I had an interesting experience tonight while out spending money on old video games. I may have mentioned it before or not but, there's a small independent game store here in Frederick called Play Raven. I buy from them all the time. The owner and I are on first name basis. I'm not sure how that happened so fast but, it doesn't bother me. He's also aware of this blog's existence and has seen the posts of mine about what I'd do if I owned a record/game store. He liked and used some of my ideas. I told him he could use whatever ideas he wanted since any future store of mine will be in NOLA and definitely not compete with his at all.
Anyway, I went there tonight to get an old NES game he had been holding onto for me, Captain Skyhawk. I have been trying to find this game again for years. In addition to that, I managed to score a few other things on my list and some things that just screamed out 'buy me!' The complete list of stuff I got from him tonight is as follows:
NES
Captain Skyhawk
Gauntlet (Tengen cartridge)
GBA
Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
The Legend of Zelda (Classic NES Series)
N64
Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition
Tetrisphere
Unfortunately for me, the labels on Bust-A-Move 2 and Gauntlet are either damaged or covered by a damned Blockbuster sticker. That makes me glad that Blockbuster is largely a thing of the past. Bastards... However, both of them combined were $8 so, I won't complain.
Now, comes the interesting (and perhaps) shady part. Some strange guy from another town came in with a few items to sell, including a purple GameCube and various titles for N64, GCN, Dreamcast, PS2 & PSP. The store owner did buy/trade for the GameCube and a N64 game that people had asked him for: Ogre Battle 64. This guy also had an old Atari Jaguar game cartridge in that box he brought in with him: Cybermorph. I had that game once, back when I owned an Atari Jaguar. It wasn't all that great then and it hasn't aged well since. It was also the cheapest Jaguar game that I bought new back in the day. I believe it was only $10 but, it could have been $20. Either way, it was probably the worst choice for a pack-in that Atari could have chosen. Not only was it flawed but, it didn't show off the console's power at all.
Anyway, I began talking to the guy. After selling me a loose copy of Jet Force Gemini for N64 with its manual right there in the store (sorry if I over-stepped my bounds, Victor), he mentioned having a treasure trove in his car trunk. 'Treasure trove' are my words because I don't know what else you call a bunch of mint condition complete-in-box Jaguar games in a car trunk. I have to admit that it sounded too good to be true but, they were really there.
I look through the wares and he did indeed have some of the games that were on the printed list I bring with me to that store. Next time I go, I should bring a laptop so I can show Victor the HTML manifest (and the original spreadsheets) of my collection so he knows I'm not exaggerating when I talk about my game collection being huge. There was all kinds of unusual things in that trunk, including European Dreamcast games and a Jaguar CD game that I knew to be crap. However, I was more interested in the Jaguar cartridge games. All of them were mint condition and complete in the box, like he said. It was a sight that was almost too good to behold. I had heard of virtually every title in that trunk and for $42 cash (the answer to the ultimate question!), I walked away with complete copies of Checkered Flag, Club Drive, Hover Strike, I-War & Iron Soldier.
I had Checkered Flag and Iron Soldier back in the day. I wanted Hover Strike but, the Jaguar left the market before I could get a copy. The other two are just games I want to try, despite having bad reputations with critics. Also, when I say 'complete in box' I mean the cartridge, instruction manual and box. Not all of these games had the overlay for the number pad on the Jaguar controller. However, the games that really needed one have them in the box. Also, I don't believe Checkered Flag came with one. I don't remember having an overlay for that game in the 1990's.
Anyway, I have Jaguar games again and that strange individual (whose name is Craig) has a way of contacting me when he finds the other Jaguar stuff on my list.
I have a few reservations about making these deals in the parking lot outside of Victor's store. Craig wasn't going to sell/trade those games to Victor anyway (I don't know why) but, something about this seems a bit wrong. That's why I used the word 'shady' in the title for this post. Sorry if I stepped on any toes, Victor.
Two things are certain though:
1.) For $100.88 (including tax), I have added some really cool stuff to my collection tonight.
2.) I can now add to the number of systems for which I have games but, no system. That list is as follows:
- Atari 5200
- Atari 7800
- Atari Jaguar
- Colecovision
- Mattel Intellivision (A friend at home in NOLA has one to sell me when I move back home.)
- SEGA Game Gear
- SEGA Master System (A SEGA Genesis Model 1 with the Power Base Converter will also do.)
At this rate, I just might have enough old games in stock to open an old game store someday, as I have dreamed about for at least 10 years now. Lord knows I have enough duplicates of certain very popular titles. That, however, will be for another blog post...
- Lord Publius
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