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2005 Year-End Summary
Total Spent:
Total Purchases Made:
Total Yardsales Visited:
Average Sales Visited Per Week:
Average Price Per Purchase:
Average Spent Per Week:
$274.75
97
885
26.82
$2.85
$8.32
Week 33 [12.03.05]
Day Total:
$10.00
Sales Visited:
1
Ronin Warriors TV Vol. 1-10 (Sealed)
Paid:
$10.00
[12-03-2005] Just wanted to post my craigslist score this weekend. The guy had posted the listing for the past few months, so I took a chance and offered 10 bucks. He took it! Can't beat a buck per (sealed!) DVD!
Week 32 [11.19.05]
Day Total:
$1.00
Sales Visited:
3
Forgotten Worlds (GEN)
Virtua Racing (GEN)
Paid:
FREE
[11-19-2005] Only went to 1 sale because it was close by and advertised toys. The kid wanted $20 for a Genesis and about 20 games, which had rental stickers all over them. We weeded through the games and were able to get these for a buck. Comical story: Upon arriving the father gives us each a free lens cleaning cloth. But while evilmax got to browse the sale, I somehow got stuck with the father giving me a sales pitch about glasses and how to pick out frames. He even picked some out to have me try on (used to have a store or something). Uhh, I don't recall expressing an interest in purchasing glasses! It was so hard to get away. I told him I already had a pair, to which he responded "You can never have enough pairs". Then I said thanks for the tips but I just bought a new pair the other day, and that finally seemed to back him away. The frames were store prices too, i.e. over $100, $150.
Week 31 [11.12.05]
Day Total:
$0.00
Sales Visited:
3
►
Atari 2600 Games
Paid:
FREE
[11-13-2005] Only hit 3 yardsales this week. We nabbed the Atari games through craigslist (our first craigslist deal).
Week 30 [11.05.05]
Day Total:
$11.50
Sales Visited:
25
►
Atari 2600 Games
Paid:
$2
►
Manga Books
Paid:
$1
►
SNES Games
Paid:
$7
Doom 64 (N64)
WCW/nWo Revenge (N64)
Paid:
$1
Eevee (electronic toy)
Paid:
$0.50
[11-05-2005] 24 sales today. The first sale on our list today advertised "Sega game w/ 25 games" and officially started at 8AM, and we got there at 7:50AM. I got out and didn't see any Sega stuff, so I asked and was informed that she just sold them to the other guy that was still at the sale. I asked him what he bought, and he showed me. It was just a Genesis with a bunch of common games, and he paid $25. Too rich for my blood. She also had an N64 for $20 and a PS1 for $20. No big loss. There was a sale today that was advertised to start at 8:30AM, and we arrived at 8:20AM. There was yellow Caution tape strung across the driveway to keep people from coming in, which I didn't really think much of at first. I kind of didn't notice the crowd of people around either, and I began walking down the driveway. I heard "8:30! 8:30!", and saw that one of the guys setting up for the sale was telling me to go back behind the Caution tape. So there we waited, me and a crowd of 10 people, until 8:30 exactly. It only took 20 seconds to look around and see that they didn't have anything we wanted. This smacked of unprofessionalism to me, making their patrons wait until the exact minute of the advertised start time. Idiots. Saw one of the dirtiest, dingiest, crustiest NESes I've ever seen in my life today. The lady wanted $5, to which I offered $1. She scoffed and said $3. No way, it would've taken me an hour just to clean the thing. Best part was, it wasn't even hers! One of her son's friends left it over her house or something. Lame. There was a lot of "Come back next season" being said today. I was asking pretty much everybody if they had game stuff, and most people said they did but didn't know where it was, but they would have it for next year. We heard this 3 or 4 times today. Gave my number to a lady at the end of the day, she said she had a bunch of old NES games. She asked how much I would pay, and I told her 50 cents a game. She sounded a little disappointed, but still took my number. We'll see if she actually calls. Went to a sale right after hosted by 2 old people, and all they had on display was a bunch of Xmas stuff. I asked if they had any old game stuff and they said they did, and the old man went into his basement to look. After about 5 minutes he emerged empty handed, sadly informing me that "We used to have a big bag with 50 or so games in it, with the machines and everything. We've been moving around though, and I think I ended up throwing it away. I couldn't find it, I'm pretty sure I threw it away. Sorry." It's things like this that make me want to go down to the local dump and root around for awhile... One of the last sales we found was on the way home, a few streets away. We followed the signs and got to it, parking across the street. One of the guys at the sale yells out "Hey! Hey! You can't park there! You gotta turn around and park down there!" So we said okay and just left without getting out. Who in their right mind would drive away their own customers with strict parking enforcement? We wouldn't have been there for more than a minute anyways, and we were on a main road and not blocking anything. Even if they had anything of interest, we've learned in the past that douchebags don't often give good deals. We decided that today would probably be our last official YS day. The quantity and overall quality of the sales has been diminishing over the past 4 or 5 weeks, and we're fairly content with the way the season turned out. So unless we get a day with super-nice weather, or a ton of advertised sales, or a sale that advertises something particularly juicy, I think we're mostly done for the year. Well...maybe we'll still check out the really close ones... The Big Thank You: I really want to extend a big heart-felt "Thank You" to everybody who participated in this thread throughout the year. We've been looking forward to Saturdays for the past 7 months, not only to go out yardsaling ourselves, but to report back with all of you, and to read about all of the adventures that you've had as well. We look forward to a whole new thread of finds and stories next season. Until then, we'll enjoy reading about finds and stories for those who continue 'salin through the winter. From small beginnings, a strong community has arisen. We always hope to see new faces join the fun, and we hope the old faces will stick around and lend their experience. Every post, every story, and every tip. This thread is full of memories, and it's been really great to have shared them with one another. Thanks again! We'll still be around, and hopefully you will too. Until next season: Keep on salin'! [11-06-2005] Went to visit my brother today, and there was a YS going on across the street. There was nothing visible, but the lady there said that she could go to her friends house to get some stuff. I came back an hour later to find a SNES with 4 boxed games (the one I left behind was a somewhat ragged Lemmings) and SMW. Asked how much she wanted for everything, she said "Well I know Zelda alone goes for $10...how about $50?" I gave her the whole song and dance about how at Gamestop they'll give you 50 cents and laugh at you, and that prices on ebay are overinflated and you have to deal with shipping it and stuff. I finally ended up getting her to $7 for the 3, and she begrudgingly agreed. She had all of the manuals and stuff in a seperate pile along with all of the Nintendo Power inserts and stuff. She went through them and only took out the manuals and stuff, no inserts. I spoke up a little, but decided it wasn't worth a battle. $7's a little much in terms of YS money, but I didn't want to pass up the chance to add another complete Zelda to the collection. In a different environment (at a flea market for example), I'd have no problem paying $5 for the Zelda and a buck a piece for the other 2. No biggie.
Week 29 [10.29.05]
Day Total:
$0.25
Sales Visited:
17
Mario Bros. (NES)
Paid:
$0.25
[10-29-2005] A small week! Hit 17 sales. Lucky for us the snow held off until we were on our way home. It's really coming down now, though! How depressing... :sad: Got Mario early in the morning. They also had cart-only Super Mario 2 and 3, but we left them for someone else. Went to this enormous rummage sale at a scientific research center. It was insane madness - nowhere to park, wall-to-wall people and crap. The line for the register stretched almost the length of the hall. Most crowded rummage sale we'd ever been to. We're awaiting a phone call about a SNES and 15 games. He was supposed to call us around 1, and now it's almost 4, so our hopes are certainly not up. Besides, we've never had luck with getting calls back from people. In fact, we've never received a return call. That's about it. Hope you guys had some luck!
Week 28 [10.22.05]
Day Total:
$6.25
Sales Visited:
62
►
Game Boy + N64 Bundle
Paid:
$2
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$2
20" Lego Store Display
Paid:
$1
Lego Designer Set 4402
Paid:
$0.75
Lego Mania hat
Paid:
$0.50
[10-21-2005] // Originally Posted by evilmax17 on 8/27/05 Saw a knee-high huge novelty Lego mini-fig at that same sale. They marked it as $4, but from the looks of the pay-for-play arcade cabinet, I doubt they would've been talked down, so we passed. // Talk about karma! Went to a church rummage sale this evening in the same town that we saw the mini-fig a couple months ago. That sale also had the After Burner arcade machine. Obviously, they never sold the mini-fig and must have donated it to the church: it's the exact same one! Oh, I know. I held that lil guy in my hands and passed him up for $4. But he came back! I offered a dollar to the woman manning the toy table (cash in face!) and, after a moment's hesitation, she said alright. I'm so happy! What a great way to start the weekend, and also the end of the season. It was one of my regrets that I had passed up, but I ended up getting it in the end! Weather is looking good for tomorrow! Good luck guys! [10-22-2005] Hit 61 sales today, bringing our weekend total to 62 sales! This breaks our previous record of 60 sales in one weekend. One lady said her son might have games that he might want to get rid of, so she took my information. Stuff like this hasn't worked out for us yet, but who knows. Got the first purchase (GB + N64 stuff) at a big school sale. They were marked 50 cents per item, but the lady hesitantly took CIF $2. Saw some ridiculously overpriced stuff at one sale. She had an N64 with two controllers and six games marked $75. I asked if she would sell any games seperately and she said no. She also had a SNES with 4 crappy games which she wanted $25 for. Pfff. Went back to that sale from last week, where the guy had the "broken" Intellivison II. He dug all of the stuff out and tested it, and he said it worked (except for one of the controllers, the disk was a little funky). He had about 10 game boxes and about half as many games (some were missing, but the boxes were there). The only problem was that the stuff had been in the attic, and a lot of the boxes were completely glued to eachother. If I had tried to pry them apart, it would've wrecked them. I started at $2 and went as high as $5, but he wouldn't go lower than $10. I thanked him for digging it out, but I passed. One lady was selling a 4-switch Atari 2600 with 2 controllers and a set of paddles, plus 3-4 games (cart + manual), marked $15. I asked if she would go lower, so she said $10. (She was also enthusiastically telling me that "It comes with a few games too!" Yeah...only a few.) I told her that the 4-switch was much more common and worth less, and that that the games went for a dime a piece down at the Salvation Army. So she offered me $5. I offered $3, she balked and refused. We went back at the end of the day to see if they still had it (so we could offer $3 again), but she told us she sold it to someone for $11. Nuts. // Originally Posted by evilmax17 on 6/11/2005 Saw an old woman selling her grandson's SNES (1 controller, RF hookups), and a complete Super Metroid (box in rough shape) for $20. She wouldn't seperate the package, and she would only go as low as $18. Yeah, suck my balls. She also rudely declined my offer of 25 cents for a Fat Albert VHS marked 75 cents. This was the same yardsale that was charging $2 for assorted VHS tapes (half of which were taped off of TV). I hate people sometimes. // We unknowingly went back to this house today at noon, and all of the videogame stuff was still there. That bitch of an old lady still had the SNES with Super Metroid in a box, with the same sign that said "Working SNES console with game, $20", but the $20 was crossed out with pen and $15 was written next to it. I once again asked if she would sell the game seperately, to which she declined. That's why you still have this stuff after 2 yardsales lady! So yeah, we went to as many sales as possible today since the season is nearing its end. We saw a decent amount of stuff, a lot of it fairly overpriced. Still, nice to enjoy it all while it lasts.
Week 27 [10.15.05]+[10.16.05]
Weekend Total:
$1.50
Sales Visited:
30
►
Final Fantasy VIII
Paid:
$1
4.5 lbs. of Legos
Paid:
FREE
Majora's Mask (N64)
Paid:
$0.50
Paper Mario (N64)
Paid:
$1
[10-15-2005] 20 total sales visited, 10 total advertised sales cancelled. The start of the day was dreary but not too bad, but at 10:30AM it really started to pour. Most of the sales were still going on earlier in the day (we made it a point to keep all of the "Rain or Shine" sales on the list), but when the rain picked up everyone seemed to pack it in. We have a bunch of sales that are supposed to be going on tomorrow, plus a flea market, so we'll head out again. Found the FF stuff by asking the guy running it. He brought out a box with random electronics on it, and the guide on top of it. I quickly snagged it, and noticed the "mini-walkthrough", except I thought it was the manual for the game. Thinking that, I tucked it into the guide. He then brought out a paper bag, and pulled from it about 6 PS1 games. Nothing stellar, but I grabbed FF8. It was "missing the manual", but I thought I already found it with the guide, so I thought nothing of it. Upon driving off I saw that I didn't have the manual, and I wish I had checked inside the paper bag for it. Ah well, no big deal for the price. If I really wanted to I could just buy FF8-GH for the manual, I don't think they change those for GH rereleases. We found the Legos when it first started to pour out. The sale we were at was packing things up and putting everything away, and when we asked how much they wanted for the bin, they told us we could just take it. Not bad! Stopped at one sale where the guy said he had an old broken Intellivision, which I offered to buy from him. He said he couldn't go dig it out now, but he was having a sale again next weekend, and to come on by. I wouldn't mind paying a buck or two for a broken intellivision, hopefully he finds some games for it too. We'll be heading back there next week. But yeah, nothing too eventful for us this week. Not as bad as last week, but still could be called a washout. [10-16-2005] Hit up 8 more yardsales and 2 flea markets. We found Zelda at a yardsale, but nothing at the flea markets. The first one (we hadn't been before) had a couple crappy SNES games and a box of a few NES games, but about 8 copies of each (i.e. Gyromite, Mario/Duck Hunt, Football) for a buck each. Nothing that we didn't already have. Also saw a Chun-Li plush (tiny, maybe 3") marked $25, which was insane not only considering the size, but it was dirty, too. I was a little disappointed about that. They had an Elvis impersonator on a Rascal scooter as the greeter, which was er, interesting. The second (we visited about a month ago) had pretty much the same stuff as the last time we were there, and we noticed that a lot of vendors were missing, while others were packing up due to the wind, so that was kind of a gip ($1/person adm. to boot). It was only briefly cloudy, then the sun came out! Gr... Overall feeling of unsatisfication this weekend. The weather has been crappy and the yardsale season seems to be winding down around here. Hoping for even just one more weekend out! Feeling a bit better thanks to this late-in-the-day find. I was browsing craigslist (which I never do) just for the hell of it. There was a sale from 10-7 on the other side of town that listed "ATARI GAME" in the description. We decided to check it out. The "atari game" was one of those cheap plug 'n' play things you find at TRU. However they also had an N64 system (asking $30) and 4 games asking $10 each (Paper Mario was the only boxed one). We offered a dollar for Paper Mario, the girlfriend asked her boyfriend (who was in the other room on the computer) and he responded "Do whatever you want". Eesh. But yeah, random spur-of-the-moment sale and nice pick-up!
Week 26 [10.08.05]
Day Total:
$0
12 sales visited, no purchases
[10-08-2005] A washout for us today, it was raining all morning. We still decided to go out and hit all of the advertised sales that said "Rain or shine", and we ended up going to 10 total. Nothing found, although the first sale we went to said "I have a box of old games, but I wasn't able to bring everything out from the garage because of the rain. I'll find them today and put them out for tommorow if you want to come by again." So we're going to check that out again tomorrow, fingers crossed for a big lot. Kind of sad/disappointing/depressing that one of the last weeks of the season was rained out. Maybe it'll make for a busy next weekend, when it otherwise might not have been. [10-09-2005] Ugh. Went back at 9am this morning to find a NES Powerpad and 2 sealed Saturn games (Madden 97 and NHL 97). Asked them if they found the box of videogamesyet, and once again we got the "We still haven't gotten to everything yet, but we have 2 big boxes. We might have them out later today or tommorow." Meanwhile, the guy is still bringing stuff out while his wife is tending the sale. So we decide to wait around for a bit, to see if he brings them out (since we're back...again). So we wait like 10 minutes, while he keeps bringing stuff out. Then...he starts to look around the sale. Looks down at his shoes, kicks the pavement, puts his hands in his pocket. Just standing around. It appears as if he's done bringing stuff out. So I go up to him. "Uh, find those boxes yet?" So he says again, that they're probably still packed away. So in my head, I'm screaming "SO GO GET THEM AND STOP FARTING AROUND!" I give the wife my number and ask her to call me when they get to the games. Right after she takes it, her 23 year old son (whose games these are I'm guessing) comes outside. It turns out, he went to grade school with moiety, so they start talking. We ask what he has for videogames, and he says: -These two Saturn games (but that's it, he ebayed the rest and his system). -This Powerpad -5 NES games (MLB, TMNT, and 3 others that he can't remember) And that's it. So it went from a "box of games", to "2 big boxes of games", to "5 NES games." So in a dejected state, I ask how much they want for the powerpad and 2 games. The dad says a buck apiece for the saturn games, and $5 for the pad. I didn't even feel like haggling. We just left and said we were going back, but of course we aren't. There's a small small possibility that they still might have stuff, as the 23 year old had an older brother. So maybe, when he was telling us about "his games", he had that sibling thing in mind where like, him and his brother had seperate ownership of the games. So maybe they still do have a bunch of games, but they're the older brother's, and the 23 year old already sold all his. Of course, that's me talking completely out of my ass. I'd be shocked if she did actually call me, and if they had anything more than those 5 NES games. 9am for nothing. Ah well, nice to read the other reports though. I hope some of you are still finding stuff when the snow starts to fall up here in a few months. We'll be vicariously yard saling through the southern CAGs.
Week 25 [10.01.05]
Day Total:
$24.25
Sales Visited:
55
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$15
NES Games + WWF Foam
Paid:
$5
King's Quest VI (Sealed)
Paid:
$1
Primal Rage (GEN)
Paid:
$0.25
Nobunaga's Ambition
Swords and Serpents
Paid:
$1
Shinobi III (GEN)
Golden Axe (GEN)
Paid:
$1
Dynamite Headdy (GEN)
Streets of Rage II (GEN)
Paid:
$1
[10-01-2005] Well we had quite a day! We hit 55 sales, almost reaching our record of 60. There were tons of sales all over the place. It was NES after NES scores at first, then we got a few Sega scores late in the day. All in all, we made the most number of separate purchases today than any other week. We worked our early schedule around a sale starting at 9 that advertised "video game sets". Arriving there 5 minutes after it started, the elderly woman running the sale said they didn't have any video games. We asked if she had advertised them, to which she responded "yes". "Already sold them, eh?" She said yes. A normal person would've just told us that in the first place. Bah. About 10-15 minutes later, we came across the house with the Hacksaw Jim Duggan foam. We didn't even see the games at first, but noticed a paper bag filled with NES games (which we later saw said "$3 Each Nintendo Tapes"). We offered $5 for the games and foam, and the woman said, "Isn't that kind of low?". We said "no", and she said, "Ok" and accepted our money. ::shrug:: That was easy! Then we arrived at a house that had a GameDr, so we inquired about games. The mother sent her daughter in to check and asked us how much we usually pay for games. We replied, "Usually 50 cents to $1 per game." Then she said, "Oh. Well, a guy before you came and paid $2 a game." The way she said it was as if it never happened, i.e. she didn't want to sell them to us for that price. They also had a 3-shelf Star Wars: ROTJ bookcase (about 5 feet high) for $10. It looked old, like it was for a kid's bedroom. The shelves and sides were white, with the ROTJ logo painted on the sides. Looking at the shelves, the backboard had 3 different images from the movie on the wood, 1 per row. She went on about how it was going to be worth something someday, and wouldn't go lower than $8. I wanted it, but for no more than $5. I left feeling a little sad. It was a cool item, but I just couldn't go that high. Around noon, we hit up an unadvertised sale that was easily skippable (sort of out of the way), but I had a feeling about going there. Sure enough, this is where we picked up the boxed NES and games. There was a couple in their late 30's and an older woman running the sale. They wanted to sell the boxed NES for $20 and the games for $15. We asked if they were willing to negotiate, looked everything over, and offered $10 for everything. They were hesitant, so we talked with them for a bit about how the games were common and the NES was yellowed (and boy is it yellow - they used to smoke). Finally the woman said $15 for everything and wouldn't budge. We tried offering $13 but to no avail. The older woman kept yelling "$15! $15!" For another boxed NES, plus another boxed Zelda and a boxed Mario 2, I'd say it's pretty good. The system and controllers are badly yellowed, so we'll probably put one of our nicer NES's in there. While not an amazing score, we're happy with it. It sure is starting to get cold up here, though! I was wearing my usual yardsale gear, but had to bring along a sweater. Kinda depressing, but the sales are still going strong! We're hoping to squeeze out at least another month before retiring for the winter. Hope you all had a great day!
Week 24 [9.24.05]
Day Total:
$29
Sales Visited:
41
►
TG16 + GB Bundle
Paid:
$20
►
TI-99 + Telstar Bundle
Paid:
$6
3.5 lbs. of Legos
Paid:
$2
Deluxe Talkboy
Paid:
$1
[09-24-2005] Sorry for such a late update, CAG's been having troubles at my place for some reason. Hit 41 sales today. For some reason I undervalued the TI-99 pick up when we first got it. I was kind of like "meh", and just put it in the trunk. When I was looking through all the boxes I felt better about it, I have no idea why I wasn't excited about it when I got it. Nice to have a pong-unit too, it's my first. I had kind of an opposite effect with the TG stuff, long story with that purchase as well. We pulled up to the sale, didn't see much of anything, and was about to leave. The guy there asked me what I was looking for, and I gave him the full shpiel. It turns out that he worked for Electronic Arts until 1996, and then at Atari until their MA branch recently closed down. He also programmed the firmware for the NES powerglove. So he brings out a big box with the TG and GB stuff in it, plus a boxed DC, and another DC and peripherals inside of a DC backpack. Also a Genesis arcade stick. He says make an offer, so I offer him $20 for everything. He says "I'm not crazy". So I tell him I have 2 DCs already, so lets take all the DC stuff out and keep it at $20. So he has to think about it for like 5 minutes, all the while I'm talking to him about games and telling him that I don't buy to resell, rather I appreciate everything that I buy. "All this stuff is going to a good home" I told him, and I wasn't lying. So after pondering it for awhile he says fine, but he can't believe he's giving it away for so low. So I put the TG16 stuff in the big box, then the GB stuff. "What, you're taking the GB stuff too?" "Yeah" I say, "Everything but the DC stuff." "Oh man, you're killing me." he says, as I continue to load. I get to the Gen stick and he says "That too? Come on, I just cut you a bargain, throw me a bone and give me $5 for the stick and 2 games." I couldn't just say "No I'm just going to take them, that was the deal", so I just said that I'd leave them for someone else. So I put the stuff in the car and ask him if he has any cool insider-stuff in his house. He takes me on a small tour. There wasn't anything spectacular, although he did have a powerglove inside of a specialty made suitcase (it was like that scene in The Wizard). Showed me a bunch of games that he'd worked on in the past. So after 25 minutes of talking with this guy (more of him talking and me listening and waiting for a way out), all the while moiety waiting in the car, we leave. So I'm looking at the games we got (I hadn't even really looked at what was there), and I see Y's. "SWEET! IT WAS WORTH IT!" I say, and for a split second I thought "what if the game isn't in there". Sure enough, it wasn't, and it wasn't in the TGCD either. So we did something that we've never done before. We went back. We drove back to the sale (we weren't that far away), and I asked him if he had any idea of where it was. He looked in his garage for a minute, but came out empty handed. He took my number and said he'd call me if he found it, but I'm not expecting him too. I was feeling awful after that, weighed down by buyer's remorse. $20 was a lot to spend at a YS by our standards. I never had a TGCD, and I know that they're fairly uncommon. Plus I have all of the essentials for playing a great game of multiplayer bomberman. I dunno, the remorse has subsided since we've gotten home, but that missing Y's was such a kick in the stomach. One of the best games on the system, and it was missing. UGH! It's...undescribeable... If I ever find a disk-only copy, I'll have something nice to put it into. But that'll never happen. I figure the nice and mint TGCD is better in the long run than $20 is. They go for $120 on ebay, not that I'd sell it, but it makes the purchase a bit more comforting. I was talking with moiety last night about what I hoped to find during the rest of the season, and the main thing was a Sega CD (haha that went to you this week Snotknocker!), but I had completely forgotten about the TGCD. Seeing it today brought my earlier words to mind, and in a blind moment of "Wow I can't believe I found one", I bought. Probably would've regretted leaving it there, and I'm somewhat-but-not-really regretting it now. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. If I had Y's I probably wouldn't be this disdainful. Ah well. Glad to see some new faces in here, hope they stick around. I'm surprised at how many sales there have been lately, and I wouldn't be surprised if we make it through the end of October. I'm waiting for it to start dropping off again (and then for good), but it hasn't yet. Here's hoping for a fruitful end to a great season. And here's to luck for all of you as well.
Week 23 [9.17.05]+[9.18.05]
Weekend Total:
$14
Sales Visited:
33
►
SNES+NES Games
Paid:
$3
►
Genesis Bundle
Paid:
$4
Sega Genesis Model I
Paid:
$1
Radio Shack Astro Command
Paid:
$1
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Paid:
$5
[09-17-2005] Surprisingly decent day for such a washout. There were tons of advertised sales, and we had a pretty big list for the day. But as expected, it was rainy and crappy out, and we only managed to find 6 sales for the day. We were going to make our usual route, which is to start in a nice town that's about 40 minutes away, then work our way home. Instead we just stayed close to home, and we were only out for an hour and a half. Everyone will probably have their sales tommorow if it's nice out, so we'll be heading out tomorrow too. Given the circumstances, we asked everyone if they had game stuff today, and it's a good thing we did. The SNES/NES games were hidden away in a corner of one particular YS that we missed the We've never used the Cash-In-Face method before, but we found it very useful today. They were asking a buck a game, but I brought it up CIF and said "Would you take 3 for the 6?". Her eyes lit up when she saw the money, and was already reaching for it before i finished the sentence. Always nice to add some boxed NES games to the collection. Found the RadioShack thing at an estate sale, marked $2, CIF'd $1. The guy's hand was on the dollar before I even finished my sentence. Too funny, yet surprisingly effective. I'll keep it in the repertoire from now on. Asked the first sale we went to for Legos, and the lady went inside to get a decent sized bag (not as big as the box we got a week or two ago). Offered $5, but she said she was expecting a lot more than that. So we left. We'll probably be heading out tommorow, since today was practically non-existant. If we get some sunshine then I bet the YS's will be abundant, so here's hoping for that. [09-18-2005] <The yardsale bug wasn't satisfied yesterday (due to rain, cancelled sales), so for the first time ever we went 'saling on a Sunday, hitting 27 sales (including a flea market). It wasn't looking so good for most of the day. In fact, all our finds were after 11AM. But it ended up being quite a Sega day! Today was a day of overpriced videogame sightings. At one of our early sales, they had: a Game Boy Color w/ Pokemon Silver marked $10; an N64 w/ 2 controllers + 12 games (commons and Yoshi's Story) asking $30 (and unwilling to sell games separately); a (mangled, duct-taped) boxed Game Gear w/ Sonic II for $7, of which we offered $2 and were declined. They also had overpriced Harry Potter hardcover books priced as follows: Sorcerer's Stone ($3), CoS ($5), PoA ($7), and GoF ($10). Eesh. At a later sale, we saw another Game Boy Color, asking price $10. We also took a chance at a flea market that runs during the summer about 15 minutes from home. $1 per person admission. We certainly hoped it wouldn't be a waste. It's a huge flea market, and we saw a lot of dealers with videogame stuff. This is where we picked up Puzzle Fighter. A guy had a small table of NES, GEN, and SNES games. We noted the stack of 6 Mario/Duck Hunt's as he told as games were $5 each no matter what. Puzzle Fighter, which was the only Saturn game, was behind us on another table, and we didn't even see it at first. The upper-left hinge is broken, but the manual and disc are in mint condition. We tried to talk him down from the $5, but he wouldn't budge. It didn't matter: we knew we were buying it anyway. Definitely an unexpected find, but a great addition to the Saturn collection. One dealer had games from practically every system, including 3D0 and TG16, and of course NES, SNES, Atari, GEN, PS2, and PS1. He even had a NES top-loader, which was neat to see, but was marked $80. He had the most variety of items, but also the most expensive. Surprisingly, many videogame dealers had PS1 long-boxed games in mint condition. Certainly we did not expect to see any, let alone in that condition. And judging by the poor condition of most of the games we saw (ripped labels, faded as if left out in the rain), this was a remarkable sighting.
Week 22 [9.10.05]
Day Total:
$7.50
Sales Visited:
52
►
SNES+NES Bundle
Paid:
$5
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$2
Cliffhanger (Sega CD)
Paid:
$0.25
Godzilla puzzle (©1978)
Paid:
$0.25
[09-10-2005] Tons of sales all over! We hit 52 today, even having to pass up some unadvertised/signed sales on passing side streets. We had a long list to go through, and nearly doubled what we had with unadvertised sales. Today was the second highest day, with 60 yardsales being our most visited in a day. There were apparently more Sega CD games other than Cliffhanger that we missed. The lady said her son had brought them over and she had already sold a few. The one we bought was the last game there. Never owned any Sega CD games or the system, so it was a cool find. Vol. 44 of Nintendo Power is one of our favorite issues. For evilmax, it was the Mega Man Enemies Robot Design Contest, where readers' designs were published over 4 pages. Mine was the Mario Paint Special booklet that was included, showing how to make Mario, Link, Samus, and other characters and pictures. I used that thing to death back then. The issue also had NES + SNES controller and Game Boy applique stickers, trading cards (I don't think they continued with them), and a paper model Star Fox (which I had put together long ago). The first NES has a broken door which I might be able to fix with some super glue (the 2 broken pieces are still there). The second NES was sold to me under the pretense that it was "broken", and hardly worked. I'm guessing that a new 72-pin connector would do it fine, or perhaps a cleaning. The SNES seems to be in fine shape. Gonna toss the RF adapter with the tape, and the "Game Kleen" (too junky). Might get rid of the SNES controller that's taped, dunno yet. All in all, a pretty good day. The boxed NES games really made the day worthwhile, but I think we were hoping to find more considering all the stops we made. But you never know what you are gonna find, no matter how many sales you hit. We're hoping to enjoy a few more big weeks before the weather starts to cool!
Week 21 [9.03.05]
Day Total:
$7
Sales Visited:
22
►
N64 Games
Paid:
$2
11 lb. box of Legos
Paid:
$5
[09-03-2005] Well, the yardsale season may very well be winding down. We visited only 22 yardsales this week. The N64 games were purchased yesterday at a small sale that had signs up near our neighborhood. The kid was probably 15-16 years old, and he was selling several N64 and PS2 games, an N64 system, and a couple of third-party controllers. Most of the games were crappy sports titles, so we picked up the good games. The girls hanging around him were saying how Pokemon Snap was so boring, and we could have it for a penny. The kid didn't seem too keen on that. We saw some PS1 games at another sale. They were asking $3 each. We offered $1 for MediEvil. The guy looks at the game and says "Wait a minute! This isn't even mine." Then turns to his wife, "This is my brother's, I can't sell this." And he brings it back into the house. We should've asked the wife, she would've had no idea. Ah well. The guy selling the Legos had an interesting approach. The box said, "Fill a small bag for $1" (standard brown lunch bags). I asked how much he'd take for the whole box. He said, "Well, there's about $15-20 worth of Legos in here." I said thanks and then thought about giving him another offer. I almost didn't offer anything because after he said $15-20, I figured he wouldn't go too low. But evilmax reminded me of one of the yardsale rules: always make an offer. So I offered him $5 and he said "Sure!" without hesitation. I was surprised, but of course very happy! Then he added, "Just so you know, they've already been picked over a bit." I told him that was not a problem at all. Then he said, "And I got a special bonus for you!" He went back into the garage and grabbed 3 bases. So that was cool! We weighed them when we got home and they came to 11 lbs., which is the largest lot of Legos I've purchased this summer! Hope you all had some luck this week!
Week 20 [8.27.05]
Day Total:
$7
Sales Visited:
33
►
3DO Bundle
Paid:
$5
Lego 8226 (sealed)
1 Bag assorted Legos
Paid:
$2
[08-27-2005] Today was our 20th week out! We hit 33 sales today, which brought our total-number-of-sales-hit-this-season to over 500 sales! The 3DO stuff was at a house on the side of a highway (RT 1). I saw the system and controller on top of a box, and quickly put my hands on it so that nobody else would take it. I found the lady who was running it, and asked how much she wanted. "For everything?" she asked. I thought this was weird, because what would i do, just buy the controller or something? So I said "yeah", and she said "Hrm. $5 for both?" ...."Both, what? There's 2 systems?" "Yup!" she happily answered, and upon inspection, there was. The box still has a $400 pricetag from Babbages on it, and is in fairly decent shape (I had to refold/shape the bottom, but it looks okay). I found Madden by powering them up and opening the trays. They both powered on ok, I'll probably test them tonight (I'd never seen a 3DO before in real life before today.) One system and controller are pretty dirty but all of the other stuff is pretty good. Saw an After Burner arcade cabinet today. It had an 8-by-11 sign on it that said "50 cents a play, 3 for a dollar" on it. I asked if they were selling it but they weren't. What kind of dicks put out an arcade cabinet for their yardsale, with no intentions to sell it, and then charge you to use it!? Dicks! Saw a knee-high huge novelty Lego mini-fig at that same sale. They marked it as $4, but from the looks of the pay-for-play arcade cabinet, I doubt they would've been talked down, so we passed. 20 weeks! 500 sales! It's been a hell of a season, and we still have a few weeks left. Good luck everyone!
Week 19 [8.20.05]
Day Total:
$10
Sales Visited:
28
►
Genesis Bundle
Paid:
$3
►
Broken Xbox Bundle
Paid:
$3
►
Terry Goodkind Books
Paid:
$3
►
Portable Games
Paid:
$1
[08-20-2005] That sale that I posted yesterday ended up being run by this white trash family with a pink house. The videogames consisted of a Namco TV-plug-n-play game for $7, Killswitch XB disc only for $6, and a dirty N64 for $15. This started the day with a pretty sour note, and after last week I was almost certain that today would be another crappy day. Not the best of mornings. Got the 3 portable games at a church sale. Got the Gen lot from a really apathetic jock-looking 20-something year old guy. His mom had to call him over to the table when I waved for somebody, and he slowly walked over. "How much are you asking for this?" I asked. "Meh. I dunno, heh, just take it." I looked at him, "What really?" "Heh I don't really care man. Like...a buck for the systems...25 cents a game." I offered him $3 for everything and he took it without question. We saw the VB eyepiece and 2 NES games after we bought the Gen stuff, and asked if we could have those too. "Sure man, just take em." Wish most sales were like this. Moiety is currently reading the Book 2 of The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and had been looking for the rest of his books all summer. Today was the first day we saw anyone with Goodkind books for sale. The guy had the whole series, but since she already had the first two, she picked up the remainder of the series. He also had Robert Jordon's Wheel of Time series, several other fantasy novels, and tons of Star Wars novels. She was thrilled to see all the sci-fi/fantasy books: a change of pace from the usual romance novels and Michael Crichton books we always see. Saw the Xbox at one of the last sales we went to. The lady working it immediately said that "it was my son's, but it doesn't work anymore. Well, it still plays DVDs, but the games don't work." She wanted $5, but took $3 without hesitation. I looked and it has a Thompson, and from the 2 Duke's I would assume it's a launch box. I already have an Xbox, so I can have some fun with this one. I'm thinking of modding it (aesthetically), or at least just replacing the drive. I wanted some dukes in my collection, so that's nice too. Most of the games are covered in rental stickers, and everything we bought (minus the books) is absolutely filthy. It'll take some work but I'll get everything looking nice. So yeah, what started out as a gloomy day with low potential ended up being a pretty good!
Week 18 [8.13.05]
Day Total:
-$3.75
Sales Visited:
26
Lego Bionicle 8592
Paid:
$0.25
Gameboy Color
Disney Magical Racing Tour
Paid:
$1
Five Dollar Bill
Paid:
FREE
[08-13-2005] Crappy day today. 26 sales, and we barely saw any game-related stuff at all. 2 different houses had almost the exact same game-offering, which was 7 old PS2 sports games apiece. Found $5 on the street, that was pretty cool. There was one yardsale that was really memorable though. I walked up to it and was casually looking everything over, when I saw a Doraemon (popular japanese cartoon) board game, with all Japanese writing on it. "Wow, don't see that every yard sale" I thought. Then, right above it, I saw a bunch of Japanese CDs. "Whoa!" Then a bunch of other Japanese stuff! I looked up to see that the sale holders were, in fact, Japanese. Everything they were selling was Japanese, from children's story books to toys to even Lego-type-blocks with kanji on them. It was all stuff we were into, and they were really nice, but they didn't have anything specific that we wanted to buy. Still really cool to see though, probably won't see anything like that ever again. But yeah, we barely saw anything. Too bad.
Week 17 [8.06.05]
Day Total:
$7
Sales Visited:
37
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$5
►
Misc. Items
Paid:
$2
[08-06-2005] Everything we bought was from our first 2 newspaper-advertised sales. The first sale had the NES stuff. They were asking $5, I offered $3, they wouldn't budge, but I bought anyway. The only games that I already had out of the bunch were SMB, SMB3, and Tetris...and I wanted to get Battletoads and TMNT into the collection. Plus "Pinball Quest" was a game that Moiety used to play as a kid all the time with her neighbor, so she was excited to finally own it. $5 wasn't a horrible price for what I got by any means, but I still would've liked it a bit cheaper. Ah well. Speaking of that, the 2 controllers that came with it had orange Dpads and Yellow buttons. Everything else about the controller is completely official, and the buttons look/feel like real NES buttons except for the color. Does anybody know what the story about them is? They look familiar for some reason, but I can't consciously ever remember seeing them. The second sale where we got everything else was awesome, which was run by a young easy-going couple. The PC games were next to a box that said "Free", and upon asking if they were free too, they said "Sure, why not? This is the free yardsale, we're trying to just get rid of anything. See anything else you like, just take it." I laughed, but then she said "Seriously!" So we found the DS/Halo stuff, and then asked if they had any old videogame stuff that they wanted to get rid of. The guy brought out the sealed GTA and the 2 ps1 games, and I asked "How much are you asking?" His response: "Eh, just take 'em." So we were looking around at the other stuff, and Moiety spotted the anime and manga. They wanted a buck for the video and a quarter for the book, but we just gave them 2 bucks because they were so nice about everything. They said "Tell your friends!" as we walked to the car with our arms full. Saw a blue Gamegear and 6 common games marked $30. I didn't even make an offer to the douche teenage kid running it. He also had a bunch of common GB games, but lord knows what he was asking for those. This week was pretty fun in terms of driving around. We were in the countryside/suburbs for most of it, and it was nice to stay out of the city. Nice to see a lot of "new faces" in this thread! I hope you all have good luck in your future yard saling ventures, and make sure to let us know about your finds!
Week 16 [7.30.05]
Day Total:
$3
Sales Visited:
37
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$2
►
NES Games
Paid:
$1
[07-30-2005] The N64 bundle smells a bit like smoke, but after a nice cleaning today the smell should go away. We employed the new tactic of asking sellers if that they have videogames they are looking to sell (can't hurt!). One kid (about 15 y.o.) had about 6 genesis games in their cases, but missing manuals. He said he had more inside, so we said that we'd like to see anything and everything that he was willing to sell. He brought out a bin of about 15 cart-only, mostly common Genesis games, but they were in rough shape: rental stickers and just worn-looking. Then he mentioned how he had more cases upstairs (dunno why he didn't just get them all in the first place!). He wanted $2 apiece, and we offered $5 for everything, although we didn't even want to offer $5 due to the poor shape. He said that it was too low (we weren't surprised), and we passed. At the last sale of the day, the son (roughly our age) overheard us asking about videogames. He brought out 6 NES games, 1 of which was a bootleg. As we were looking over the games, he went on to talk about "the new NES system!" (the mall bootleg) as if it was an official Nintendo product. We thought at first he was talking about the DS, and when we asked, he gave us a confused look and then went on to better describe it. Evilmax and I had a good chuckle about that after. But back to the games, he wanted $2-3 apiece, and we passed. Overall, it was a pretty 'meh' day. The sales themselves were uneventful, as they were mostly in center-of-town, lower class neighborhoods rather than the suburban neighborhoods which tend to have better finds.
Week 15 [7.23.05]
Day Total:
$8.50
Sales Visited:
32
►
NES & Sega Bundle
Paid:
$7
Phoenix (2600)
Paid:
$1
Pikachu & Marill plushie
Paid:
$0.50
[07-23-2005] We visited 32 yardsales today. 2 of the 3 purchases were from unadvertised sales. I had my first purchase stolen from under my nose. One lady had a Harry Potter Lego set on a table, and a woman was standing right in front of it with two other items. I couldn't tell if she was planning to buy it or not, so I waited for her to move so I could pick it up. She didn't move, and finally she asked the lady how much the Lego was. My mind screamed "No!" and I watched as she purchased it along with some other Harry Potter merchandise (which I was uninterested in). Not a big deal, but knowing that you just missed something you wanted to buy certainly is a letdown. We're already looking forward to next week!
Week 14 [7.16.05]
Day Total:
$3
Sales Visited:
60
Lego 6969
Paid:
$1
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$1
Karaoke Revolution (PS2)
Paid:
$1
[07-16-2005] We hit 60 yardsales today, mostly because there were a lot of neighborhood sales. Saw a playstation with 6 games (nothing stellar) for $10. Good deal, but I didn't need it. Saw a NES with ~6 games, all of which had USED Gamestop stickers on them, 2 controllers (one of which in a Gamestop used bag), and a gun. "I know a place where I can get this cleaned, and I know it's worth 50 bucks, but I could let it go for $25". Yeah good luck sister. Saw an N64 with 6 complete games (Mario 64 and Mario Kart among them) at 12 noon. They wanted $10 per game, $25 for the system, and $50 for the lot. "We're selling these for $10 because you can buy them for $20 in the stores." Uhuh, sure. Which is why you still have this stuff, visible from a mile away, at 12 o'clock. The NES we bought was hidden in a box under a table, with a little piece of paper that had "Play Station, $2.00" written in cursive on it. I found that funny. A nice old lady took a dollar for the box. Saw a whole lot of crap today, but I can't complain too much, because at least there were sales to go to. After being burned by a few cities in the past, and being burned again by them today, we've officially made up our minds to avoid them in the future. Every week our technique becomes more refined, and by the end of the Summer I think we'll have our method down pat. I saw a big Mr. T figure today but didn't buy it, but it would've been funny to report it on the same day as a Pee Wee Herman.
Week 13 [7.09.05]
Day Total:
$0
Sales Visited:
5
No purchases
[07-09-2005] Bah. It was lightly raining all morning, and most of the sales we had on our list were canceled. We ended up finding 5 sales, and they all blew. First week that we've gone out and come back with nothing. If last week sucked, and this week sucked, then NEXT week better be friggin gold!
Week 12 [7.02.05]
Day Total:
$2
Sales Visited:
6
►
SNES Bundle
Paid:
$2
[07-02-2005] We drove around 6 different towns and only found 6 yard sales. The lack of advertised sales should've offered a hint, but we didn't know that it would be THAT desolate (we kind of forgot/underestimated the 4th of July weekend). The SNES was at this farmhouse located at the end of a dirt road. This old man with an old smoker's voice had some dirty stuff on his truck. I saw a NES with controllers and no hookups, but passed on it. I asked if he had any other game stuff, and he brought me inside to show me an N64 hooked up to an old small TV, and about 9 games. He wanted $25 for the system, games, and TV, but I passed. He also brought me around back to his shed where he found the SNES. He offered $2, I offered $1, he laughed, and I gave him the $2. Upon leaving, he told us that "everything in the barn is free", so we took a look around. The whole place was dirty as hell, but we found 2 porn magazines from 1975, so we took them. Flipped through them a little in the car, but found a bunch of mouse turds and decided to throw it out at the nearest gas station. Still, not every day you find old porn. 6 sales was kind of a letdown, but it's understandable with the holiday weekend. I'm wondering there'll be a YS overflow next weekend. Ah well.
Week 11 [6.25.05]
Day Total:
$29.75
Sales Visited:
22
Dreamcast Retail Kiosk
Paid:
$20
►
Intellivision Bundle
Paid:
$7
1 Bucket Assorted Legos
Paid:
$2
Pokemon Yellow (GB)
Dreamcast Codes Book
Paid:
$0.50
Charizard plushie
Paid:
$0.25
Power-Joy Famiclone
(w/ 2nd contr.)
Paid:
FREE
[06-25-2005] Today was our best day, no question. We found something today that you would never even Dream of finding. But, its almost 100 degrees here, so we're taking a swim. After we're done we'll take pictures and post. Do not miss this update! Tell your friends! ...Coming in a couple hours... What a day! All the good stuff we got today was from unadvertised sales (not listed in the paper, but found through signs on the street). The DC Retail Kiosk was next to a slot machine, a pool table, a drum set, and stereo speakers. She was asking $25, but she took $20 (very nice woman, she said "$25" in more of a question than a firm answer). She told me that she got it from her job at a Daycare (lucky kids!). This was at about 8:30, and it wouldn't fit in the car we had, so we would be back at noon. When we went back with my mom's convertable it was just as we left it, but she told us that she had MANY people asking about it! The Intellivision stuff was all in a box, and this nice old couple was asking $10. I offered $5, and they took $7. They also told us that somebody had offered them $20 for it, but they didn't have the money on them and they'd be back. I'd imagine it being a bitter pill when they got back there, but you should ALWAYS have enough money to pay for the stuff when you get there. I'm sure other people offered the Dreamcast lady more money for it, but since I had already paid, there was nothing she could do (unless she wanted to be a sleaze about it). So there it is! If you haven't been going out yet, this should be a reason for why you should be trying.
Week 10 [6.18.05]
Day Total:
$9.50
Sales Visited:
28
Game Boy Original
Paid:
$1
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$2
Game Boy Box (Mint)
Paid:
$0.50
Lego 8857 Expert Builder Set (© 1979)
Paid:
$1
►
Lego Sets and Pokemon Cards
Paid:
$5
[06-18-2005] Bunch of neat stories today. We mapped out 10 key Yardsales ("Toys", "Games", "Multi-Family") and hit those, then drove around looking for signs for the rest of the day. Saw volumes 1-5 of the Dinosaurs TV show (some of them still sealed), but they were asking $2 a tape. No way Jose. They also had a Captain Planet tape. I find the typical $1-for-VHS-tape-standard a tad offensive, but $2 a tape is just lunacy. When we bought the NES lot, I got in the car with the crate in my lap. Just as I shut the door, a guy not much older than me and (presumably) his girlfriend got out of their car, saw the NES stuff in my lap, smiled and pointed at it and went "Awwwwwwwww!". We were all kind of laughing about it. It's funny to see your competition in person, and to beat them out on a find by a few seconds is exhilirating. There were no negative feelings from them it seemed, and it was almost as if we connected in the few seconds that we saw each other. We were both out for the same thing, and almost felt a sense of camaraderie. The lady who we got the GB Box from also had a mint boxed NES, with a boxed Mario 2 (box was a little torn). She also had a mint boxed Game Gear, with mint boxed power adapter and mint boxed screen magnifyer. She wanted $20 for the NES + Mario, and $15 for the GG stuff. Far too pricey for me, although it was neat to see all that stuff mint and boxed. She was typical of the "YardSale Bitches" that we've seen, who charge ebay prices for their stuff. Short hair, slightly old, acted snobby. She was all "where's the gameboy, where's the gameboy" when I asked if we could buy the box, and I thought she was going to accuse us of stealing it but she didn't. I offered 50 cents for the box early, and then she was looking at it and said "alright, you can have it" *pause*......and I thought she was going to be nice and let us have the box for free, but she wanted my 50 cent offer. Saw a St. Bernard dog today. Those things are like horses! Saw a dirty old Game Boy with Teris+MarioLand for $10. Har har har. If it was mint I could semi-understand, but the stuff was dirty and tossed in a bin. Not a bad day for our 10th outing. We bought stuff at 5/28 sales, which is a surprisingly good average for us. Good luck all!
Week 9 [6.11.05]
Day Total:
$5.50
Sales Visited:
23
►
Game Gear Games
Paid:
$2
2 N64 Promo VHS tapes
Paid:
$1
Genesis model 2
1 controller
Paid:
$2
Pokemon Yellow Book
"How to Yo-Yo" VHS
Paid:
$0.50
[06-11-2005] Went back to the place where we saw a dirty 32X and dirty Genesis again, and found 6 dirty N64 games, and a dirty Gameboy case with 4 games in it. I offered $5, to which she answered $20. I then looked at the stuff I had, and said "Well, maybe if they were a little cleaner...How about $10?" She shook her head no, and said that she would do $15. Fuck you bitch. If you think I'm gonna pay $20 for 6 dirt-encrusted N64 games and a crusty Gameboy case, you got another thing coming. This is TWICE that she has rebuffed a fair offer from me. That bitch really chapps my ass. Saw an old woman selling her grandson's SNES (1 controller, RF hookups), and a complete Super Metroid (box in rough shape) for $20. She wouldn't seperate the package, and she would only go as low as $18. Yeah, suck my balls. She also rudely declined my offer of 25 cents for a Fat Albert VHS marked 75 cents. This was the same yardsale that was charging $2 for assorted VHS tapes (half of which were taped off of TV). I hate people sometimes. Ah well. Kind of a quiet week for yardsales for some reason. Not that many listed in the paper, and not many around. Most of the stuff we found was at sales that weren't advertised in the paper.
Week 8 [6.04.05]
Day Total:
$45
Sales Visited:
40
►
Game Boy Games, Lego, Pokemon
Paid:
$42
►
Game Boy Bundle
Paid:
$3
►
Misc. Items
Paid:
FREE
[06-04-2005] Went to 40 sales today, bought most of our stuff at one place. The top-most entry was purchased at roughly 10AM from a yardsale that was more like a store. I would have to guess that this lady was once an eBay seller, because she had tons of new Lego sets and tons of toys, all at pretty high prices ($20 for an open Lego set). I don't think she knew the value of the GB stuff (she was originally asking $10 appiece for the GBA games, and $15 each for the Zelda games, no price on the guide). She also had a sealed M+L Superstar Saga marked $15, and while I don't own it, I just left it (we were already buying enough as it is). The breakdown is pretty much $35 for all the game stuff, $5 for the Legos, and $2 for all of the Pokemon. Passed up a lot of stuff today. Some lady was selling an N64 + ~15 games, $15 for the system and $2 each for the games. I offered her $2 for Pokemon Stadium and Pokemon Puzzle league, but she wouldn't budge because "those are the prices that my son wants". This was at 11:45, and this particular sale was ending at noon. So that bitch doesn't get our money! Also saw 4 NES games marked at $1 each, talked her down to $2 for all 4 but decided against it (TMNT with an unremovable tag on the sticker, Operation Wolf, and the 2 R.O.B. games). Earlier in the day I saw a complete Resident Evil: Directors Cut GH for $1, but it's not anything I needed (already have RE for PC and GCN, so I'd never play it). Kinda wish I bought the NES games + Pokemon Puzzle League now, but eh, there's always next week. Tempted to eBay the Zelda stuff, but my collector side won't let me. The only GBA Castlevania that I was missing was HOD, so I'm opening and keeping that. I thought "what the hell" on Lunar, so I'll open that up. The Zeldas are staying sealed for eternity. I'll probably end up throwing away most of the free stuff (can't play em anyway). Not a bad day. It feels weird to see so many games and pass them up, but you just have to keep telling yourself that they weren't at prices you were willing to pay. Ah well, I can't complain after the Zelda haul. Good luck fellow bargain hunters!
Week 7 [5.28.05]
Day Total:
$3
Sales Visited:
23
Street Fighter II
Special Champion Edition
Paid:
$1
"Hungry For You"
Pac-Man plushie
Paid:
$0.25
►
Misc. Items
Paid:
$0.75
2 N64 Promo VHS tapes
Paid:
$1
[05-28-2005] I got the SFII at the first yardsale we went to. She also had a Model 1 Genesis, a 32X, 1 Gen controller, 1 racing 32X game, 3 other crap Gen games of varying completeness, and a cart only Fatal Fury (Gen). She also had a Model1 PSX with Crash Nitro Kart, and 1 controller. Everything was dirty and strewn about in a box, it didn't look like all the cables were there. She wanted $20 for the box, $10 with all of the PSX stuff taken out. I would've paid $5, but she wouldn't budge, and I wasn't going to pay $10 for a dirty Gen + 32X and a few incomplete crap games. She barely gave me SFII for a buck. Saw someone trying to sell 3 PS1 games for $10 each (Smackdown was one of them, sports titles for the other 2). Not many sales today because of Memorial Day (and we've had a lot of rain all week, and I think people were expecting this weekend to be a washout, although it ended up being beautiful out). I'm actually surprised that we got what we did.
Week 6 [5.21.05]
Day Total:
$10
Sales Visited:
43
Tony Hawk 4 (GBA)
Paid:
$0.50
►
NES Games
Paid:
$8
Lego #375 (1966)
1 bag Lego bricks
Paid:
$1.50
[05-21-2005] I took sleeves from my other NES games to further complete the boxed NES games without sleeves. I also had a cart-only Zelda already, so now that has a nice box to be displayed in! That NES score made today the best outing yet (IMHO). Some not-so-exciting stories coming in a further post. Good luck hunters!
Week 5 [5.14.05]
Day Total:
$5.50
Sales Visited:
39
2 bins of MegaBloks
Gengar plushie
Paid:
$3.50
TMNT Trilogy VHS
Paid:
$1
Star Wars Trilogy VHS
Paid:
$1
[05-14-2005] *Upon getting home, we found out that the bins were 95% Tyco Mega Blox. We got burned. So today was a weird day. We went to 39 yardsales, and bought things at 3 of them. We found ALOT more that we would buy, but were way too overpriced (and the sellers weren't willing to budge much). Place 1: Had a bunch of PS2 games ranging from $8 - $20. Nothing stellar. Bunch of crappy PS1 games for $4 - $10 a piece. Among them was a Non-GH Metal Gear Solid, with no manual, and 'meh' disks. He wanted $6. A bunch of PC games, one of which being Simpsons Cartoon Studio, marked $4. I offered him a buck for Simpsons, to which he said "Well, all the prices marked are what I could get from this flea market I go to. I know they're a little high for a yardsales, but that's the prices I'm asking." I HATE when people say stuff like this, or "They go for this much on ebay." So sell them on ebay! Place 2: Was a 2 family sale on 1 driveway. One side was middle-aged women, and the other side was a middleage woman and her bulldog, barrelchested, visibily stubborn husband. The first side had 10 or so PS2 games, marked 8 each. The side with the bulldog-man had a dirty first-gen NES (gray gun), with ~10 games all in plastic cases. They were asking $15 for the console, and $3 for the "tapes". I was taken aback when she told me these (IMHO) rediculous prices. When I offered her $10 for the system and games, the husband gave a sarcastic laugh and an "No. No way." Now, we've seen many different types of people on our rounds this summer. There's the one type, mentioned above, who thinks they can get higher prices on ebay, but are inexplicably trying to get the same prices at a yardsale. These people, however, are just dumb. I'm pretty sure that this guy thought to himself "I paid $100 for this, and $50 each for these games. I'm already getting ripped off enough offering them for $15 and $3." What he doesn't realize is that things depreciate in value, regardless of what you paid for them. Place 3: Had a few random ps1 and ps2 games. Ps2 games were marked $2-$4, but it all they had was Tony Hawk 3, Smuggler's Run, and something else. They also had 2 TMNT story books, and a Ghostbusters story book. I was almost going to buy them, but decided against it. Place 4: This lady had 3 medium size Ziplock bags with legos in them, but she was asking $5 a bag! Especially after we had already snagged the big bins for cheap (well, we thought they were legos at the time), there was no way we were paying those rediculous prices. She offered $12 to take them all, but please. $5 for a medium-sized Ziplock bag of legos? That won't sell, no way. We tried to buy this at noon by the way, and she was already on her second day. So yeah, kind of a frustrating day. We found a lot of good stuff, and a surprising amount of videogames, but they were all being sold by stubborn people with unrealistic prices. Feh. Hopefully next week I'll find that ever-elusive Neo Geo AES . The search, nay, the quest will continue next week. Good luck to all!
Week 4 [4.30.05]
Day Total:
$1
Sales Visited:
18
Super Scope 6 (SNES)
NES game case
Paid:
$0.50
Dinosaurs VHS
Paid:
$0.50
[04-30-2005] We were supposed to hit 18 yardsales, but at the end of the day the total was 16. We found 1 that wasn't advertised, and 3 of the advertised ones were cancelled. Given that we actually attended 16 yardsales, it was a fairly dissapointing day. We have some good stories though, but I'll let moiety post those. The yardsale that had the Super Scope 6 game also had a few crappy-but-complete Genesis games (Tom and Jerry was one I remember), marked at 4 bucks each. Some cart-only Gameboy games marked 2 apiece, a teal GBC marked 8, and Fantavision (PS2) marked 8. It was roughly 8:30AM, so it was too early in the day to really haggle them down from their already-high prices. SS6 was marked as 2 but he took what I offered. It was the first yardsale we went to today, and had I known that we wouldn'tve found much else, I probably would've lowballed him on some other stuff. Ah well, no big loss.
Week 3 [4.23.05]
Day Total:
$6
Sales Visited:
16
Lego System 5958
Lego Bionicle 8557
Paid:
$3
Gameboy Color
Snorlax plushie
Paid:
$1
Scotland Yard
Paid:
$1
The Apprentice Season One DVD (Sealed)
Paid:
$1
[04-23-2005] Really good day for us today. It was rainy and crappy, but everyone still had their yardsales.
Week 2 [4.16.05]
Day Total:
$0.50
Sales Visited:
8
Pac-Man board game
Paid:
$0.50
[04-16-2005] Very disappointing day today. We went to 8 yardsales today, but there wasn't much anywhere. Half of the yardsales consisted of a small table with less than a dozen items on it (and we got there at the very beginning). 2 yardsales were moving sales, and we had to actually go into the peoples' houses to look around. But yeah, we found one thing at this junky dump-esque yardsale. They also had a sealed Hyper-Blade for PC, but I already had it (and the $1 building-19 sticker was still on it.
Week 1 [4.09.05]
Day Total:
$9
Sales Visited:
4
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$5
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$2
Resident Evil (GCN)
Paid:
$2
[04-09-2005] Well, we decided that this year, we would start checking the yardsales around our neighborhood. We went out for the first time ever today, and checked out 4 yardsales. Here's what we found. So $9 total for the day, not too bad for our first outing. Post your own finds for the rest of the season!
