Game Collecting: A Weekend Flea Market Find

I've collected retro games pretty casually over the past 5 or so years, acquiring only a Super Nintendo and a handful of games. I've made it a goal to be more proactive about finding new items to add to the collection. On Superbowl Sunday last weekend, I ventured to the main local swap meet and spent a few hours looking around. Here's what I found!

The swap meet spanned multiple acres so there was a lot of ground to cover. I went down rows and rows of vendors with very little luck at first. There were sock vendors (literally at least a dozen exclusively selling socks!), bedazzled booty jean vendors (nearly as many as the sock vendors), then people selling used tools. Didn't look too promising. A big table with a series of glass cases at the end of one aisle caught my eye. Finally, a mountain of retro games - Genesis, NES, and SNES! Closer inspection revealed that these people knew what they were worth. All the good ones were $40+. So close yet so far.

Further aisles yielded similar results; the only game vendors had cartridges that were severely overpriced. At the very last booth I was going to look at before calling it quits, I saw the trademark orange of an NES light gun peeking out from behind an old TV. Beside it was an entire NES console in excellent condition, with 2 controllers, all the cords, and 3 games (one of which was actually an SNES game). Thirty bucks later and I was happily on my way out of the swap meet.

The games I netted were Dr. Mario and Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt/Track Meet for the NES, then Ultima VI: The False Prophet for the SNES. I haven't played The False Prophet before, so that should be an interesting one to check out.

So what's next? I am going to check out a local used bookstore and then a retro game store I found on Craigslist the other day. Not sure what to expect with either, but we shall see. I am going to focus primarily on RPGs, as those are my favorite, but I'll certainly keep my eyes peeled for any other good titles.