Michiganders, where do you hunt in the Wild?

Post by **Blu** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 12:07 am

Hey y'all..

I've been looking to get started doing some flea marketing and hunting in the wild. I'd like to stay within a maybe 40-50 mile radius of the Ann Arbor area, and get out and find some sweet deals like everyone else seems to get. I know this might be regionally and situationally dependent, but have you had any success of hitting up places like Gibraltar Trade Center? What other flea markets would you be able to recommend? Pawn shops, goodwill and thrift stores, etc?

Post by **lisalover1** » Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:15 am

Blu wrote:Hey y'all..

I've been looking to get started doing some flea marketing and hunting in the wild. I'd like to stay within a maybe 40-50 mile radius of the Ann Arbor area, and get out and find some sweet deals like everyone else seems to get. I know this might be regionally and situationally dependent, but have you had any success of hitting up places like Gibraltar Trade Center? What other flea markets would you be able to recommend? Pawn shops, goodwill and thrift stores, etc?

Kalamazoo has a ton of retro gaming stores; if you want thwe best of the best, though, go to 2nd Chance on Westnedge Avenue. I've been going there for years, and it's just a great store.

Post by **Tildius Maximus** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 12:31 am

I live in Midland, MI and aside from a game store or two, I really haven't had much luck finding things in the wild. I think there are some flea markets around here but they are almost never advertised. Sometimes I get lucky when the Antique festival comes around cause we have one of the biggest antique festivals in the area, and I might be able to pick up a thing or two, but that isn't really a big hit at the festival. :/

Post by **Blu** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 1:36 am

See that's what I'm concerned about. I'm so jealous of those Racketboy members that can go to a goodwill and rack up tons of great stuff. I know flea markets would be a good place to look, but again, those aren't advertised like you mentioned. Some of the retro stores are simply gouging--Get your Game on here in Ann Arbor has to run a business, but sometimes the mark-up on some of their games is too much. I'm thinking about hitting up this store in Canton, just to see what they have.

I'd really love to get to some flea markets, and that'd be a good time for a Racketboy meet-up! In a few PM's with Racketboy, he did mention he's been wanting to do one. The only problem is that we're such a huge state! Driving from the UP or Northern Lower Peninsula to the greater Detroit area would be a bit of a drive. I wish there was an easy way to look up flea markets! Online directories don't seem to be very reliable!

Post by **VideoGamerYoshi** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 6:14 pm

I live south of Jackson, in the Irish Hills. With the nearest town being very small, and having no retro gaming stores, I don't have many options. I check out garage sales, but I haven't found anything. The only Goodwill near me get old games all the time (according to one of the employees), but I haven't found anything very good. And being not able to drive myself around (Not old enough) means that I can't check out places like Kalamazoo or Ann Arbor/Detroit. I haven't had the best of luck in searching in the Wild, but it gets me out of the house.

Post by **letskissthesky** » Sun Sep 02, 2012 8:39 pm

If you're looking to go to destiny games in canton you're gonna be disappointed. They have some stuff but it's way overpriced. I live in Livonia and finding stuff around here is hard. Thrift stores don't have much, especially pre ps2 era and every garage sale I go to people don't have good games or they're too much for less than stellar games. One garage sale I went to a few weeks ago they wanted $10 fit nba 2k7. I lived in Chicago last year and hunting was way better. I found a lot of stuff there. Also there's a store in Chicago called people play games that had an amazing selection and very reasonable prices.

Post by **Gooseberrysoda** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 7:44 pm

It's out of the way, but Battle Creek has Disctraders (which always seems to have some fantastic deals), Titan Games (which is OK) and a brilliant Pawn Shop next to Titan Games where you can routinely talk the people down to super low prices. If you're ever in the BC area, I recommend going to all three. Other than that, though, there isn't a lot to do in that city, so don't make a day of it.

Also, there's a pawn shop somewhere between Battle Creek and Albion that had extremely rare SNES games (Mega Man X sequels standing out in my mind), but I don't recall the town.

Post by **lisalover1** » Mon Sep 03, 2012 9:08 pm

Gooseberrysoda wrote:It's out of the way, but Battle Creek has Disctraders (which always seems to have some fantastic deals), Titan Games (which is OK) and a brilliant Pawn Shop next to Titan Games where you can routinely talk the people down to super low prices. If you're ever in the BC area, I recommend going to all three. Other than that, though, there isn't a lot to do in that city, so don't make a day of it.

Also, there's a pawn shop somewhere between Battle Creek and Albion that had extremely rare SNES games (Mega Man X sequels standing out in my mind), but I don't recall the town.

It should be noted that Titan Games doesn't price anything below $8 (or $6, I haven't been there in a while), so don't go there if you're looking for REALLY good deals.

Post by **McCloud?** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 11:49 am

There are some good places in state, you just have to be willing to travel a bit. Ann Arbor is weirdly lacking in retro games, but Flint/Lansing/Detroit are better.

The best flea markets for games are the Dixieland Flea Market in Waterford and the Taylor Town Trade Center in Taylor, but both of them are full of dedicated stores rather than random people selling a few games. The Gibraltar Trade Centers aren't as good as they used to be, IMO.

There are some good game stores scattered throughout the state. Disc Traders/Replay always has a good selection and their prices are low (they have stores in Lansing, Battle Creek and Flint). I saw an amazing store in Kalamazoo one time, but their prices were ghastly and I can't remember what it was called. Game Hits in Lansing is pretty great, plus it's just down the street from the Disc Traders. There was a place on Ford Road in Garden City called Gamers Ave that had a good selection, but I'm not sure if you would find any great bargains there.

Post by **Blu** » Tue Sep 04, 2012 4:04 pm

These are all so helpful!

Taylor Town Trade Center is fairly close to me, only about a half an hour drive. Waterford Flea Market isn't bad either, considering if I'm in my family's part of the state I can just hop on M-59 and head West for a short drive.

Maybe I'll swing by Taylor tonight on my way out of town! Wait, they're closed on Tuesday!

Very helpful all. I think since we have a few people here, we should get a Racketboy event in Michigan going soon!

Michiganders, where do you hunt in the Wild?

Michiganders, where do you hunt in the Wild?

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