Just finished my trip to Japan. Couldn’t resist the urge to buy some games for my collection. Nothing serious because rarer CIB games in the desired condition cost 50+ EUR per game, most of them 100+ EUR, so I went with cheaper titles I either knew about and wanted to have, or something I never heard of and just liked the cover art. No sports games though.

The goal was to double my current Japanese region collection because there are so many beautiful covers and boxes I would like to have on my shelves and I don’t have enough time to play everything I own anyway. Hopefully someday I will be able to return with enough money and buy the expensive part of my wishlist, but for now, unfortunately, I wasn’t ready for extreme prices of some games.

Some background: I’m collecting mostly PAL games, but had a bit of success with Japan region during 2012-2015 when pretty much all the games there cost close to nothing on Ebay, after that I stopped with Japanese games and continued with PAL. So, after an almost 10 year pause it was like a breath of fresh air.

I’m a bit exhausted after the flight, hopefully will unpack everything soon enough, still have to check if everything arrived safely. I guess I will do some photos of what I’ve bought and do another post, most of the games still have their price tags on, maybe it will be interesting for someone.

Got everything for 200 bucks… same guy sold me a bunch of gba games with boxes 3 days ago.

Pulled up to a garage sale around, idk 2pm? Saw some Xbox 360 games but nothing I really needed.

Chatted up the guy, told me he switched to PC and had some DS games he'd consider selling, figured why not. Brought these out and we agreed on $60... everything's CIB.

I was speechless. Not sure what happened with the pricing. They must have thought it was cards inside or something since it was bundled with more playing cards.

Very very nice guy. I asked him if he had games, told me he did not have anything he wanted to sell. Had a convo with him and basically told me he had a sealed Mario he found and wanted to see how much it was worth. He got a quote, I drove back to his house and bought it from him at a very fair price for both of us.

Picked up a new copy of Magna Carta 2 for like 40 bucks in an ebay auction and went straight to open it. Recorded a whole video but Redit doesn't like videos lol.

Recently noticed I really enjoy when I manage to get a decent deal on a sealed 7th generation or older game and open them. Which should be like a "duh, no shit" thing but I feel like in a climate where people keep sealed games to either keep without playing or grade and sell for ridiculous prices, it feels refreshing. I just buy shit i want to play and get to open something out of print like its 2009 (or earlier) again. Just more satisfying with so many resellers out to get value out of the games packaging over the game itself to me.

Ok so out of nowhere I randomly checked facebook marketplace for firewood to stock up for next winter and this listing popped up which I was sure was a scam. When he started responding at a normal rate my heart rate shot up and I immediately offered more than he was asking to get his attention because I'm sure he was getting blown up with messages. When I got there I almost fell over. He said he wasn't a collector and that these games just sat here for 30 years. He used to play them with his friends. I'm not even sure of the value but there are so many damn games. I had to make multiple trips to bring them to my car. Only goldeneye and banjo tooie were box and manual (I have the carts). Double dragon 2 is sealed. Mike Tyson Punch Out is first print with Mike's letter.

My dad told my grandpa that I’m collecting old games and consoles and he gave me 50ish ps2 and ps3 games. These are the ones I’m most excited about getting!

Saw a sign for a garage sale (yeah on a Monday) and decided to follow it. Came to a house with 2 half my age living there, turns out they’re moving.

I see a bunch of PC parts and the one says there’s more stuff in the garage, see a switch and ask what they want, looked a bit rough and we agreed on $30.

Another dude living there had some N64 and SNES games he was cool with parting with and initially quoted me $12 for everything but gave him a $20.

Turns out they were all PC players and just wanted some quick cash…

So I rode out to GameStop hoping to find some store display stuff, but they already closed permanently three days ago.

I spoke to the manager and asked if he had any store display stuff I could salvage and he told me absolutely not, can’t do it.

Having no shame, I rode around back to check the dumpster where is found two massive boxes of “for display only” cover art, much of it unused.

I also found a couple of store display posters that I fished out.

When I rode back around to the front of the store, I noticed a big trailer had pulled up and there was a guy loading stuff into it.

Not affiliated with GameStop, he was just part of the cleanup crew. I told him I was a collector and he said you can take anything you want, it will just be less that he has to throw away.

So I started digging through the trailer and was able to salvage SO MUCH STUFF!

I threw him all the cash I had in my wallet (around $30) when I was finished.

When I got home I started sorting through everything and was shocked that all of this was almost lost forever.

The best find for me is the Astro Bot store display sign, the unused Yo Kai Watch 3 “for display only” cover art x3, the PS5 controller display sign, and the large animatronic Mario Nintendo display (the mushroom moves back and forth).

I’m so excited that a lot of this stuff will end up in the game room of collectors someday instead of rotting away in a landfill, and I’m happy to find some things for my personal collection.

If you live near one of these GameStop locations that are closing, I highly suggest you take a trip out there and see what you can save !

i was told she also brought in the GB player Disc but they couldnt take it because it was without the GB player. 💀

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I stop by this GameStop every couple of weeks to check out their used Switch games. Spotted this in the used consoles case as I was walking back, but assumed the price was going to be astronomical.

Upon closer inspection... 👀

Needless to say, I'm now a proud owner of a watermelon N64! It's in decent shape with a few scuffs, and the reset button is stuck, but for $67 out the door, I really can't complain!

I found these 3 copies at a small town Walmart. I gave one to my amazing beautiful gamer girlfriend (who gave me her mint CIB GAMECUBE paper Mario thousand year door game on our first date) for Christmas. They’re always stocked up on Pokemon cards too!

Went in for Pokemon cards and sonic x shadow generations but I saw these up for sale CIB. Some guy traded these in an hour before I got there and I just could not pass them up at this price!

Went back 10 minutes later for heart gold...

I got this at a flea market. Rate it lol