Spring has arrived, which means that flea market season is upon us. I’ve been out and about over the last few weekends making all kinds of unexpected discoveries, and they’ve been piling up waiting for that special moment when I take pictures of them, then shove them into my closet forever. Now is that moment.
San Francisco remains, as ever, a Sega town; most of the old videogames that I find tend to be Genesis, with a few Master System scattered in for good measure. That said, I did have a couple of worthwhile Super Nintendo games show up here and there, including one with a mint condition box and manual, which you hardly ever find out in the wild considering how flimsy they are. Heck, some of my Super Nintendo games that I bought brand new back in the day are kind of messed up now, just from normal wear and tear. Imagine how they held up in the care of people who weren’t anal-retentive about their game collections.
More information on each of these finds, below.
Discovered at one of the Bay Area’s dirtiest flea markets, a few Dreamcast games. This is why you should always look in boxes of CDs, or in the music CD racks at thrift stores, because more often than not you’ll find at least one game. Of course, finding a game case is only the first step. You then have to make sure to open it up and check if the game is in there, and whether or not the disc has been scratched beyond oblivion — especially in the case of the Dreamcast’s fragile GD-ROMs.
Miraculously, considering that these had been unceremoniously dumped into a cardboard box, the discs were all nearly perfect. Metropolis Street Racer, Vanishing Point, and Worms World Party are all about as rare as U.S. Dreamcast releases get. That is to say, they’re not that difficult to get a hold of. But at $5 for all four of these — total, not each — well worth it.
Later that weekend, I was actually running late for a dinner, but there was a Goodwill between me and the restaurant. “What could it hurt to poke my head in?” I thought. As it turns out, it was worth the brief social faux pas, as there was a copy of *Pac-Attack *for Super NES sitting in there for $5. I’m serious, this thing is in near-perfect condition. I added it to the small stack of Super Nintendo games that I’ve been able to find out here. Also new to the collection are Gods and Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose, which were about $2 each.