Gism Butter

OK, I haven’t blogged about my videogame finds at the local flea market(s). I parenth’ that ‘s’ because there’s only one other flea market at play here.  The singular, amazing, Laney College flea market is STILL the champion of videogame treasure mining. But the other flea market at play here is the West Winds flea, which is 7-days a week, and can be seen from 880 near the Coliseum. West Winds is really ugly, and I’d only been there once before. I was turned off by the shear number of illegally imported birds at this flea back when I first went there in… 2003?

I returned today, and it was actually awesome. A much better experience than my previous visit. It’s now like a smaller Laney flea, but with more homeless guys selling dumpstered shit. The first such homeless dood I came upon actually had 3 Neo Geo Pocket carts in plastic cases, littered amongst a tangle of cell phone batteries, cables, and  power adapters. He also had some minidiscs. I bought all four carts for $1 each.

Mystery time! See those carts? Notice that there are two copies of Faselei, same handwriting, same pen? I bought the lower copy of Faselei, a Neo Geo Pocket Color game about giant robots blowing shit up, at the Laney flea from the lady who bought the forfeit storage locker of an ex-EGM editor last year. Also, Faselei was never released in the U.S.! Today, I found these other four carts, all obviously labeled by the same hand at the same time. Wow! WTF? OMFG, O’Rly? Ya’rly!

The other thing I found today, at West Winds, were these two games, in-box, above. Wizards & Warriors was a real find, but I had to pay $10 for it. The guy had more, and would not budge on the price. This was the only game he had that was worth a damn. Obviously, Rare is the reason I bought it, not necessarily the… frustrating gameplay. Great game though it was, a lot of people resent this title. Oh, and Road Avengers hit my soft spot because it was also a Laserdisc arcade game. Of course, the box it trashed, and it wasn’t even the right disc in the box. It was Blackhole Assault. Ick. Whatever, $5 got me the Sega CD game, and a killed cutout robot project kit that produced a 17″ mecha. Fuck  yeah.

Now, it saddens me to say this, but the reason all this crap was at the West Winds was likely that some poor geek had died. Some of these guys make their livings cleaning out houses. Sometimes those of dead people. The guy who sold me the bot and the Sega CD game had obviously found a load of stuff from a geek, because he also had lots of sci-fi toys, and a scale model Runabout.

The above manuals, and everything else on this page, came from the Laney Flea market. It’s still the best, remember. Best flea in the country for finding videogaming treasures. Anyway, I found this bundle of manuals for $5 a while back. hadn’t photographed it yet. Now, thanks to the manual and reg cards, I have a complete boxed copy of Ocarina of Time. Hellz yeah.

Time to play “Can you see?” Can you see the first game I ever bought at Laney? It’s the most valuable NES cart in the above picture. Everything else was purchased there for peanuts. Hell, even that first NES cart was bought for $4. Can you imagine? Dragon Warrior 3 for $4.00?! Oops, gave it away.
The only thing I have to say here is that the Bicycling game, Challenge II for NES, was given to me by our dear friend Jennifer “bleux.” And she is now a mommie! Oh! Also note the Atari Computer version of Donkey Kong, which that dood wrote about.

Nothing to see here. Move along. Evidently the sealed Metroid and the SMB Famicom disks are worth nothing. Nintendo dumped huge amounts of these disks into the market in the 90′s, and it is not uncommon to see them, still, for sale in electronics stores in Japan. Poo. I still have a sealed copy of Metroid, mutha fucka. That ex-EGM editor was kind enough to let me keep it, even after I offered to return it because I forensically determined it had come from his lost locker. What a nice dood.

Random Atari documents and some manuals. Just stuff I find or buy at Laney.

These are the only two Game & Watches I have. Poo. I want more.

I actually try to own one or two shares of the major game companies, in order to get the good stuff they send out. it’s not really good stuff. But don’t you think someone will want to see this prospectus again some day? It’s TakeTwo’s message to shareholders explaining the EA buy-out that never happened. Some day I’ll photo all the other such reports I have. Activision/Blizzard has already started sending out really well done yearly reports. Totally worth collection. EA is boring as shit, BTW.

OK, final item, and probably the favorite of my collection. This is a signed copy of the Japanese Katamari Damacy soundtrack. It was signed specifically for me (though not “to” me) by Keita Takahashi and Yu Miyake. There’s a story there, but it’s for another time. Thank you, and good night!