The favorite item you've found

[ASSEMbler]

Not the most valuable or rare, but the find you remember the fondest.

For me it was finding a famicom twin in a thrift shop that mainly sold carpets. It has melt damage from the cables, and wouldn't read discs.
The guy had no idea what it was, so I got it for $25 with a lot of games.

After some loving care it lives again!

[DrDoaK]

My first SMSII that I got from a car boot sale a few years back, think I paid £5 for it with a few games. I'd never played one before picking that up and it is now my most played console, I absolutely love it. If I hadn't got up that morning I may never have ventured into the world of SMS gaming. I'm currently trying to finish every game that can be completed on the console and having great fun doing so :-P.

My Mega Drive collection would probably have been finished years ago though if the SMS set hadn't distracted me :-).

[mick_aka]

My Atari 2600 VCS was attached with cable ties above the front door of a computer shop called Joystix in Stafford UK (if anyone knows the area it was above the Two Fat Goblins Games Workshop store)

Joystix is the store where I got my first PC, a Mitac brand 386SX in the early 90's, they used to have NES' and Mega Drive's set up you could play on for an hour for a couple of pounds while munching on their range of sweets and soft drinks.

I asked the owner Ron to give me the console on several occasions the first time I visited, and proceeded to nag him about it every time I went in.

When the store closed in around '99 or 2000 I went out back on a skip hunt and retrieved a few nice old PC cases, an IBM PC XT and finally, cut the 2600 down from above the door.

After being outside a shop's front door for the best part of 15 years all that was required to restore it to working order was one new switch, a good clean and a new RF cable.

There's literally no piece of computing hardware that I own that I have more of a personal attachment to.



The case was originally almost light grey with salt deposits it tooks hours of scrubbing and the use of car bumper blacking to bring it back to something resembling it's former glory.

Sorry for the long winded post.

[SuperPlay]

mick_aka small world, I am just up the road from you in sunny stoke!

The best item I came across was at a random clearance auction many moons ago around 1990. I picked up an old arcade machine that needed some TLC for £10. (a lot of pocket money to me then!)

This was a medium size cab but it weighed a ton! When me and a friend finally managed to drag for 2 miles to my house on a trolley board! it fired up with ghost n goblins :-) and with a bit of spit and polish and I ended up with a nice cab.

Then I came to look inside .. no keys DOH! so out came my screwdriver set and I prised off the panels with not too much damage. Shiver me timbers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! no wonder the machine weighed so much the coin boxes were bulging with 10p coins! about £100 worth.

The machine gave me may hours of fun and the coins paid for may nights in the pub :-)

I will have to have a dig around as I am sure that I kept some on the old 10p coins for use with the machine.

As for the machine it is no more :-(

But hey good times :-)

[mick_aka]

mick_aka small world, I am just up the road from you in sunny stoke!

Small world indeed, I live in Stone actually but will be finally completing my move to Newcastle under Lyme in the new year.

That's a great story, reminds me of a shirt I brought from the old army and navy store in Hanley that had a 10 DM note in it that I exchanged for about twice the value of the shirt.

I take it you still have that cab?

[Elijah]

The modded SCPH-1002 PS1 and Xplorer cheat cartridge that I got for £5 on Gumtree. I have had so much fun with it recently

[GungriffonEX]

Crystal Dev Xbox found in a Swap meet for $10.

[SuperGrafx]

Found a complete US TurboGrafx some years back at a Goodwill Store.
All the parts were in different areas...I found the cables and adapter on one shelf, the console on another, the manual in a different area altogether and so on.

Luckily I was able to piece everything back together, thanks to having owned one back in 1989.
No price though...I asked the clerk how much and she just said "$5.00"

[Alchy]

Small world indeed, I live in Stone actually but will be finally completing my move to Newcastle under Lyme in the new year.

How about that. I'm moving back to Newcastle under Lyme tomorrow. Everything's in the transit finally, I'm fucking knackered! I'll be glad when it's all in the new place.

Don't actually have anything to add to the thread, maybe when I'm less tired.

[Cyantist]

I got a boxed (missing inserts) SMSII with sonic built in. Had all the documentation and everything. Pretty much mint condition minus the inserts. £15 it cost me. Now I'm getting around to selling everything It's one of the items I'll be sad to see go.

[Yakumo]

11 years ago in Tokyo (Nakameguro) I found a Sega Saturn in the rubbish collection sitting in a puddle of water in the rain. I took it home, cleaned it and let it dry. To this very day it's the same Sega Saturn I still use. These days it only gets played about 5 hours a week but for many years it was used almost every day.

Yakumo

[Tatsujin]

#1
CIB SFC incl. S-video cable lying on the daily dump, halfway on the streets. Picked it up on my way to work and hidded it under my jacket till I was sitted down at my desk. Sneaked in the company like a Ninja.

#2
Fujitsu Car Marty in a recycle store for 500 yen. The owner, Old lady, had no clue what it was (how surpricing).
Me 1:0 Old lady

#3
CIB mint PCE DUO-RX with arcade card duo and 5 games für 2000 yens at the same store as #2. Again, the lady had no clue.
Me 2:0 old Lady

#4
CIB Japnese SMS for 1000 yen. Again the same store as #2 & #3. ...
Me 3:0 Old lady.

[Crescent]

I'd have to say my Megadrive pack of Sonic, Aladdin and Eternal Champions. They're just retail PAL games, but they were bundled with the Mega Drive I got when I was 10 years old, and Aladdin is still one of the games I like the most.

[dutchconsolefreak]

My favorite item is a copy of Contra Spirits for Super Famicom.

[Christian]

Heh, I think that if I have to choose it will be the Mega Drive console and The Tennis Tournament Grandslam that was my first console and cartridge for it, altough I start to collect retro console not for many years ago, and one of my latest purchase is a complete in box SNES as mint :)

But, if I may say, my Sinclair Spectrum clone CIP 03 is my oldest item that I remember to have, it is not working now but I think that can be repair.

[krem13]

a brand new copy of super mario bros 3 (german "classic serie" version,sealed with the sticker of the then greek importer of nintendo,itochu) that i've found for 5 euros.

[3rdman]

My first Bitcorp Gamate:love2: Bought it from a guy on ebay.it It had already closed with no bids. He had another interested party, but they dropped out. It was listed at 7,00 euro in as-is condition since he had no games to test if it worked (we found a game about a month later), and was missing a battery cover. Got it home for about $14.00, and soon after found a spare battery cover .
She's the one I later (well it's buggy, so it's still a work in progress) had modded with the backlight. Love that machine.

[Mr. Rare]

I found a sealed Mario Galaxy for Wii a day or two after launch for $3.99 at the goodwill. I was so stoked. The cashier knew something was up as I couldn't wipe that huge grin off my face. Ha-ha

[CrAzY]

I found a sealed Mario Galaxy for Wii a day or two after launch for $3.99 at the goodwill. I was so stoked. The cashier knew something was up as I couldn't wipe that huge grin off my face. Ha-ha

Damn that sure is a sweet find. Hearing all these stories about Goodwills and having first hand experience of good finds, I dunno why I don't visit them more often!:-)

For me it would be...

See through blue N64 with memory expansion - $5
SNES Model 2 - $5

Also, one of my local game rental shops (well, gone now, it got raided. I can only imagine where all those classic games/systems/accessories went. That place had it all...:crying:) anyway, around a week before that I purchased Stunt Race FX, Sim City, A Link To The Past, and Cool Spot, all in brand new looking boxes and complete manuals for $15 total. Not bad if you ask me, and I really only wanted those non-smashed boxes. :love2:

[LeonHikari]

Got a CDX in a thrift store when I was younger for $7. Only issue was the CD drive didn't work. I sold it a few years later, and now I'm kicking myself because I'm sure it was easily fixable.

I've also gotten a genesis (model 2) in box from a flea market for $15.

I've also picked up numerous PS1 scph-1001's from thrift stores for a dime a dozen.


Edit: forgot to mention the fact that I also pulled a x3 modded xbox with a 250gb hard drive and component cable from a pawn shop for $40.