Selling The Collection

June 30th, 2019

Yesterday I sold 6 game consoles and 152 games. For this I was paid a considerable amount of money, but it was like parting with a piece of my personal history.

In recent years the market value of ‘retro’ games has been skyrocketing. In particular certain systems and game genres have seen prices rise to borderline unbelievable levels. I own(ed) many of these, and therefore the value of my collection had risen as well.

Over the last few years I’ve written quite a few ‘My Collection‘ blog posts, and more than once as I set up the systems and spent a day playing I wondered if I’d ever want to play those particular games again. I questioned the wisdom of storing them away for another decade or more.

I still love games and still buy loads of them. In the last year or so I started to recognize that in all likelihood I wouldn’t be playing certain old ones ever again. Furthermore the collection was just too large (>1600 console games) and it was time to focus.

So I decided to sell. For this first wave I settled on six older systems, and all the games I had for them: Genesis, Sega-CD, Saturn, Dreamcast, Turbografx and XBox. Last week I sent a list to a local store I know and trust, and they quickly responded with a generous offer, which I accepted.

In total what I sold filled the seven boxes you see above. It took a few nostalgic hours to sort and pack them up and it took the two owners of the store another two hours to unpack and assess everything. They were astonished by the condition. One guy said he rarely sees any Sega-CD or Saturn games (from 20-25 years ago) without disc scratches: I sold him almost eighty, all in pristine condition complete with all packaging. Virtually everything I sold was the highest quality. I think they were more excited by the sale than I was!

Several of the games I sold are amongst the rarest on their systems. The one above (yes that’s the original receipt) they may sell for $800 or more, and I sold two others even more valuable. I hope they make good money on this sale, and I hope my games – some of which are ‘holy grails’ end up making other collectors very happy.

The guys told me I should become a streamer or write a book. They were amazed by my history as a gamer, the depth of my collection and the gaming knowledge I had. Also the fact I could give details about virtually every game including when and where I bought it as well as mini-reviews. But I’ve never collected for it’s own sake: every game I buy is simply because I want to play it.

Although I sold a lot of games, it represented less than 10% of my total collection. I’m still buying games of course, but going forward will increasingly concentrate on Nintendo and/or handheld systems. While I will very likely sell more of my collection, I can’t see myself ever parting with the (sizable) Gameboy/DS portion.

Am I sad about this? Do I feel regret? No I’m not and I don’t. I got a good price, I sold to a store that understands and respects the hobby and will find all my games new homes. I personally bought every one of the games myself, played them all, and cared for them for over two decades. They were precious to me but it was now time to pass them on. I hope their new owners love them as much as I did.

Posted in Collecting, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Time | Comments Closed

The Drive-In

June 27th, 2019

For about ten years now we’ve been going to a local drive-in many times during the summer.

We usually bring some food and snacks with us but always get the delicious French fries they sell as well. They sell all sorts of snacks and have an ice-cream stand as well.

We always try to arrive right when the gates open, which is 60-90 minutes before the first film. Time passes reading or playing phone games as we listen to the endlessly repeating tape of 1980s radio that they’ve been using as their intro forever.

It costs $10/person for two movies and for the low price we frequently see movies we’d never go and see at the cinema. They do a decent job of pairing films by genre/rating and nights with children’s or Marvel films always the most popular.

Originally the picture was a little fuzzier and darker than a normal cinema but they upgraded to a digital projector a few years ago and now it’s sharp and bright. The audio is broadcast on FM radio and is super-clear and perfectly synced. It’s obviously not as fancy as a cinema, but it’s perfectly adequate for all but the most special films.

Of course it’s outdoors, which means the weather sometimes gets in the way. I love when it rains (KLS doesn’t!) but we’ve had a few gigantic thunderstorms over the years that made it seem like we were watching a movie underwater! But the best was the evening with fog so thick we could barely see the screen. It was funny, but we left early 🙂

Last week I noticed that I’d never blogged the drive-in despite a decade of attendance. We attend so frequently now we almost prefer it to the normal cinema and may even buy the season pass in future years. If you’ve still got a drive-in near you, why not go and enjoy seeing a movie under the stars!

Posted in Movies | Comments Closed

My Collection: Saturn

June 21st, 2019

In late 1994 Sega of Japan launched the Saturn console, their long-awaited followup to the Megadrive. Sega was starting to struggle in the market after the failure of the Sega-CD and 32X addons, and their hope was the Saturn would fight off the looming threat of Sony’s entrance into the home console market. As history now tells us, it didn’t.

I bought my Saturn on the day of US launch: May 11 1995. Famously Sega launched ‘early’ with only one day advance notice and while I was planning on buying a Saturn I never expected I’d have it in my house several months before the originally stated launch date. As we now know the early launched failed: there weren’t enough compelling games ready and consumers weren’t interested.

But I loved the Saturn. Mostly this was for the very reason it failed: the Saturn was a machine that was very poor at 3D graphics, but very good at 2D. This meant it got all the ports of Capcom arcade fighters, which I greatly enjoyed back then. For me therefore, the Saturn was an arcade in my home.

That’s a portion of my collection. I quickly got my Saturn modified to play Japanese games and it became my intro to ‘import gaming’. I played the hell out of the above, and loved them all.

That’s the remainder of my current collection, and back in the day I had more but traded some in during the late 90s. I bought more games for my Saturn than for any other non-Nintendo system.

And it wasn’t just 2D fighters. The above show Quake and an Egyptian turned FPS called Powerslave which is easily the better game. I also bought driving games, puzzle games, RPGs (alas not enough were released) and all sorts of other weird games (such as a horse racing simulator). During the failing days of the system I bought just about anything I saw for cheap, which was often as little as $5 brand new! I didn’t want to see this console die.

The Saturn was never a great success, and it laid the groundwork for Sega’s ultimate departure from the hardware market. But it’s treasured by retro gamers and as such some of its rarer games now fetch astonishing prices. Collectively the three shown above would probably fetch $1500 or more, which is more than I paid in total for my system and all the games. Collecting for the Saturn these days is a rich man’s hobby!

The above shows a save file I found when I was looking through my games earlier. Over 22 years ago, and 12:30 am no less. Younger me played well into the night! In the mid to late 90s I often played my Saturn much more than my PlayStation or N64 and my save files go all the way up to 2000.

But as with all consoles it would eventually be obsoleted – followed up by the Dreamcast in 1999 – and less than a year later I packed mine away and put it into ‘deep’ storage. Here’s where I usually say I had fun looking through my collection but it’s going back into storage for another XX years, never to be sold… but not this time…

Because this time things are different, since for the first time ever I’m very seriously considering selling a portion of my collection. Indeed I’ve started the process, and whether or not it actually happens depends on a few factors, not the least being the offer I receive.

Rest assured if it does happen you’ll be able to read about it here.

Posted in Collecting, Games, History, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Retro, Time | Comments Closed

Metropolis

June 17th, 2019

I visited New York for two days!

I came down just for shopping, and stayed the night because I found a (relatively) cheap hotel room.

The city is bustling with tourists and the weather was overcast but thankfully not too hot.

It’s pride month and rainbows are everywhere. The muted light made them pop.

I walked and walked and walked and visited many shops. I bought lots of things I didn’t need and some that maybe no-one needs!

In the evening a light rain fell and the colours of the city were beautiful.

But I was too tired to go out after dark to see the lights in all their glory. I fell asleep writing postcards!

This morning I went to Central Park Zoo. It’s tiny but was worth the visit. I’ll take KLS next time.

Then I visited the Alice in Wonderland statue in the park before more shopping which drained me of all my energy.

Now it’s time for the train home. I’m so tired I’ll probably nap, but I had fun and already look forward to my next trip to ‘the city’ 🙂

Posted in Trip | Comments Closed

Gamebook Update

June 14th, 2019

Late last year, motivated by the blog post I had made referencing it, I bought this:

It wasn’t too expensive (~$30) but took about 3 months to arrive from Japan. It’s the third of three Fighting Fantasy reprints from a decade ago, and since I had the other two I naturally had to own this one as well. This is now my fifth different imprint of House Of Hell!

As with the others the player character is now a young girl and the art (and text?) showcases this. House of Hell is a notably grim gamebook – inspired by the darker elements of 1970s gothic horror – and our poor protagonist gets herself into some tight spots in this book. I bet in the Japanese it’s a good read.

The adverts in the back suggest that Hobby Japan also printed Dungeons & Dragons manuals with an ‘anime girl’ makeover. I’ll keep my eyes open for one of them in the future…

The above is an ‘Esper Gamebook’ published by the same publishers of FF books in Japan. It’s very similar in design and style, but seems to be more of a choose-your-own-adventure than a system-based RPG book.

I can find very little about this online (it’s not on Demians for instance) and there’s no adverts or listings of any other titles at the back so maybe it was a one-off? Based strictly on the art I’m guessing the story is Akira inspired, although it contains androids and aliens as well. I bet it’s crazy!

The above is a real treasure, and I paid about $40 for it. It’s called The Four Kings and is the fourth of four ‘original gamebooks’ published by the Japanese licensor. It uses the standard Fighting Fantasy system and character sheet, and probably plays the same as well. Aside from the fact it’s not one of the original series titles, it’s essentially an FF book.

Much like the other Japanese releases from that time (this book was published in 1990, just after Sky Lord came out in Japan) it uses the Japanese numbering and writing (vertical text) system throughout and even google translate has trouble with it. I doubt therefore I’ll ever be reading it. But as a curio it’s as good as they get, and I’d love one day to find the earlier three.

It’s also loaded with advertisements for other books at the end, including all preceding 32 FF titles, all the Advanced FF books, various related titles (such as Maelstrom) and something quite unusual:

Look at the ad on the left. Google translate tells me the book is called ‘Cube of Tantalon‘ and is a JP-exclusive Advanced FF module! Here’s the translated synopsis:

“Shimomura House Keiko & Group SNE’s first fantasy RPG scenario! The Kingdom of Galantria has been repeatedly attacked by militant neighbors, and now the flag color of the front line has become worse and depressed. According to the court magistrate, if you get the “cube of equilibrium”, a mysterious item that is described in the book left by the former King Tantalon, you might save the kingdom of Galantria.”

King Tantalon, famous for his tasks perhaps?!? Sounds fascinating! This book is probably impossible to find these days, especially since it’s also seemingly nonexistent online, but it’ll go on my ‘list’ just in case I stumble upon it on a future trip to Japan 🙂

Posted in Books, Collecting, Gamebooks, Miscellaneous, Otaku | Comments Closed

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