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2006 Year-End Summary
Total Spent:
Total Purchases Made:
Total Yardsales Visited:
Average Sales Visited Per Week:
Average Price Per Purchase:
Average Spent Per Week:
$421
150
948
26.33
$2.79
$11.69
Week 36 [11.11.06]
Day Total:
$20
Sales Visited:
1
►
Japanese Manga
Paid:
$20
[11.11.06] Only hit 1 sale today, but didn't find anything. I picked these up yesterday through Craigslist. They were left behind by a former tenant at an apartment building, and the super was selling them (along with other random books I wasn't interested in). Asking $30, took $20. The PS2 game and Go were unexpected surprises. Mostly action, but some other random stuff too. There are 89 books. The only one I couldn't translate was the one with the orange flying guys on the cover (near the center of the picture). There were 5 books for that series, and I just couldn't figure out the title. If anyone knows what it is, please let me know. What's cool too is almost all of the books still have their price tags (in Yen!). The books are really nice, a lot of them (including Gantz, Vagabond, MPD Psycho, etc) have dust jackets, which just give them a little some extra. I love the Vagabond covers - the writing is metallic and slightly raised. Anyway, definitely a neat random find. Can't wait to start reading them - there are some interesting series in there...
Week 35 [10.21.06]
Day Total:
$5
Sales Visited:
23
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$2
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$2
►
NES Power Pad Bundle
Paid:
$0.75
Blip: The Digital Game (1977)
Paid:
$0.25
[10.21.06] 23 sales today. Not too bad given how late it is in the season, but you can tell that everything is winding down. We've been getting pretty tired and are looking forward to a break from the early-Saturday grind. Of course, by the time January hits, we'd kill just to hit one sale. No real interesting stories. I saw the NES+games at around 10AM, next to a pile of Dreamcast stuff. The lady at the sale was talking to her kid (I presume), and he was telling her about how somebody just sold an old Atari for $700 . This put my hopes kind of low for getting any of the game stuff, but I offered $2 for everything CIF. I was kind of surprised when the lady instantly took it, saying "we had found it in the attic and said we would take anything for it". Shucks, should've offered a dollar. Moiety was happy to get a Powerpad, it's our first and only since we've started sailing. She used to have one as a kid, but it got thrown away years ago. We bought that stuff off of a family whose daughter was now in her mid-20s. Of course, all of the Nintendo stuff they used to have was hers. It just kind of struck me of how awesome it was that the NES was enjoyed by people of all ages and genders, and that many women fondly look back at their NES filled childhood. It makes me realize how different gaming is now than it was back then, and I yearn for those days. I think we're starting to see the heyday of the N64 at yardsales. We're getting one every week almost, and we see more than we end up buying. I guess that's about right though, it's 10 years after N64 was released, prime time to unload them at sales. I just think of what will happen 20 years from now, when we'll be seeing nothing but Wii/PS3/360 stuff at sales. Kind of depressing really.
Week 34 [10.14.06]
Day Total:
$3.75
Sales Visited:
33
►
Genesis Boxes
Paid:
FREE
►
Atari 2600 Bundle
Paid:
$1
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$1
►
NES Games + Pokemon
Paid:
$1.25
Lord of the Rings animated VHS
Paid:
$0.50
[10.14.06] 33 sales, and boy was it chilly this morning! Day of long driveways! By this I mean almost every sale we went to was at a house with one of those lonnnng driveways, and of course everything is concentrated up at the garage. At least we got some exercise! Saw our competition again this morning, the flea market vendor we bought the TG16 games off of. We definitely see him every week now. Nothing much for stories. Everything was reasonably priced, so bargaining was nearly effortless. Wonder if it's the time of year? The season is ending, and people are just looking to unload stuff quickly. Quote: Originally Posted by moiety on 8/5/06 Gave our number out to several people. One sale in particular, the woman said she had been trying to get her son to sell his videogames. And right there in the garage, packed up on a shelving unit and partially covered: boxed Game Boy, boxed Game Gear, boxed N64, several boxed games, and she said that they also had a bunch of Nintendo and Super Nintendo stuff. The whole corner was covered by a sheet so we only saw some of the stuff poking out. She took our number and gave us her son's number (apparently he's away for the weekend), but she said to go ahead and call him whenever we wanted. We left a message around noontime. We're expecting him to be asking eBay prices for what he has, so hopes are low. But at least it's a chance. I've been keeping an eye on the sales, and wouldn't you know, she held another sale. I hoped that all those games were still there, even just to see them again, but when we approached the garage, it had been CLEANED OUT. That whole corner - once full of boxed everything - was bare. The shelving unit was still there, but it had other stuff on it. It was so weird (and disappointing) to see. Her son of course never called us, and he probably came and took them all to wherever he lives. On top of the shelf was the Genesis box, which we just took down and could tell right away it was void of a system. We asked her if we could have it, and she found it odd that we just wanted the box, but said sure. An average day. Only a few more weeks left for us... Good luck all!
Week 33 [10.07.06]
Day Total:
$4.50
Sales Visited:
11
Y's III: Wanderers From Y's
Paid:
$1
►
NES Games
Paid:
$1.50
►
Commodore 64 Bundle
Paid:
$2
Sony Dualshock
PS1 arcade stick
Paid:
FREE
[10.07.06] 11 combined sales this weekend. Moiety was in VT this weekend, and she picked up the free controllers from a random sale she ran into. I decided to forego making directions, planning instead to just drive around randomly looking for signs. I found 10 sales this way, which wasn't too bad. It's getting chilly and the number of sales is starting to fall. I dunno how you solo-salers do it. I missed my teammate! The SNES game was cherry-picked from a pile of 10 or so games. I had to ask if they had anything, and the lady went inside and retrieved a shoebox. The other stuff was pretty common, mostly Disney and Looney Toons games. I tried to CIF a buck for Y's and Zelda LTTP, but she responded with a buck each. I didn't fight too much and just took Y's. The NES games were cherry-picked from a NES lot, which they were asking $25 on. I took a bunch of manuals for games that we already had too, and they didn't seem to mind at all. I left behind a bunch of games we already had (plus the system), and a few N64 games that we had already. They also had a Zelda OOT guide, but the pages were all coming out, so I didn't bother. I accidentally left the TMNT manual behind, which I later went back for (had to buy the game as well to get it). $1 initial purchase and an extra 50 cents for TMNT with manual. I almost skipped on the Commodore. Originally asking $10, I didn't even bother making a counter offer. As I walked to the car the seller yelled "What's the matter? Was that too much?" So I walked back over and inspected everything, then offered $2. He kept trying to get $5, but I stood firm. After about 5 minutes of back and forth, he took it. Didn't have one of these before, so it's nice to add it to the collection. I hope we get at least one more decent weekend before the season ends. I'm going to be really sad to see winter again. The first few weekends without yardsales are nice, because you get to sleep in. But then after awhile you start getting that twitch, and then by Februrary it becomes unbearable. Sigh. It was a really nice year. Seemed to go by way too quickly though.
Week 32 [09.30.06]
Day Total:
$22.75
Sales Visited:
49
~60 lbs of assorted Legos
Paid:
$12
~54 lbs of assorted Legos
Paid:
$5
►
N64 + GB Bundle
Paid:
$3
►
Dreamcast Bundle
Paid:
$1
Ms. Pac-Man
B&tB: Belle's Quest
Paid:
$0.25
3 Family Dog VHS tapes
Paid:
$1
2 silk paintings
Paid:
$0.50
[09.30.06] Well, one of my dreams came true: twice in a row. Always hoped to run across a ton of Legos at a sale. Of course, my other dream is to come across boxes upon boxes of old school games. 1 out of 2 ain't bad! Let me start out by saying that today was the day of reasonably priced items. Pretty much everything we picked up today had low asking prices to begin with, and it seemed people were just looking to get rid of their stuff. First Lego score was at an advertised sale. Each of the big bins was marked $10, and the smaller one had no price on it. Not bad. I offered $10 for all, she countered with $15, then we came back with $12. I was psyched. I haven't really bought any Legos all season (as I have so much already and haven't seen much), but I just couldn't pass up such a huge score. Then the next sale was an unadvertised one. We come up to the house and are just laughing inside. More Legos!! At this house, they had a big candy scoop with a sign that said "50 cents per scoop". Again, not unreasonable. But I wanted them all! We offered $5, and after a slight hesitation, they took it. They said "We just want to get rid of them." They were super friendly and the father even commented, "You just got a deal of the century there!" We did the math after weighing everything. 115 lbs of Legos for $17 comes to roughly 14 cents per pound. Considering buying Lego lots on eBay usually comes to about $2-3/lb, this is an insanely great deal. And now that my dream of a huge score of Legos has come true, I can close the book on buying any more Legos (for a long time at the least...) The N64 stuff came from an annual town sale. We actually made 3 different purchases there from different people's tables. We left behind quite a few things. For example, 2 PS1's that were marked $2 each. We weren't really interested, plus assumed they were broken, so left them for someone else to find. Also left a few more N64 games behind from the kid we bought those from. There were also some PSX games floating around. Tried to buy a small Blastoise plush for a quarter, but was informed that "No, that's a dollar." I tossed it down and said "Oh, that's way too much," and walked off. C'mon it's a plush toy! Funny sighting: we come upon a house with various religious knickknacks and figures. Then right next to a statue of a robed guy praying, there's this glittery notebook with a big Playboy bunny on the front. Hrmm, k. Not much on the video game front, but a great day nonetheless. It was a beautiful fall day, sunny with just a slight chill in the air. Great for saling. Hope you all had luck!!
Week 31 [09.23.06]+[09.24.06]
Day Total:
$13.00
Sales Visited:
20
Nintendo Gamecube 3rd party controller
Paid:
$1
Nintendo 64
N64 Hot Newz VHS
Paid:
$1
►
Genesis Games
Paid:
$2
►
PSX Games
Paid:
$7
►
NES Games
Paid:
$2
[09.23.06] 20 sales today, pouring rain all the while. But we had a surprisingly good day! We had a horrible start. Apparently my alarm clock is broken, so we didn't get out of bed until 8am (we were planning on leaving the house at 7:40). When we went to print the directions, my printer ran out of ink. So we had to change the font color to brown, and then the printer jammed. So then we finally head out, and it starts pouring out 5 minutes after we get in the car. We figure that we're so late that we're going to miss anything good, and that the rain will cancel everything else out anyway. The only thing we apparantly missed today was an N64 with a few games. The lady who sold us the Gamecube told us that it was broken. "I took it to Gamestop, and they said that in order to get a new spinny thing I had to send it back to the company. I ended up just buying my kids a new one." Knowing that it was virtually impossible to break a GCN, I told her that I would take a chance on it for a buck. She took it without hesitation. Upon getting it in the car, I noticed that the Reset button was completely stuck down. We figured that when she turned it on, it probably seemed broken, but it was probably just constantly resetting. It took the entire rest of the yardsaling day to finally unstick the button (it was as if it was cemented down). When we got home and hooked it up, it worked as good as new. We tried a bunch of different games and everything loaded up flawlessly. So we ended up getting a working GCN for a buck! We got the PS1 games from the same house that we got Vagrant Story / Silent Hill 1 from earlier in the year, from the same bitchy lady. I offered her $2 for the games that I eventually bought, and she said "...each?", the same thing she said when I bought the other games from her earlier in the year. She eventually said $7 for all, and wouldn't take anything less. I offered $6, saying that these games were wet (as it was pouring out), but she gave me a look and said "I'm not arguing!". Ended up begrudgingly paying the $7, but I can't complain for what we got. This is the second rare PS1 game bundle that I got from the same woman, I picture her having a whole stack at home, and taking a handful of games from it for each yardsale. Not a bad day considering the rough start and the rain! [09.24.06] Stopped by a local sale this morning on a main road. They were tagged $1 each, CIF $2 for all. The woman took the offer with no hesitation. Nice little extra pick-up for the weekend.
Week 30 [09.16.06]
Day Total:
$4.00
Sales Visited:
62
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$3
TMNT Pizza Power Game
Paid:
$0.25
Psyduck plush
Paid:
$0.25
Die-cast Millenium Falcon
Die-cast Star Destroyer
Paid:
$0.25
N64 power adapter
Paid:
$0.25
Reporting in Saturday's finds. 62 sales and nothing but crap at most of them. No real stories on what we got. Offered $2 on the NES, they wanted $10. Able to get it for $3. It's dirty and smells like smoke, and they claimed their daughter "used it all through college and just graduated". Whatever. Had to pass on a NES with 10 common games, asking $25. We later came across a Sports Dreamcast with some crappy games, asking $25. Didn't bother to counter-offer, even though we don't have the black Dreamcast yet. At yet another sale, we saw a Game Boy Color, asking $30 - everything was overpriced there so we didn't bother. Then around mid-morning, we missed two scores in a row, which naturally bummed us out. We follow a specific route through certain towns, always the same order. When we've changed that route, we've gotten burned. You just don't know where things are going to be, so even though we were disappointed, we still realized that there was no way we could have known, and that it was just the luck of the game. Funnily enough, last week we missed an "old Nintendo" and, as mentioned in last week's report, we just hoped that it was some mom or grandmother buying for her kids. Well come to find that my coworker - who just recently got into saling - was the one who bought it (for her young sons). She paid $20 for an N64 w/ 10 cart-only games. It was hilarious when she exclaimed that she had picked up an N64 (she knows about our purpose for saling, and happens to live in my town), and I asked her if it was at that particular sale. But it just goes to show that when you miss a deal, chances are that it's just a person buying it for their kids, and probably less likely that it's some flea market vendor. It just made us feel better about missing out. Random fact: We average about 100 miles per week yardsaling (i.e. each Saturday).
Week 29 [09.09.06]
Day Total:
$13.25
Sales Visited:
45
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$5
Star Wars Laserdisc
Mortal Kombat Trilogy
Paid:
$5.50
Broken PS2
Final Fantasy Tactics guide
Paid:
$2
Sonic 2
Paid:
FREE
BTTF DeLorean
Paid:
$0.75
Today was pretty decent. Beautiful weather and the sales weren't too bad. Hit 45 of them. We picked up the Star Wars laserdisc thinking it was worth more than it is. We were interested in the laserdisc player that was with it, but not for the $25 asking price. We hope to pick one up for around $5 some day, just for the niche appeal. Still, it's neat to have. Tried to buy a dirt-encrusted 6-button Genesis pad for a quarter, but was rebuffed. Talked the N64 guy down from $25. We had to ask if he had any game stuff, and he went in and got that. The broken PS2 seems to have a faulty drive. It boots just fine, but won't load any games. Anybody know if this is easy to fix? I seem to remember people talking about just needing to tighten a screw or something. We always know we've reached the end of the day when people start telling us "we already sold some of that this morning". This is usually around 11am. So for all the stuff we got, there were still tons more out in the wild. It just goes to show that there ARE things out there to find, and you just have to get out and find them first. We try to stay optimistic and pretend that some old grandma bought the things we missed for her grandkids, instead of the much more probable flea market dealer. There's still some time left in this yardsale season. I expect things to go pretty decently through October, depending on how cold it gets.
Week 28 [09.02.06]
Day Total:
$0.25
Sales Visited:
4
Ms. Pac-Man board game
Paid:
$0.25
Only hit 4 sales today. With the long weekend, plus kids going back to school, not many people were holding any sales. At least we weren't empty-handed. Left our number with the people we bought the board game from. They have a son that has "a ton of old games".
Week 27 [08.26.06]
Day Total:
$2.50
Sales Visited:
46
►
N64 Games
Paid:
$2
Aura Interactor (Complete)
Paid:
$0.50
[08-26-06] God damn, what a horrible day. Hit 46 sales today. First of all, NOBODY had videogame stuff. We either find stuff, or at least get "oh we already sold that today", but today we just got a bunch of straight "no"s. This made for a very painful and frustrating day. We almost ended the day with just the Interactor (a crappy 3rd party SNES/GEN peripheral), but managed to find the N64 games at noon. Second of all, we missed a Phillips CD-I. This was at one of the few (maybe the only) sales that told us that they had already sold their game stuff. "Dad, did we already sell that Phillips game player?" We were pretty disappointed, because it's one of the few game consoles that we don't have. The only saving grace is the sale was pretty expensive (they were charging $50 for a Ronco Rotisserie that retails for $80 in store), so we can only hope that it went for a pretty penny. First mention of the CD-I in our yard saling career though. Third of all, everybody was in super-wigged-out mode today. Everybody was giving us weird responses, walking in front of moving cars, just generally off their game. I've never seen so many confused old ladies in one day. Anybody that wasn't supremely confused today was in super-douche-bag mode. At our last sale, one of the customer ladies goes "Oh, are you interested in the original Sega? Oh we have tons and tons of games. Yeah tons! ...but they're in Maine. You know where you should try? Gamezone. It's a store right around the corner." Thanks for the advice lady. Ugh. Crummiest day we've had in a long while. Even if we don't find really good stuff, it's usually a fun experience at least. Not today though, not today.
Week 26 [08.19.06]
Day Total:
$8.25
Sales Visited:
45
►
SNES Bundle
Paid:
$2
►
SNES Games
Paid:
$5
Banjo Tooie (N64)
Paid:
$0.50
►
NES Games
Paid:
TRADE
Super Mario Bros. 3 VHS
Paid:
$0.25
Riven (PC, complete)
Paid:
$0.25
Shonen Jump (Sept 2005)
Paid:
$0.25
[08-17-06] My coworker brought a few more games in. Finally have Little Nemo, another personal fave of both mine and evilmax. [08-19-06] 45 sales today, and we got a lot of SNES love. The SNES and games were the first find of the day, at a sale we went to earlier this year (didn't realize until we arrived). We asked last time and they said they didn't have anything, but this time there was a SNES and a bag of games in plain view. We figured it's multifamily and there was a different friend or relative selling at that house. CIF'd $2. At another sale, the SNES games were in a shoebox marked $2 each (almost missed them too!). We CIF'd $5 for the box, and the woman hesitated. Then one of her friends said, "Aw come on your not gonna sell them..." so she gave in. Sweet! Riven is a personal fave of mine, but I stupidly threw out the box back in the day, so I've been keeping my eye out for it. I saw a couple last year that were overpriced and passed. Came across it later in the day in a box of PC games marked $1 each, all complete. They happily took my quarter though! Ironically, a couple sales later we saw another complete Riven, marked $3 down from $5. I was tempted to pick up a 2nd copy, again trying for a quarter, but I let it go. After having to leave behind an overpriced Banjo Tooie last week, it came around again. Funny how that happens. When we inquired at one sale about video games, this woman kept going on and on about how she just sold a NES and 4 games for "only $10!" It was like she was trying to rub it in that we missed it. Moreover, she was definitely on some kind of drug - she was talking weird and kept talking and just made us really uncomfortable. Passed on a dirty NES and 3 games (already had them anyway). Tried to CIF $1 (this is after the woman dropped the bag of games, broke a piece of pottery she was selling, and dropped one of the carts), but she just exclaimed, "Noooo". So that was that. Random cuteness of the day: a couple was giving away kittens at their sale. There were 2 of them curled up in a shoebox. We were tempted to stop and play with them a bit, but we were on a tight schedule. Still, it was a cute sight to see. Hope everyone had some luck today!
Week 25 [08.12.06]
Day Total:
$26
Sales Visited:
20
►
TG16 Bundle
Paid:
$7
►
NES Games
Paid:
$5
►
Sega Master System Bundle
Paid:
$3
►
3DO + 32X Bundle
Paid:
$8
►
NES + SNES Games
Paid:
$3
►
NES Games
Paid:
TRADE
[08-09-06] I was talking to one of my coworkers on Monday, and we got onto the topic of yardsaling and eventually videogames. He has two kids just finishing up high school, and he was saying how he has tons of NES, SNES, GEN, and other misc. games just sitting in the attic, and coincidentally he was just starting to eBay random ones (for example, he eBay'd Breath of Fire + manual and was shocked it went for about $25). Luckily we have it complete, else I would've been super-bummed. But anyway, he went on to say how he collects sports cards, and both evilmax and I just so happen to have old cards from the late 80's/early 90's, so it all ended up that we have this sort of ongoing trade happening. I kept it very open-ended, as I understand he wants to eBay some stuff, and just said "Anything you want to get rid of, bring it in." He's a wicked nice guy and is glad to give some of this stuff a new home. Nothing rare or anything, but out of the 8 games he gave me, we only had Hogan's Alley and Wheel of Fortune, so it was good to expand the catalog a bit. Plus Darkwing Duck was a personal "hope-to-find" game for me. He brought it all in to the office in a 32X box (didn't know where the system was), so that was a nice plus, especially after finding one this weekend. He has more stuff that I guess will be trickling in as we trade with each other. I have no clue what he'll be bringing in as the days go on. I'll keep you guys updated as more transactions occur! [08-12-06] Hit 20 sales, made 5 purchases. It seemed like every other sale we went to had videogames. Tons of stories today. A few weeks ago we were hypothesizing that we had some new competition in one of our favorite towns, and today we met him. ...and today, he sold us the Turbo-Grafx stuff. So we pull up to this sale, and while walking up the drive way we spot a guy pulling the TG16 games out of a large box. Let me tell you that there's no worse feeling than being at a yard sale, watching somebody else rummage through a box full of gold. He was looking through a big box that was filled with NES stuff, NES carts, and the TG16 stuff that we later got. He was probably in his late 30's, wearing sunglasses and sporting a goatee. We instantly and correctly pegged him as a flea market dealer. At first the people holding the sale were asking $10 for the entire box (UGH!), but after checking with their son, it was upped to $15. While that whole exchange was going on, I asked the guy if he was planning on buying it all. He said "I'm not sure, but I'll let you know in a few minutes." So he ends up buying the whole box for $15, and I say "Thanks anyway, have a good day." So then he says "Well hold on, if you want the Turbo stuff for $10 you can have it, as it's useless to me. I'm only interested in the Nintendo stuff." We have a little back-and-forth about flea markets and what not, and we eventually settle on $7 for all the Turbo stuff. We were absolutely SHOCKED that he didn't want the Turbo stuff, especially since he was out to make money. Still, it was nice of him to sell them to us 5 seconds after buying them. Never had anything close to that happening before. But yeah, now we know who our competition in that town is... No real story on the Master System. I completely missed it on the first pass, but it was pointed out after I asked. CIF'd $2, settled on $3. Everything in surprisingly good shape. Got the 32X/3DO stuff from a sale advertising "anime, manga, and videogames". Everything was actually pretty fairly priced too. For everything we got, he was originally asking $20, and we talked him down to $8. Youngish kid, used to be the manager of a Gamestop, pretty nice. We left behind a Gamegear marked $2, a SNES marked $4, and some videogame soundtracks marked a buck each. The reason we left stuff behind? We ran out of money. The sale that we got the $3 NES game bundle was being held by a guy who was polishing his handgun. Talk about an effective haggling deterent! We asked about games and his son brought us inside. He had TOTES UPON TOTES of games, NES SNES GEN Atari, tons and tons of games. I pick out the NES, SNES, and GEN totes and offer him $10 (all I had left at this point) for them. He declines, and also says that he can't sell all of them because some belong to his sister. So I pick out everything that I eventually buy, plus Bubble Bobble and Yo Noid! He takes out the last two (his sister's), and takes my $3 offer for the rest. As the weeks go on, we seem to cherrypick more and more. The first sale we went to today advertised videogames, and when we got there we found a stack of PS2 games marked $10 each, and a bunch of N64 games marked $5 each. We decided to come back later in the day and try for 50 cents a pop. Luckily the sale was a few streets away from where I live, so we just stopped back there again before heading home. She had already gotten a good look at me earlier this morning, so I waited on the corner, out of sight, while moiety drove up and offered. Of course, she flatly refused, telling her that "These retail for $50!" And surprsingly enough, most of the games were gone when she went back. I guess that stuff sells even at Gamestop prices. I always wanted to do the "wait at the corner", it was kind of funny. We called it a day at 11, about 1.5 hours earlier than usual. The yardsale game is a strange one, our last few weeks have been pretty barren, and then an explosion of stuff today. It just goes to show that you can't take one weekend and assume that every weekend will be like it. It's always a completely different experience, and you just have to stick to it even during the dry weeks.
Week 24 [08.05.06]+[08.06.06]
Day Total:
$5.25
Sales Visited:
31
►
32X Bundle
Paid:
$1
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$2
NES Zapper
Paid:
$0.25
Medievil II (PSX)
Paid:
$1
California Speed
Madden 2000
Paid:
$1
[08-05-06] Hit 31 sales. Found most of the stuff near the end of the day. Gave our number out to several people. One sale in particular, the woman said she had been trying to get her son to sell his videogames. And right there in the garage, packed up on a shelving unit and partially covered: boxed Game Boy, boxed Game Gear, boxed N64, several boxed games, and she said that they also had a bunch of Nintendo and Super Nintendo stuff. The whole corner was covered by a sheet so we only saw some of the stuff poking out. She took our number and gave us her son's number (apparently he's away for the weekend), but she said to go ahead and call him whenever we wanted. We left a message around noontime. We're expecting him to be asking eBay prices for what he has, so hopes are low. But at least it's a chance. Finally have a 32X. Sad that there were no cables, but hey, we knocked another system off our want list. We heard a guy from a flea market pitching to this woman to sell him anything she had left from her sale (which funnily, she had an overpriced Gen w/ 11 games, and an N64 with about 8 games). We of course passed, as we already had most of the games. Lately it's seemed like we've been slowing down with our purchases, and we've come to find out why. We have ~15 Gen's, ~10 NES's, and multiples of other systems/handhelds. It has come to the point that we are much pickier about buying things. We'll still pick up bundles if they are for a great price (as illustrated by the $2 N64 bundle from today), but otherwise, we've shifted our focus on filling the holes in our game collection. We seem to be passing on more and more things now. Still in a summer lull around these parts. Seems like Spring and Fall are when most people have their sales. We missed a few things today, but now that we ask at every sale (unlike last year), we are probably missing things at the same frequency. Hope everyone had some luck today!
Week 23 [07.29.06]+[7.30.06]
Day Total:
$5.25
Sales Visited:
27
Majora's Mask/Banjo-Tooie Promo VHS
Paid:
$0.25
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$5
[07-29-06] For such a beautiful day, hardly anyone was holding sales. We only hit 25 over the entire morning. Missed some Sega stuff at one sale. At another sale the guy had "a Game Gear and a ton of games". We gave him our number, as he was going to look for them right away. We were surprised when he called back 10 minutes later, stating he had the Game Gear and 4 games, but weren't surprised with the "I've seen these go for $70-80 on eBay, so I was looking to get $50" line. We politely said we'd think about it, but have no intent to ever call back. Quiet, uneventful day. We figure people are finishing up their vacations, as August will be more Back-To-School oriented. Odd though, as last year we never had such a dry spell with sales (in terms of number of sales going on). Hope others had better luck today! [07-30-06] Unexpected craigslist pickup. Mainly got it for Goldeneye, as we've yet to acquire it. $20 IAP, offered $5. Quick and easy transaction.
Week 22 [07.22.06]
Day Total:
$10
Sales Visited:
1
►
Turbo Grafx Bundle
Paid:
$10
[07-22-06] No yard sales for us today, rained out. We got this stuff from a CL posting. They were mainly advertising their AppleIIe computer, and threw in that they had some Turbo stuff at the end. We talked them down from $40 to $10. It was kind of weird picking it up. So we had already agreed on everything that we eventually bought for $10, but when we arrived at the young couple's appartment, we were told that "Well, something happened before you got here..." We were both very confused. "Well you see, somebody called after you did, and they wanted to buy some of the Turbo stuff for a lot more than you were going to pay for it. But they said they already the system, and only wanted some games. But we were going to run it by you first. He's actually on his way over right now." So we look at the games that the other guy wanted to buy, and of course it's all the good stuff. But we put our foot down, and said that the deal was already made and we already drove for 30 minutes to pick this stuff up. After a few shard glances, they reluctantly gave us everything. They then tryed to pull the same scenario with the Ody100, but we spoke up again. I feel for them, I really do, but once you make a deal you can't back out on it. They didn't have to take our offer if they didn't want to, and they could've waited until tomorrow until some better offers rolled in. But we thought it was pretty unprofessional to change the original deal after we got there. First time that's happened for us, although we don't CL too often.
Week 21 [07.15.06]
Day Total:
$8.75
Sales Visited:
38
►
Odyssey Bundle
Paid:
$2
►
PS1 Games
Paid:
$1.25
►
Broken PS2 + Games
Paid:
$4
Star Tropics
Paid:
$0.50
23 wrestling figures
Paid:
$1
[07-15-06] 38 sales today. We were surprised at the lack of unadvertised sales, as it was a perfect day to have a sale. Picked up the Odyssey at an unadvertised sale. Missed the sign and had to turn around, almost didn't. Just as the Turbo score taught us, hit any sale you may come across. It seems we tend to find gold at sales that don't advertise in the paper, at least for the past several weeks. Anyway, the guy was really friendly and readily took our $2 offer with no hesitation. He said he had more stuff in the attic (couldn't remember what), and he'd call us when he dug it out. We don't get our hopes up for the callbacks, but we wondered if the fact that we actually made a purchase from him (and he seemed like a really easy-going guy), that we might actually get a call. Evilmax stopped at a school sale yesterday and picked up the SNES/N64 carts and the PS2. Took a gamble with the PS2, and we were sorely disappointed. It booted to the browser - that's it. Games wouldn't load. Even the controller ports are busted. The PS1 imports were a surprise. We inquired about video games, and a younger guy brought out 2 game cases filled with games. At least half of them were imports. He told us that he bought them while he was visiting Japan. We bought the two that we were most interested in (and didn't expect he'd take our $1 CIF offer either!) We left behind the import versions of Brave Fencer Musashi and Metal Gear Solid, among others. Today was a big day for leaving our number with people. As always, we keep our hopes down for receiving a call. Not much else to report today. Hope everyone had a great day!
Week 20 [07.08.06]
Day Total:
$7.00
Sales Visited:
41
►
Sega Master System Bundle
Paid:
$3
►
Sega GameGear Bundle
Paid:
$2
ToeJam & Earl
ToeJam & Earl: PoF
Paid:
$2
[07-08-06] Congratulations to all new comers! I hope your adventures were fun, and I hope you join us for the rest of the season! 41 sales today, pretty nice weather too. There weren't many advertised OR unadvertised sales, but we figured everyone would still be in vacation mode. At one sale run by an older woman, there was this incredibly bratty 10-year old who had just convinced his mom to buy this framed picture of a wooden chair and flowers (not sure why he wanted it, it was random as all hell). We heard the mom say, "Now if I buy you this, you'll be good for the rest of the day, right?" Interesting exchange. So Moiety then asks the woman running the sale if she has videogames (we specifically mention Nintendo, Sega, and Atari just to jog their memories and give them a better idea of what we're looking for, i.e. not current stuff). She says she has a ton of stuff in the attic, but can't remember exactly what, and they are too packed in to retrieve right away. She offered to take our number and call us (which is never fruitful for us anyway). The brat interrupts our exchange, asking, "Do you have the old Nintendo carts, about this big (motions with his hands the size of the NES carts), from 1985?" The sale-runner shrugs kind of confusedly, and tries to turn her attention back to us. The kid proceeds to throw a tantrum and whine at his mom: "Mooom, if we give her our number, she'll call us! Can we give her our number? I want those gamessssssssssssss!" Meanwhile Moiety writes up our information and hands it to the woman, and the mother gives in and goes to her car for a pen and paper. You'd think she'd take this opportunity to teach her kid about the universal principle of "first dibs", but she folded like an accordian. Never thought we'd be undercut by a little kid! Not many other stories. We're finding that towards the end of the day, we're getting a lot more "Oh...we sold them earlier today" than we used to. We keep wondering if it's from random people randomly buying video games, or if some flea market vendor is making the rounds or something. Here's hoping for the former.
Week 19 [07.01.06]
Day Total:
$15.75
Sales Visited:
39
►
Turbo Express Bundle
Paid:
$7
Zelda: Ocarina of Time guide
1.5 lbs of Legos
Paid:
$0.50
Pokemon Crystal
Paid:
$1.00
►
GameCube Games
Paid:
$4.00
Super Smash Bros.
Mario Tennis
Paid:
$2.00
Animaniacs (SNES, cart only)
Paid:
$0.50
Street Fighter II board game
Paid:
$0.50
Sega Sports seat cushion
Paid:
$0.50
Pac-Man glass (Arby's, 1980)
Paid:
$0.50
[07-01-06] Beautiful day, and we hit a decent amount of sales considering it's a holiday weekend. We rounded out the day with 39 sales. Every now and then, we'll spot a sign for an "unadvertised" sale, and end up driving several miles off our route only to arrive at a crappy sale not worth the ride. Today was the exception, and reinforced the notion that it's always worth it to check. The sale was taking place in the house, and upon entering the basement, we spotted a TG game. Then to our horror, we looked down to see a middle-aged woman kneeling, holding the Turbo Express and several games. As we were mentally cursing ourselves for being mere seconds too late, she looked up at us and smiled, "Oh, do you play these games? I'm looking for Turbo ... something games." Evilmax looked at the one he was holding and said, "Well this is one, but I was kinda planning on buying it." Then she asked, "Oh, well, do you want to buy these, too? I think these would be better suited with you." We stared blankly a moment, then asked, "Are you sure?" Without hesitation, she handed us what she was holding and said, "Definitely, go ahead," and left. Afterwards, we raided the shelves of the SegaCD and Genesis games. The woman running the sale countered our $5 offer with $10, to which we settled on $7. Unfortunately, there was no SegaCD system in sight. At another unadvertised sale, a young kid was selling a whole boxful of GameCube games for 2 bucks each, and guides for a dollar or free with the game. We were amazed by his awesome prices relative to other yardsales. The woman selling the N64 games had several more, each bagged individually with their manuals and marked $3 each. The system was marked $15. I didn't think we would be buying anything from her, and was sure Super Smash would evade us again. We were somewhat surprised when she accepted our $2 offer, considering how she priced her games. But we were psyched to finally get Smash! At a later sale, a woman had a card table with a bunch of Game Boy games on it. Upon closer inspection, there were 6 Pokemon Crystals, 3-4 each of Pokemon Blue, Red, Yellow, and Gold, and a couple other misc. games. Asking $5 each. It was funny not only because she had multiple copies of the same game, we had just picked up Crystal earlier COMPLETE for a buck. I still get amazed at how people price their games.
Week 18 [06.24.06]
Day Total:
$0
Sales Visited:
2
Week 17 [06.17.06]
Day Total:
$1.25
Sales Visited:
69
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
FREE
Final Fantasy VIII
(PS1, incomplete)
Paid:
$0.50
Clue (GEN, complete)
Paid:
$0.25
Cruisin' Exotica (N64)
Paid:
$0.25
Star Wars X-Wing (PC)
Star Wars X-Wing guide
Paid:
$0.25
[06-17-06] Today was humbling. 68 sales total today. We think it's a new personal record for us, but we haven't dug through the archives yet to check. It was a beautiful day, so there were tons of unadvertised sales. FFVIII and Clue were our only finds until noon. I forgot that FFVIII had 4 disks, probably wouldn't have bought it if I had remembered pre-purchase. Whenever moiety and I go saling, we usually go to the same towns in the same order. This week we decided to switch it up, because some of our usually later towns looked a lot better than our typical early towns. So we went to all of our same towns but in a different order, thinking we'd get a lot more bang for our buck. We made a mistake. The towns that we went to first that looked great turned out to be really crappy. By the time we got to our normally early towns, we got a bunch of "Oh we just sold that stuff, and for really cheap too!" It was pretty crushing to hear that house after house, especially since if we had stuck to our usual gameplan we would've gotten them. We were pretty down all day, swearing to ourselves that we had learned our lesson and that we wouldn't deviate from the usual plan again. "The bargain gods are teaching us a lesson!", and that they surely did, but they were nice enough to throw us a bone so we wouldn't be too discouraged. We got the free N64 lot at noon after asking at a sale with young kids. First they brought out some crappy PSX games which we declined, and then the neighbor brought over a crate of N64 stuff. After we were looking at it for a few seconds, she says "You know what? You can just take that. Nobody ever plays it anymore." It was just the thing we needed to pick up our spirits. Most of the cart-only games were in plastic VHS boxes, and all of the N64 controllers have busted analog sticks, so we'll probably toss them. Getting this stuff after the crappy day we had felt like getting a half-court shot at the buzzer. We got the Crusin cart at 4PM on the way to the supermarket. That's a crazy late sale! We passed on a NES with 5 extremely common games. Offered $2 on it and were rebuffed, so we walked. We also found a Genesis 2 with Sonic 2 asking $5, offered $2 and was countered with $3. We passed. Hope everyone else had a good day!
Week 16 [06.10.06]
Day Total:
$17.50
Sales Visited:
54
►
Genesis and Comics
Paid:
FREE
►
N64 Games
Paid:
$10
Zelda: Ocarina of Time Collector's Edition (N64)
Hogan's Alley (NES)
Paid:
$1
Madden NFL '97 (SNES)
NHL '94 (SNES)
Paid:
$0.50
Super Star Wars (SNES)
Urban Champion (NES)
Paid:
$0.50
Bassmasters 2000 (N64, sealed)
Care Bears plate (1983)
Paid:
$1.25
Mario Teaches Typing 2
Paid:
$0.25
►
Game Gear Bundle #1
Paid:
$2
►
Game Gear Bundle #2
Paid:
$2
[06-07-06] Stumbled over one of those "first come, first serve" Craigslist posts earlier today. I drove through some pretty bad rain (terrible visibility) for the chance to nab the Genesis first. Fortunately, I made it in time. He had a ton of comics, neatly stacked and organized. Only ones that sparked my interest were Street Fighter and Venom. Funnily, he had a PS2 and N64 with some games on the floor near the Genesis. I jokingly asked if he was interested in 'getting rid' of those, but of course he said "no". Always worth a shot, right? [06-10-06] More rain this week. Still managed to hit 16 sales, some rollover from last week's cancelled sales, others we found along the way. We're heading out again tomorrow, as there are a bunch rescheduled and also some just being held on Sunday. Nothing really exciting today. At 4 sales, people asked for our number, as they had video games but either did not live there or weren't sure if they wanted to sell them yet. We don't usually have good luck with leaving our number, but it's a chance. [06-11-06] Beautiful day. We ended up hitting about 37 sales - lots of unadvertised ones too which was fun. First sale we hit was around 730am. He had advertised N64 and Playstation games. He wanted 5 bucks each for the N64 games. We didn't even ask about the PSX games - all he had was an enormous stack of burned games. We picked 5 games and CIF'd $5 for 5. He took forever to decide. We kept changing the deal slightly, but in the end he wouldn't let them go for less than $2-3 each. We said we'd come back later in the day. Did the rest of our saling, came back to his house (fortunately a few streets away from home), and saw that he had not sold one game. This time, the wife was there, and when we restated our $1-per-game offer, he started to think about it again. His wife said, "What are you gonna do with all those?" Then she turns to us and says "Take them all!" She was very insistent about it! We checked how many games there were (17) and offered $10 for all. She said "Sure!" So, we ended up getting an even better deal than we were originally offering! The Game Gear finds gave us a few chuckles. We've only seen them ridiculously expensive, and only own one from back in the day. Then we end up finding and buying 2 in one day! The first one we found, they were asking $10, we countered with $2, and the woman said "Ok!" without hesitation. The second one was at a neighborhood sale. The wife had marked it $15, we countered with $1, the husband came back with $2. As we were leaving, he jokingly said, "You better get outta here. I don't know if she wanted to sell it that cheap!" That's definitely part of our strategy at any sale. Buy and "run". Finally, Ocarina of Time was found at an unadvertised sale. Evilmax almost forgot to ask if they had video games, but realized that the one time he didn't ask, there would be something. Sure enough, they had Ocarina and the NES game left (they had gotten rid of their games a long time ago). This just underscores the tip to always inquire about games at every sale. One woman was charging $5 a cart for NES, N64, and Game Gear games (nothing spectacular, tossed haphazardly on a blanket, cart only). Tried to CIF $1 for Dig Dug 2 (NES) and Mario Party 3 (N64), but the lowest she would go was $5 for both. We told her that was way too much, and she flipped out, saying, "I ain't gonna go from $5 each to a dollah! I might as well donate them to the church!" We said, "Ok, we'll put them back," and she comes back with, "Then put them back! A dollar, I don't think so!" She was sort of saying this to other salers, like WE were crazy. Ah well. Everyone got some great finds this weekend!! I was so excited to see all the posts, and great deals to boot! Summer is just around the corner - prime time for saling! Keep it up, guys!
Week 15 [06.03.06]
Day Total:
$15
Sales Visited:
6
►
Intellivision Bundle
Paid:
$5
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$10
[06-03-06] Complete washout for us today. We hit 4 sales, one of which was a church sale that started at 9am. We got there at 8:45, and they made us wait outside in the rain until 9 on the button. Real nice. LATER... Unexpected purchases! We got the Intellivision at a sale down the street (running from 1-3pm, yeesh). The wife was exclaiming how she's never even seen it, and he hasn't touched it since 198x, and has been packed up in a box. Offered $3, he countered with $10. Tried to reason with him that it might not work, and we have to actually get it set up to a TV. "It works." So we tried $3 again, he came back with $5. We used the "how about we meet in the middle" line for $4. He wouldn't take less than $5. So we accepted. We didn't have this model yet, so it was worth the buy. The NES stuff was from a woman who we exchanged numbers with. It was the first time we actually got called back. They belonged to her son, who wanted 50 bucks. We were able to talk him down to $10. They said there were 21 games, when we got them we counted 22, and when we opened the NES there was another game, for a total of 23. Even though the games are pretty common, we surprisingly didn't have most of them.
Week 14 [05.27.06]+[05.29.06]
Day Total:
$55.75
Sales Visited:
35
►
Neo Geo MVS
Paid:
$50
►
SNES Games
Paid:
$5
Clue board game (1963, complete)
Paid:
$0.50
Dreamcast controller
Paid:
$0.25
Turbo Cooker Instructional video
Paid:
FREE
Witch Hunter Robin collector's set box
Paid:
FREE
[05-27-06] The weathermen totally messed up this weekend. They called for showers all day, but we ended up with a hot, sunny day - perfect for yardsaling! Because of that, we didn't run across a lot of last minute sales, but we still hit 32! The first and best find of the day was the SNES games. The sale was located right on a main road (incidentally a sale we visited last year), the games were in a small storage bin (visible from the street), and Super Mario RPG was right on the top! When we asked how much, she said "I don't know, whatever you think is fair." We offered $5, and she took it, saying cheerfully, "I think you got a really good deal!" Earlier, we came across an Atari 2600 with several games, asking $40. The older gent running the sale was adament about Atari's selling for $200. He didn't want to believe us when we told him he was wrong. Today was funny, because we heard every one of our pet peeve responses when inquiring about video games. Most people say "No, sorry", and we're on our way. Here are some of those responses: - "We already sold them all...last year/years ago" - (Friend/Relative of seller) "Oh I have some! But I don't live around here." - "I've got a bunch of that stuff, but I'm not selling it." And for those overpriced games: - "Oh, these go for X on eBay." Relieved that Memorial Day weekend didn't damper the number of sales - we had a good day! Good luck guys, and enjoy the 3-day weekend! [05-29-06] Our first arcade cabinet! Got this from Craigslist (the ad is actually still up). Guy was asking $100, took $50. Apparently he had a friend who used to work in the arcade business, and this was a birthday present to his son about four years ago. This cabinet was originally a Track & Field cabinet, and later converted to a Neo-Geo cabinet. It's in pretty decent shape, but we have plans of repainting it in the semi-near future (before the summer ends probably). We're thinking original Neo red for the whole cab. This makes up for the $50 Final Fight cabinet that we just missed out on a few weeks ago. Nice to own some Neo hardware and software. The carts are huge!
Week 13 [05.20.06]+[05.21.06]
Day Total:
$12.25
Sales Visited:
25
►
TI-99 Bundle
Paid:
$5
2 bins of Legos
Lego #4882 (Box only)
Paid:
$4
Legend of Zelda VHS
Paid:
$0.25
►
Game Boy & Legos
Paid:
$3
[05-20-2006] It's really nice to see so many people going out and hitting so many sales! We only hit 15 today. Moiety had her graduate school graduation today, but we still went saling from 8-10 this morning. A little later when we were all dressed up (and she was in her gown), we passed a yard sale that we hadn't gone to that morning, and we almost stopped for it. Unfortunately time was of the essence, and we couldn't be late to the ceremony. Still, I like the thought of Moiety perusing a yardsale wearing her regalia. No real stories today. We bought the TI-99 mainly for the box, it was marked $20 but they took $5 CIF. The Bill Cosby endorsements totally justify the purchase. There was an Xbox at the sale where we bought the Legos, and the woman running it was asking $75 for it. I asked if she could go lower, and she said "make me an offer". I tried for $5, but wasn't surprised when she turned me down. I don't blame her, but I had to try. We're gonna head out tomorrow to try and even out the weekend. Hope everyone had a fun time saling, and I hope you'll continue on throughout the season! [05-21-2006] Hit 8 more sales and 2 flea markets. I was much happier about the VHS purchase when I thought it was an original tape from the 80s, but upon further inspection this tape was made in 2003. I never knew they did a re-release of this series before the DVD set came out. But eh, still nice to have, and i won't miss the quarter too much. Some flea market guy was selling Guardian Heroes and Shining Force III, both for Saturn, at $40 and $50 respectively. He wouldn't go lower on either, stating "these both get that price on ebay." I asked him "so why don't you sell them on ebay then?", to which he replied "I'm too busy." Too busy not-selling anything at a flea market all day? Hah.
Week 12 [05.13.06]
Day Total:
$1.00
Sales Visited:
1
►
N64 & NES Games
Paid:
$1
[05-13-2006] It's been downpouring all day. We're talking "build an ark" rain. We went to 1 sale today. There was this annual town sale that was supposed to be big, and they were holding it rain-or-shine. They had a bunch of tarps set up overhead, but it wasn't enough to keep everything dry. Everything was soaked by the time we left. Tons of old boardgames turned into soggy cardboard, tons of random electronics rendered useless. It's really a shame. We got the only videogames in the entire place. Moiety offered 75 cents, the guy shot back with $3, and they went back and forth until $1 was agreed on. 1 sale, 1 purchase, 1 dollar. I hope this means that next week will be ridiculously busy.
Week 11 [05.06.06]
Day Total:
$50.75
Sales Visited:
57
►
PSX Bundle
Paid:
$25
4 lbs of Legos
Paid:
$2
►
Star Wars Bundle
Paid:
$6
►
NES Bundle
Paid:
$3
►
PS1 Games
Paid:
$5
►
SNES + DC Games
Paid:
$1
Superbook "The First Christmas" VHS
Paid:
$0.25
Rainbow Brite "Peril in the Pits" VHS
Paid:
$0.25
SMB Super Show "Mario Meets Koopzilla" VHS
Paid:
$0.25
Vagrant Story (PS1)
Silent Hill (PS1)
Paid:
$6
Lego 4099
Lego 4507
Paid:
$1
2.5-lb bag of Legos
Paid:
$1
[05.04.06] - PSX/Games Scored this off of Craigslist tonight. All the games are complete and in very good condition. Originally asking $30, took $25. We met up with a friendly college-aged guy at his apartment, and he handed us the Playstation and games. Then he said "as an added bonus", he'd give us the Dual Shock II and memory cards. When we asked him if he was still into gaming, he said not really, but he still had his original Game Boy (that was broken), and pointed to it on his shelf. We asked if he wanted to get rid of it, and after a slight hesitation, he gave it to us. Very similar to our SNES games find last week. More than we'd usually pay, but considering we got roughly $200 worth of stuff for $25, we're not complaining. [05.06.06] Awesome whirlwind of a day. We hit 55 sales, and the weather was absolutely beautiful! Scored FFVII, VIII etc. at the very first sale we went to. She had several *meh* PS1 games and a PSX all reasonably priced, but we were only interested in those few games. Missed a plastic tote of Legos, but the buyer paid $40 (more than I would have). The other PS1 games were found a few sales later, asking $8, took $6. So for FFVII, we now have 2 complete Non-GH, 1 complete GH, and 1 Non-GH with two Disc 2's. The Star Wars stuff was an interesting find. Everything except the case was tossed in a big box of G.I. Joes. The guy selling was asking $3 for the collector's case and $2 for the AT-AT. He didn't really seem to know the value of anything, and neither did we, but we figured it had to be worth something. He said $10 for everything and took $6. After a bit of eBay research, it's looking like we can make at least $300 off of everything, which isn't bad for a $6 investment! //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. //Originally Posted by evilmax17 on 10/22/2005 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! Wouldn't you know we inadvertantly went back to that sale for a 3rd time (next to another advertised sale). The DC games were in a tin marked FREE, so we snagged those. And then - there it was. The SNES with the boxed Super Metroid and the same old cardboard sign: the $20 crossed out, the $15 crossed out, and now marked $10. I had to hold in my laughter. This time, the boy who owned the game was actually at the sale. We said that we already had the system, and offered $1 for the game. He had no problem in accepting our offer. So, after 3 visits to that sale, we FINALLY got the Super Metroid. Near the end of the day, we inquired about videogames at a house which was part of a neighborhood sale. The guy pointed to a box off to the side with the NES and games. He was looking for $10. Funnily enough, Evilmax didn't think he had that much. He checked his wallet, and saw he only had $3. He asked the guy if he'd do $3, and showed him his wallet. It was true: we only had $3 left!! He gave us the "I don't wanna bring it back inside" line and accepted our offer. We were shocked when we saw the Zelda map, because we had gotten 2 almost complete Zeldas at past sales. Now, we finally have a complete Zelda! Our finds were evenly spaced throughout the day, which is why our heads were almost spinning when we got home. We are going back to 2 sales tomorrow: they each said they had some old videogames in their basement that they would pull out. Here's hoping they actually do. Worth a shot! Glad to see others had some luck today too!
Week 10 [04.29.06]+[4.30.06]
Day Total:
$26.00
Sales Visited:
57
►
Sega Genesis Bundle
Paid:
$2
1.5 lbs of Legos
Paid:
$1
►
SNES Bundle
Paid:
$5
Scotland Yard game
Paid:
FREE
DBZ: The Saiyin Conflict VHS boxset
Paid:
$3
Breath of Fire Box + Manual
Paid:
FREE
4 Sly Cooper 3 promotional figures
Paid:
FREE
Lego Designer Set 4100
Paid:
$1
►
SNES Games
Paid:
$18
[04-30-2006] Got these from Craigslist. All four are already spoken for, sorry guys! [04-29-2006] We hit 56 sales today. It's on. The last two finds listed were pre-aranged Craigslist finds. The SNES RPGs work out to $3, which isn't bad at all given their ebay value. It still gives me heartburn knowing that I paid $18 for 6 cart only games. But that's just me being me. I know that paying less than $18 for ~$100 worth of games is nice. But still, paying the $18 hurt a little. When we went to pick up the SNES games, the guy wasn't home. We almost didn't even get them, and we had to convince his old father that we were supposed to pick them up at the scheduled time. Random to get a free BOF box+manual from a completely different listing too. Nice to have a complete BOF. Other than those two CL pickups, all of our other finds were purchased before 9:30AM (we started at 7:30), and we didn't head home until 1. We saw other stuff after we made our purchases, but it was all overpriced. The SNES is in brand spankin' new condition. Very nice. We got it from a nice young couple after asking if they had any videogames. It turns out that the husband had just dug it out of the closet that day, and was debating on selling it. He decided not to put it out, but had no problem selling it to us when we asked. I was shocked when he took our $5 offer. We went to a huge town-sponsored sale in the town center, which is where we got the DBZ set and the lego set. It's funny, because we'll probably never watch the videos, but they make a really nice display piece. We hit a yardsale held by a bunch of catty moms. The signs they used to lead people to the sale were tiny pink arrows that you could barely see while driving. They had a Gen1 with Barney Hide & Seek, asking $10. I just nodded my head when she told me the price, and began to walk away when she yelled "I'll take $5!" I later offered $2 and was rebuffed. They also had an N64 for $20. Ridiculous. When I asked one of the women "What are you asking for the Nintendo", she looked confused and asked me what I was talking about. I pointed and said "Nintendo" again. She then yells to her friend "HEY! HOW MUCH ARE YOU ASKING FOR THE INTENDO!" It's like, you don't have to know videogame specifics, but where have you been for the last 20 years!? You've never heard of "Nintendo"?! It seems that every time I see a Gamegear, the person wants at least $20 for it. Such was the case today. We've seen at least 5 of them since we started YSing last year, and every single one has been overpriced. Ah well. Saw an old Tiger Electronic LCD football game marked 2 cents at a Church sale. We passed. Already looking forward to next week!
Week 9 [04.22.06]
Day Total:
$8.00
Sales Visited:
44
►
Sega Dreamcast Bundle
Paid:
$3
Alundra (PS1)
Jade Cocoon (PS1)
Paid:
$1
►
N64 Bundle
Paid:
$2
Full Throttle LE
Paid:
$1
TMNT: The Coming Out of Their Shells Tour
TMNT: The Turtles Awesome Easter
Paid:
$0.50
School House Rock CD Box Set (missing disc 3)
Paid:
$0.50
[04-22-2006] Wow! We had a really great day! Hit 44 sales, nearly half of them unadvertised. Signs abound! Our first 3 finds above were all found before 9am. The guy who had the TMNT tapes also had some old, dirty Legos, but was asking too much for what was there. Had to leave them behind. The Full Throttle find really made Evilmax's day! The Dreamcast pickup was a great experience. The guy selling them was totally cool. When we told him we were looking for videogames, he brought out the Dreamcast and games, and right away pointed out that the power adapter was missing and that the memory card batteries were dead. It was awesome that he was so honest. The N64 game was already out on a table so he said, "You know what, I'll throw this in for free." So we asked him how much he wanted for everything, expecting something like $20. He comes out with $5 - an awesome price! We asked if he could do $3, and without hesitation said "Sure, that's fine!" It was just a refreshing experience. He was honest, he wasn't trying to make a bunch of money, but just looking to get rid of something he no longer used, which resulted in a great deal for us! If only more people shared his mentality! Not much else to report. All in all we got a lot of neat stuff and hardly spent any money. It was such a good feeling to see signs all over the place. I'd say the season is in full swing up here! Hope everyone had a great day!
Week 8 [04.15.06]
Day Total:
$5.75
Sales Visited:
15
Duck Hunt (NES)
Paid:
$0.25
2-pound bag of Legos
Paid:
$0.50
Final Fantasy VII (PS1, Non-GH, missing disks 1,3)
Box of Topps Nintendo Game Packs cards (47/48 pks)
Paid:
$5
[04-15-2006] Hit 13 sales, 1 thrift store, and 1 flea today. At one of the earlier sales we went to, we found a huge box of videogame stuff. It had a boxed Genesis 1, boxed N64, a bunch of boxed gameboy accessories, and a light smattering of games. The following convorsation ensued: Me: How much are you asking for the entire box? Her: Oh I don't know, but it would probably be well over $100. Me: Heh, really? Her: Well, Gamestop will give me $12 each for most of those games. (she lies) Me: I work at Gamestop (I lie), and we don't even take these games in anymore (not a lie). Her: Oh I thought I knew you, you look familiar...(she says this snidely, and its funny because I don't really work at Gamestop.) So I continue to rummage through the box. While I'm doing this, a 9 year old girl takes a small bag of GB/GBC games, and asks the lady how much. "$25" she coldly replies. So the girl's father has the same startled reaction I did when I heard her price for the box, "Pfff, way to much." So the little girl picks out a Pokemon game, and the lady tells her that it's $3. The little girl asks if she could take $2 for it, and the bitch running the sale replies "Oh no, not for that game. $3." So the little girl looks sad, and pays the $3. Like really, the dollar means that much to this woman? She couldn't make a little kid's day and let her have a "bargain"? So by now, we've pretty much figured out that this broad running the sale is crazy, and we wouldn't be walking away with anything. But for fun, we take a complete Shaq-Fu for Genesis and a cart only OoT for N64, and offer a dollar for both. "Absolutely not" she says, as she grabs the games out of my hands. Ah well. Got the FF7 and Nintendo cards at the flea market. We found them both at the same booth, but apparently nobody could find its owner. Eventually some random guy who was working another booth told us that we could just buy them from him, and he would give the other guy the money. We offered $4, he went $6, we settled on $5. It's weird that FF7 has two copies of disk 2, and none of disk 1 or 3. The cards are a pretty neat addition to the collection. So we've been to this same flea market 3 times now, and it's pretty crappy overall. A bunch of people are never at their booths, and it's almost impossible to buy anything (if you actually find something). Every time we go there's always the same old stuff, nothing sells because most of it is overpriced. There's this one guy that's never EVER at his booth, and today he had a bunch of cart only N64 games. We pick out Jet Force Gemini and F-Zero (both filthy as sin), and go try to hunt the guy down. 5 minutes later we finally find him, and the following conversation ensues:<br> Me: Hey, would you take $1 for both? Him: $1 for both!? That's way too low. Me: Well, they're really dirty and I don't even know if they'd work. I'm going to have to spend 20 minutes cleaning these up before I even try them. Him: I've got some amonia at my booth, I can clean them in 2 seconds if you want. Me: So why aren't they already clean then? Have you tested them? Him: No, I haven't tested them. Me: Well, would you take $1 for both? Him: I have a policy not to sell any game for less than $3. Me: Well, it doesn't look like people are buying them. Him: I'd rather them sit there forever then sell them for 50 cents a piece. I'd rather just throw them away then sell them for 50 cents. So I put the games back and leave. It's just an interesting look at the mindset of your average flea market vendor. Every time we go to one of these places, we always overhear some random couple talking to eachother and saying "So really, how do these people make money?" or "Who would buy this stuff at the prices they're asking?" It doesn't seem like most vendors care about actually selling their products (evidenced by their usually filthy condition), and seem to care more about conversing with other vendors rather than their own customers. So now, those N64 games are going to sit there for another 5 years, instead of going into the hands of a potential customer. It was an interesting day.
Week 7 [04.08.06]+[04/09/06]
Day Total:
$20.25
Sales Visited:
17
1 Atari 7800
2 Atari 7800 controllers
Paid:
$5
►
Atari 2600 Games
Paid:
$6
Resident Evil: DS (Complete)
Paid:
$5
Super Mario comic No. 4 (1990)
Paid:
$0.25
1 Rainbow Brite tape
1 Sailor Moon R set
Paid:
$3
1 Lego #3053 NIB
2.5-pound bag of Legos
Paid:
$1
[04-09-2006] Visited 1 sale down the street. The Lego box still has the $40 price tag on it, all bags inside are sealed. Great find! [04-08-2006] Even though the skies were gray, we still hit up 16 sales. Only a couple "rain" cancellations, but we came across several unadvertised sales while driving. The first two finds listed were from Craigslist earlier this week. The 7800 was listed for "$1500" (I think she meant $15), I offered $5, and a few days later the deal was sealed. The box has some wear and some tape along the side, but overall it's in pretty good shape. I had to actually go in the woman's apartment to get it, and the kitchen was full of dirty plates, bowls, etc. In the sink, on the counters, on the table, on the chairs, even on the floor! I was awed by the sight. The woman informed me that her husband bought it for $2 at a yardsale a few years ago. I was happy paying the $5, and to get out of there. The 25 Atari 2600 games were the other Craigslist find. Can't beat less than 25 cents a game! RE: DS was our first find today. He was asking $12-15, but he very reluctantly took $5. He also had PDZ and COD2 for 360, asking $18 a piece. At the same sale, we spoke with another woman 'saling who informed us she had a ton of old-school videogames in her basement. We exchanged contact info, so hopefully that amounts to something! Later, we went to a sale where this young guy, probably late teens, went right over to Evilmax and shook his hand, saying "Hey, how you been, man?". I thought maybe he knew the kid, but apparently he had never seen him before in his life. Crazy yardsale people. We got the Mario comic at a sale full of drunk people. One of their tables had a box full of TV-recorded porn and a coffee mug shaped like boobs. We just bought the comic. The videos were at the final sale of the day, asking $10, but took $3. Pretty good week!
Week 6 [04.01.06]
Day Total:
$2.00
Sales Visited:
11
►
N64 Games
Paid:
$2
[04-01-2006] We hit 11 sales today! It rained until 10AM, and then it got absolutely beautiful out. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done, and there weren't as many sales as there could've been. I'm still a little off my game in terms of wheelin' and dealin', and I made a couple of mistakes today. First off was that we saw a non-GOTY Halo marked for $5, and I didn't offer anything. I probably would've liked to have it for $1, maybe even $2, but I didn't say anything. It's no huge loss really, but I still should've made the offer. The worst they can say is no, and the best is that you get a good deal. The second mistake is a little more understandable. We found a small non-advertised sale which consisted of a single card table with a couple of things on it, seemingly being tended by a 12-year-old boy. I take a look at the table, and find a few gameboy games. The only things of interest were cart-only Pokemon Silver and Pokemon Crystal. When asked how much he wanted, he said "Well...they both still have save-data on them...so how about...$15 bucks.", which I of course scoffed at. At that point, his Dad came out of the garage carrying some more stuff. The dad looked like Ernest P. Worrell if he grew his hair out, grew a short scraggly beard, and developed a drinking problem. He walks over to his kid, and yells "STOP TALKING AND GET IN THE HOUSE!" The kid says that he's only trying to sell his games, and the dad yells "YOUR GAMES!? WHO PAID FOR THEM!? I SAID TO SHUT UP AND GET IN THE HOUSE!" So the kid goes running inside, and I don't really know what to say. The guy turns to me and says "How about $4 for each, ah hell, $3 each". If I were at my best I would've offered $1 total for both, but I was a little rusty and a little rattled. Ah well, I feel kind of bad leaving Pokemon Crystal behind, but no biggie. The third mistake came at the sale that we bought the N64 games from. We had to ask if they had any games, and the kids working the sale brought out a bin of N64 games. We originally picked out the 4 games we got plus Super Smash Bros and Zelda: OoT. After some hesitation, the kids kind of sheepishly said that they still play a lot of these games, and they wouldn't sell Smash or Zelda. So we offered $2 for the remaining 4 and they took it. The mistake was leaving behind Mario Party 2 and 3. I didn't want to set aside too many games because I didn't know how much they were expecting on getting for them. I thought that the 6 would've been enough, but after they took away 2 of them, I should've grabbed the Mario Partys. Again, no big loss, but something I need to keep in mind so I don't let it happen again. We were too hasty in leaving. But overall it was fun. The weather was beautiful, and if there was any doubt before, yardsale season has officially started. I expect the number of sales to grow next weekend, as long as the weather stays nice. It felt so good to get back out there!
Week 5 [03.25.06]
Day Total:
$9.00
Sales Visited:
7
►
Sega Genesis Bundle
Paid:
$2
►
Sega Genesis Games
Paid:
$5
Sonic and Knuckles (GEN)
Paperboy (GEN)
Paid:
$1
Gunstar Heroes (GEN)
Gauntlet (NES)
Paid:
$1
[03-26-2006] Spur-of-the-moment Craigslist score. The guy was asking $10, but took our $5 offer. The main reason we got this is for TJ&E. The price-per-game breakdown is a little more than we would typically pay at a yardsale, but we don't mind too much. [03-25-2006] Yardsaling season may very well have begun for us! Although we only hit 6 sales today, we made purchases at half of them! Most of the sales were listed on Craigslist, as our newspaper sources have yet to kick in fully. We had actually emailed today's first sale last night, and received a response that they had 'some old system' and that they'd pull it out for the sale. We arrived right when it started, and they had a dirty Genesis 1 marked $5. We pointed out that there was no A/V cable, and offered $2 CIF. The guy was really friendly and said "Sure, just take it away!" Then he asked if we were the ones who emailed, we said yes, and he said "Well, I'm glad it was you guys who got it!" So that was nice! While driving, we saw a guy putting up a sign for a sale and asked for directions. Upon arriving, I noticed a bucket of old Legos (early 80's), a lot of broken platforms, marked $5. They were asking too much for what was there, and I didn't want it enough to start haggling. Another table had a GenII with Sonic and Knuckles in it, a stack of four complete Gen games (Tiny Toons, Lion King, Jeopardy, and some other crappy game), and a shopping bag with another Genesis and a bunch of carts in it. We asked the bulbous white-trash lady running the sale how much she wanted, and she told us "$15 for the stack of boxed games, $30 for the bag, $20 for the other Genesis." She then went on to say "I know that a lot of these games are expensive", (pointing to Lion King), "I paid 90 bucks for that and I was on a waiting list for over a week to get it!" Ok lady. Sonic & Knuckles and Paperboy both had manuals, so we offered $1 CIF and she took it after some hesitation. Our last find came at an indoor flea market, located up at the top of a huge hill. Funnily, the only videogames in the place were at the very last table. Some young kids were running it, and they had 2 Genesis II's for $10 each, a NES for $30, and some assorted GEN and NES carts asking $1 each (we were surprised at the relatively decent asking price). We saw Gunstar Heroes and knew we definitely had to get that, and the only other game that was decent enough was Gauntlet. We offered $1 CIF, and after a slight hesitation the kid took it. All in all today was great, and it felt a lot like a typical yardsale day (aside from the slight chill in the air). Just the fact that we spotted an 'unadvertised' sale made it feel like the yardsale season is beginning. Today's finds really got us pumped for the season, and we can't wait for the warmer weather and higher volume of sales. It's been a long winter.
Week 4 [03.18.06]
Day Total:
$1.00
Sales Visited:
5
Wadget board game
Paid:
$1
[03-18-2006] We hit 5 sales and got the board game for evilmax's mom. Nothing interesting to report.
Week 3 [03.04.06]
Day Total:
$5.25
Sales Visited:
2
►
Sega Saturn Bundle
Paid:
$5
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
1 Nintendo game case
Paid:
$0.25
[03-04-2006] There was a big fundraising sale at a middleschool a few towns away, so we headed over to try our luck. It was very poorly signed, and we spent a good 15 minutes just trying to find the thing. It was originally advertised as taking place at the school, but when we got there we found a sign saying "Yard Sale at Fieldhouse". There was no "field" in sight, and certainly no "fieldhouse" either. We finally found it, but it was ridiculous that these people didn't put up any signs. You're a school, you should know enough to sign your sale! Ugh. We saw the Saturn stuff in a big box right away, and my heart jumped. I looked over the games and my excitement went down a little, and it went down even more when i saw "$20 takes it all!" written on the box. Punchout was right next to it (marked 25 cents), so we bought that right away, but we decided to look around the rest of the sale while we formulated a battle plan for the Saturn. The initial instinct is to
