I have been to literally hundreds of boot sales in my life time… but this was the first time I’ve been to one by choice. We all remember being dragged out of bed by our parents , or in my case my Nan, stupidly early, to walk around on a field… in the cold… looking through boxes of crap… FOR HOURS!
If you were lucky you’d maybe find some old or even new toys for fairly cheap. I personally looked for Star Wars figures, Action Man accessories and toy guns, plus anything else action figure like. My brother collected ‘Fighting Fantasy’ books (a series of strategic adventure stories by Ian Livingston, the storyline would be dictated by choices you made on each page) and other books of fantasy or horror.
Now days I do most of my collecting (game chasing) online… which is nowhere near as fun. It is far more exciting to find games buried at the bottom of a box of crap recently exhumed from someone’s loft then by using the search bar on ebay (if not as rewarding). Plus the added bonus of being able to haggle.
So here starts the adventure, the location ‘Pedham Place’ Swanley…
Near the very start of our journey I spotted a re-seller (in other words someone who has come almost exclusively to sells games as opposed to someone who just so happens to have games for sale), he had a good mix of old and new games, something I wasn’t expecting to find so easily. He had Wii, Xbox 360 and other ‘new fangled things’… but I was focused solely on the Mega Drive games of which he had a few (mostly sports titles as is common). First purchase of the day, I spotted ‘Strider’ for the Mega Drive, been meaning to buy this for a while and for £3 (boxed with the manual) I wasn’t even going to haggle as I’ve seen it go for much more then that on the evilbay.
Several rows later another stand catches my eye, lined with old nostalgic toys, Wanda and I were keen to rummage… especially through a shoebox of old Star Wars figures! For a mere £1 each I couldn’t resist… can’t say no to ‘The Fett Man’.
Atop a couple of ‘Beano’ annuals I saw two Sega Game Gears in rather good condition, Wanda then pointed out the massive pile of GG games at the same stand… I played it cool… I asked how much… £80? For both systems and all the games… “No chance you’d split them up maybe?”… “no?…sigh”. Too rich for my blood, I’m not gonna take a punt on such an unreliable, faulty piece of hardware for £80 and the guy says he’s not gonna split them up… moving on.
Not much else caught my eye, by this time Wanda had already found a couple items she was rather excited about for pretty damn cheap: a DVD ‘Gingersnaps’ (a horror film about Werewolves) and the book ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’, the inspiration behind our favourite serial killers TV show!
The next stand to catch my eye was great but they were re-sellers. There were not alot of reasonably priced games and a whole lot of them were shitty titles… quantity over quality for sure. They had Game Boys of all types and GB, GBC and GBA games… all lack luster titles, N64 games, PS games, PS2 games, Game Cube, Mega Drive games, Master System games and even a couple of Atari games… but only ONE NES GAME… Super Mario Brothers… sigh. Luckily they did have some stuff that did catch my eye. A Sega Master System Converter (model 1), Psycho Fox for Master System (a well known title that can be pricey on ebay) for a measly £3 (with the case and manual) I grabbed it pretty quick. I also saw a Game Gear, “how much you say? £10… not bad”, after further inspection of the battery contacts and some light case damage I asked if they would do it for any less… “£8, ok I’ll consider it” I said clutching it in one hand while rummaging though the stacks of GG games they had on offer… “Columns”? Check… “Streets Of Rage”? oooh yes… “Ninja Gaiden”? bonus! “How much for the lot?”
Haggle-Haggle-Haggle-Haggle-Haggle… ok £23?.. I grudgingly accept…
Happy with my purchases Wanda and I walked the last few rows of stalls before we decided to head back to the car. On the way back to the car we passed the ‘Game Gear Guy’ from earlier, his pile of GG games had gone, the consoles were still there… Hoping to pick through his games I asked if he’d already packed them away…
“nope, some guy came along and offered me £60 for all the games, so I took it” he said
“oh, well I was wondering if I could’ve picked through them seeing as I just bought a Game Gear for £8” I said with a smirk…
“ah well I’m selling these off for £3 each”
“… … … … … really? … … …”, “honey do you have a pound?” I asked Wanda.
“Ok I’ll take this one.”
For £3 I can take a punt at it not working…
… and wouldn’t you know it… the one from the re-seller was the one that didn’t work right…
… that’s just the way Game Chasing go…
MD ‘Strider’- £3 (ebay price £7+)
MD Master System Converter- £8 (ebay BIN price £28)
Game Gear (no sound… boo)- £8 (ebay price £15+)
MS ‘Psycho Fox’- £3 (ebay price £10-£15)
3x Game Gear games- £4 (ebay price £9+)
Game Gear (fully working!)- £3 (ebay price £20+)
(Comparisons based on recent/current ebay listings)
So the moral of this story is: don’t always trust re-sellers… even when they assure you a system works always consider the possibility that the system will be faulty, although possibly repairable you should always factor in the cost of repairs, replacement parts into the cost you wish to pay. And the most important lesson, always haggle!
GP
