Flojocabron's Guide to buying at fleamarkets and such!

[CRTGAMER]

I think its great to find a rare game at Swap Meets at a bargain price, the whole point of digging through the boxes. But getting away with a different disc inside or tricking a purchase with music CDs. What ever happened to integrity and honesty?

I'm not saying that you swap out the games for music!

I meant to say that games in cases may be mixed in with them.

This. Not swapping but purposely fooling the seller, thinking its just a stack of Music CDs, seems dishonest.

[flojocabron]

I think its great to find a rare game at Swap Meets at a bargain price, the whole point of digging through the boxes. But getting away with a different disc inside or tricking a purchase with music CDs. What ever happened to integrity and honesty?

I'm not saying that you swap out the games for music!

I meant to say that games in cases may be mixed in with them.

This. Not swapping but purposely fooling the seller, thinking its just a stack of Music CDs, seems dishonest.

It's not dishonest if they dont care! Sure I get what you mean, But thats just the way it is. It would be dumb of you to say.... "excuse me sir/maam but you know you can sell this for more?" They are gonna jack up the price on you! dont be a white knight!

I've worked in fleamarkets before, and when the main seller whos already made a couple of thousand dollars doesnt care for a few cds. For many this is as much a business than just making a simple buck to get rid of some things. There is a thriving fleamarket culture here with buyers and sellers.

a seller may get a truck full of merch for $700. it may have furniture, appliances, and electronics. And many more boxes filled with random stuff. They sell a couch set for $200. A fridge for $100, dining room for $180,washer and dryer for $150, an HD tv for $300, and so on. the last things to be sold are clothes, toys and media.

Sellers make profit on the big stuff! thats why some dont even care about some small stuff and that includes games.

Even if someone doesn't sell everything at a fleamarket, another seller there may buy the merch that wasnt sold then. Do you think they care? they just want to make some cash and do it all over again next week.

I dont even want to deal with the sellers who want to sell you things based on EBAY prices! those people are crazy to expect me to buy things cause they saw it at the same price on ebay before they came to sell it!

[CHOCOBO77]

I am starting a new thread to show you my way to buy games. Feel Free to add your opinion to this and how you deal with buying games wether on line or in real life

When you buy Nintendo games there is something I call it the "Nintendo Premium" Be ready to shell out more cause people arent letting go of their copies and sellers are getting wise to this and jacking up the prices!

Nintendo games are more valuable cause they maintain their popularity. Do some research and see what the scene is in your town, state or country.

Where I live, Nes games are the cheapest followed by N64 and then Snes. Gamecube games are some what average prices cause those can still be found easily.

Do you care about owning just the game or complete with box?

If youre a completist and like pretty, complete, boxed collections, go on line for that!

I live in the US. When I buy games from thrift stores and fleamarkets, when I buy loose copies with no box, I pay no more than:

$5.00 or less for nesand originalGameboy games, Unless its rare and they know it up to $10.00. Good thing is that most normal people who sell nes games dont care to look up the prices. Go for multi deals, I've gotten NES games 3 for $10 and 4 for $10 before

Between $7.00 and $15.00 for uncommon N64 games. Sports games are worth pennies so dont buy any of those. Many N64 games are really beat up for some reason, so paying $15 for one is stupid. Use common sense.

Up to $8.00 for commonSNES games. Although this may change since even then loose copies have been getting harder to find. $20.00 is kinda pushing it for more rarer games but you may get lucky and get a good snes game for a couple of bucks. Super nintendo is a more popular system to collect because gamers grew up with this console and they are now yearing for their favorite games growing up as a kid.

What I've said here is what I like to pay for. Some sellers dont care what they sell and will sell to you dirt cheap. I've bought nes games for a buck and super nes games for $3.00

My advice is to just keep looking. There are many sellers out there, dont just buy from the first one you come across. Some know what they sell and others dont. Buy from the ones that dont! Only then buy from an expensive seller if it is in pristine condition, and totally complete.

so all of you out there.... what do you think of what I've said? was this helpful? or is this a bunch of Bullcrap?

when buying at trifthstore's, go early, when they open. and also sometimes i find nes,snes boxed games, in the vcr section, and are you guys forgetting about yard sales(this is the best place to find lot's) and GO EARLY!!!! when shopping at a fleamarket and you spot a copy of earthbound,snatcher,balls 3d, don't start by running/spinning in a circle on the ground going "Woo woo woo woo nyuks nyuks" don't look interested, just offer him 25 cents lol..try to buy more than 1 item, from the seller, and you can get a good deal...

[Hobie-wan]

Carry small bills- this is the best way to haggle. If someone wants to sell you a game for 7 bucks, offer a 5 and they may take it. If a game is going for 2 bucks, offer a one. Dont haggle with a price and hand a twenty when youre done! This is very tacky and may make the seller mad. Imagine that youre wanting to buy a game for $5 and you convince them to drop it down to $3 and theyre cool with it....And you hand them a $20! not cool.

Very good point. When I worked conventions for an old job it was infuriating for someone to start playing the cheap (not thrifty) card and whine for a discount only to pull out a big wad of cash.

[tommyboy8689]

Carry small bills- this is the best way to haggle. If someone wants to sell you a game for 7 bucks, offer a 5 and they may take it. If a game is going for 2 bucks, offer a one. Dont haggle with a price and hand a twenty when youre done! This is very tacky and may make the seller mad. Imagine that youre wanting to buy a game for $5 and you convince them to drop it down to $3 and theyre cool with it....And you hand them a $20! not cool.

Very good point. When I worked conventions for an old job it was infuriating for someone to start playing the cheap (not thrifty) card and whine for a discount only to pull out a big wad of cash.

i used to have a guy do this to me all the time when i was working on a farm... hed walk in and try and get me to sell him all the "seconds" (which are good for pies and jams) for a quarter (and there would be a lot there) then hed hand pull out a bunch of 20's and 50's... same guy tried to low ball me on a ps2 earlier this year... when i was asking a really cheap price to begin with
I HATE THAT!!

[hashiriya1]

Carry small bills- this is the best way to haggle. If someone wants to sell you a game for 7 bucks, offer a 5 and they may take it. If a game is going for 2 bucks, offer a one. Dont haggle with a price and hand a twenty when youre done! This is very tacky and may make the seller mad. Imagine that youre wanting to buy a game for $5 and you convince them to drop it down to $3 and theyre cool with it....And you hand them a $20! not cool.

In my opinion, if I were a seller at flea market and somebody haggled me down from 5 bucks to 3 bucks for a game and handed me a twenty, I would be grateful. My thinking is...better to get a 20 and give 17 back than to get nothing at all. I wouldn't be upset at all. Perhaps the person only brought 20 bucks and wanted to make the most of it. I guess that is just me, I don't fret things like that.

[gtmtnbiker]

This reminds me of a time when I was selling some stereo equipment for something like $100 and the guy said, "Would you accept $80 cause that's all I have". I said, "Fine" and he gives me a wad of bills which I totaled up as $100! I give him back $20 and said you gave me too much, $100, not $80. The guy was pretty embarrassed.

[DAAAAA!!]

my advice would be to say "that much!! but it's so oooold.. i wasn't even born when this game came out".. some times they wanna charge me $8 for a nes game and saying that makes them lower the price

and also can some one give some tips on pawn shops.. i mostly stick to thrift stores and swap meets but i wanna try some more pawn shops.. if you have any of course..

[Czernobog]

I dont even want to deal with the sellers who want to sell you things based on EBAY prices! those people are crazy to expect me to buy things cause they saw it at the same price on ebay before they came to sell it!

I had a guy at a yard sale tell me his copy of Aladdin for Genesis was worth ninety-five dollars because he saw it on ebay for that price. I didn't want to buy it but I politely told him it wasn't worth that much away from the ears of of any potential buyers and he had a shit-fit and started yelling at me that I didn't know a damn thing.

Then I had another guy at a yard sale tell me his Atari 2600 loose with 1 controller and pac-man, e.t. and a couple other crappy games was worth 300 dollars and anyone who didn't think so was clearly and idiot didn't realize that it was an "extremely rare and vintage collector's item that would easily be worth 1000 dollars within a few years"

THEN at a different yard sale I had an obese woman with only two teeth tell me that Alien Trilogy CIB for Saturn was a crazy rare collector's item because of how Satanic it was and then sell it to me for two dollars because she was afraid it would lay a curse upon her home should her son who she confiscated it from many years ago tried to play it. - dead serious true story.

[Tiamat]

I had a guy at a yard sale tell me his copy of Aladdin for Genesis was worth ninety-five dollars because he saw it on ebay for that price. I didn't want to buy it but I politely told him it wasn't worth that much away from the ears of of any potential buyers and he had a shit-fit and started yelling at me that I didn't know a damn thing.

I remember that, happy you let him know because the same guy sold me the Aladdin game for I think either two or three dollars only about five minutes later, after I'd been chatting with him about his paintball equipment which actually was reasonably priced. But then, he was into paintball and was better up on the pricing, when it seemed like all he'd had to go on for the games was ebay pricing.

Actually, that's kind of my advice, too- talk to the sellers. I've found I get better deals when I've made an effort to engage the person selling to me in conversation and actually been interested in what they said, and sometimes you'll even get someone going 'Oh! you're interested in old games? Well, I have some, but I didn't think anyone would be interested so they're not out here-" and then they'll show you stuff they didn't have on sale but would be willing to part with.