A place for those truly, fantastically, over the toply insane NES collectors, part 2.

 Continued from part 1.

River City Ransom Rocks!

 Destiny of an Emperor was the first in a long line of NES games to come back to me.  Then I got a few games from my brother-in-law, not sure what they were.  Then I found a box of them at a garage sale, including games like Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular, Dusty Diamond's All Star Softball and River City Ransom.  There were 19 games in that box I know for a fact.  It was also with that box that I started doing some research into the value of the games.  I had already experienced through buying Destiny of an Emperor that these games were not the dollar bin items some expect them to be (and what keeps collectors like me looking at garage sales to this day).  I had to pay $22 U.S. to acquire Destiny of an Emperor, whereas River City Ransom, a game that is worth $15 and up, I maybe paid 50 cents for it. (I paid $25 that day at the garage sale for 19 games, an NES with 2 controllers and a Power Glove).
 After that first garage sale; and yes, it was the first garage sale I went to specifically looking for NES items and happened to find a box of them, I started searching diligently.  By this time the collection was a mere 30ish 'cart only.'  That first summer, after going to perhaps 100+ garage sales I ended up with around 80 games.
  The garage sales led to another discovery.  It wasn't just NES games that people wanted to be rid of, these garage sales were full of games for other systems as well.  From VIC-20 to Xbox 360, these garage sales brimmed over with games nobody wanted anymore, and yet I knew of an internet market in place for all of these games.  That doesn't mean that every video game is worth more than people sell them for at garage sales, not by a long shot.
  Here are some things to keep in mind:
  MOST sports games are worth nothing.  Unless the garage sale is giving them away, or its one of the few rare sports games, like Intellivision's World Series Baseball, don't waste your money.
  Rich neighborhoods have a higher amount of video games for sale BUT they want a higher amount of money.  In my experience it is the unusual rich person's garage sale that actually sells things for garage sale prices.
  Do your research first or have a mobile device with you at all times.  Knowing the values of NES games has informed me quite well on the values of other system games.  That being said my cell phone has also saved me from spending too much on games I assumed to be worth a decent amount of money.
  These are a few examples and I plan on doing an article focusing on this down the road.  But back to this piece.
 Garage sales were the catalyst for finding internet resources such as videogamepricecharts.com, or as it now goes by: http://blog.pricecharting.com.  I used (and still use) this site religiously for getting a basis of the values of these games.  However, while this site is useful, it also has flaws in the valuation of games and should thus only be used in tandem with other pricing sources.  Using this site, plus other sources sure to be mentioned on this blog down the road, I began to amass a giant amount of garage sale games...the intent was to 'flip' them and use the profit to acquire more NES games.
  For the most part I have come out ahead collection wise.  I have made large garage sale purchases that I have flipped for 10 times what I paid for them and quite often make single item purchases that have me come out ahead 20-50 times the price I paid for it.  Those are the good purchases.  I have also made a number of purchases where I lost money due to the game being worth less than what I paid for it, the game not working (disc games should be checked for scratches), or being for a system that there is little interest in anymore (anyone want to buy a TI-99? I have two.).  But as I said, overall I have come out ahead, perhaps doubling or tripling the money I have spent at garage sales over all (and put that money back into the collection).
  The winters are harsh here in Saskatchewan and thus the garage sale season is short, perhaps 5 or 6 months long.  At the beginning of winter 2010 I had a little over 1500 video games in my basement, most of them not for the NES.  This is where the selling on Ebay and the discovery of gametz came into play.  Selling on ebay I don't need to explain (or evilbay as I usually call it now), but gametz is a different can of worms.
  Gametz is an online trading site focused primarily on buying, trading and selling video games.  The site also is known to trade books, music and movies, but the focus is mostly gaming.  The site is entirely feedback based and thus those with low feedback have difficultly continuing to trade on the site, while those with good feedback establish strong reputations in the community.  Gametz is very much a community, full of a huge array of personalities that clash and clash and clash on the forums and chat therein.  For those just needing a place to trade however, gametz is a great site for those looking to offload games.  Some basic rules that will save you from ridicule on gametz: 1. Don't charge Ebay prices, there is no percentage coming off the top here so you can lower your price by 10-20% from Ebay prices and lose nothing.  2. Be honest about everything (particularly the condition of your games), it will help.  3. Avoid confrontations if you can: The forums are full of hostile young men looking for an internet fight, learn to avoid them because becoming one of them hurts your trading.  Check out gametz...and subscribe to it if you like it.
  This process repeated itself since then.  I have been on gametz for a year, using ebay and pricecharting for two years, and constantly researching NES and other systems in that whole time.  I learn something new almost everyday about NES games, whether it is label variants, NTSC vs PAL values, gameplay hints and cheats, video game history...all of this has led to this blog, where I intend to review as many NES games as I can, review game collecting books, discuss rare games, share personal video game related stories, explore NES related sites, etc etc.
Hope you join me on my quest to get the complete collection...and then on to SNES (lol).