Week 8 [04.15.06]

Day Total: $5.75

Sales Visited: 15

1 Duck Hunt (NES, cart only)
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: $5.00


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 woman 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:
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.