stack of about 30 boxed master system & mega drive games as well as about 50 old VG mags, I picked up maybe half of the games at $2 each including Buggy Run, a Master System convertor cart for the MD and a ton of mostly good titles.

Went into a 2nd hand store a few years ago and they didn't have any games on display but were playing a Mega Drive behind the counter so I asked if they had anything and they pulled a ton of SNES games out all $5 each, got The Firemen, Mega Man X2, Pocky & Rocky, Parodius, Twinbee & some other good stuff.

Picked up a Master System II from cashies once for $2. Same cashies Kula World ps1 for $5. Also Mega Man Wily Wars $30 at gametraders, pretty good considering how much they overprice stuff. Same Gametraders Keios Flying Squadron for the Saturn $20.

That all sounds great but the good scores are few and far between, I don't bother with garage sales so might be missing out there. Things do seem to have dried up a bit but I'm slightly more concerned at the scarcity of blank tapes. When I find them for 50c each or less it's almost as nice as finding an old game. They're just as overpriced on ebay now as well.

 

My local shop 25 for a SNES game. 35+ if it's a first party one. $165 for an N64. Zelda Collectors Edition and Smash bros. Melee for the Gamecube $65 each. Metal Gear Solid:Twin Snakes used to be $25- 4 months later it comes back for $95

Yeah $109 for a Ps3 game.

What about Wi-Fi? that's an Australian Invention!

 

Interesting you should say that. I've been looking at Australian exclusive console bundles of late - stuff like the SNES bundles.... Pirate Pak, Cricket Kit, Super Fun Pack etc. They rarely turn up on eBay and are listed at crazy prices when they do. Are they rare in general? Do you see them in retro shops... do you even have many retro shops?

Also, I have a shameless plug! I'm revamping the contact a local for help thread and we have NO Aussie representatives! If anyone feels like putting their name down to go on the list, give me a shout. There will probably be a few new guidelines - nothing too major, though. I'll ask that candidates have the usual 50 posts / been a member longer than 3 months, though. If you check out the last page, there's someone in dire need of help pretty much yesterday... although I'm not sure he's aware of last shipping dates or how much it'll cost him to send as a result!

 

I don't pay attention to SNES stuff but I can say exclusive bundles even for the N64 fetch big money... but that's eBay for you.

Right now, people seem to be paying rent with retro games and old gen gaming stuff. I honestly haven't bought any Xbox related for quite some time because of it. It's just not worth it at the moment, as good deals are becoming less and less common.

 

Yes they are rare even in Australia. There aren't many shops that only sell retro items. If you want to find retro items offline, you have to go to pawn shops, op shops, markets and garage sales.

I only see the Super Mario World and Mario All Stars packs and even those aren't very common still in box.

I sold some Australian exclusive NES games and XBOX Halo items recently on ebay/facebook. That's my rent paid.

 

Yeah and most stores around that still specialize in retro items have the prices jacked up to VGA level of stupidity so it's usually best to scrounge around whenever and wherever possible.

 

Today I went to three op shops, the last one had an immaculate Smash Brothers Brawl Wii for $3 so I was sure to pick that up. Not very retro but a very good score at that price. I saw several other titles while I was out but nothing older than ps2 aside from a (non-sp) gameboy advance.

 

It's horrible here in New Zealand. Most everything just ends up on Trade Me (kinda like eBay. Used to be just for New Zealand (and, to a lesser extent, Australia), but now it's somewhat international, which is horrible, because you get American stores bringing disgustingly inflated prices and just dumping all their crap on Trade Me). Most everything on Trade Me is overpriced. There seems to be a problem (similar to eBay, but somehow confined to just one country) where there are a bunch of idiots that think their stuff is worth significantly more than it actually is, whilst knowing they're ripping off buyers and trying to low-ball sellers. It's disgusting, but it's a common problem, even internationally.

Oh, and don't even get me started on Cash Converters. They USED to have some OKAY pricing on retro stuff. Now all they do is just dump it on Trade Me, and everyone goes mad bidding on it. Apparently, they can't have a Buy Now price because that is against second-hand dealer laws (which seems like it'd be the opposite to me, since you go into a second-hand store and they have fixed prices, but then again, I'm not familiar with second-hand dealers, especially since any in the retro games area are pretty much non-existent here). Still, they end up putting all their stuff on Trade Me and saying they will ONLY sell it in-store IF it fails to sell on Trade Me first, but you're welcome to come view it in-store. Way to make your retail outlets redundant. And I get why they do it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

I guess I should go look at some second-hand stores properly sometime to see what I can find, but it really is pretty much a barren wasteland. I mean, unless you want everyone's broken DS Lites and Xbox 360s or something. Gotta get those fifty copies of Halo 3, right?