"Flea Market Hunting for Idiots" by Quazick

Finding video games at a reasonable place at retail stores such as GameStop or Funcoland has become very hard in recent years, so most of us vintage gaming guys have resorted to going to yard sales and flea markets for the best deals. I will attempt to show you the best way to spot good and not so good sellers at yard sales, flea markets, and other non-retail places.

The Dumb Redneck.

Ah yes .. the dumb redneck who sits on 900 SMB/DH and Combat carts and tries to sell them for 9 bucks each. I try my best to stay away from these idiots and even harder not to scream at them.... Sometimes you can talk them down and most of the time they'll be selling popular games at high prices and sell the real rare items for dirt cheap.

You be nice!

I have always found being super nice to old ladies will get you a nice deal. I've had some of my BEST finds this way (Phantasy Star, SMS MIB $8.00)

Vendors suck.

I have had so many problems with flea market vendors it's not even funny.. What they do is buy games from people for about 50 cents and turn around and sell them for about 10 dollars because "That's the internet price". And don't even think about buying an NES Top loader from a flea market vendor because it will cost above the eBay prices and no games, no dog bone controller, usually very dirty and no warranty. And from my personal experiences they are usually not very helpful and gloat about how much they will sell "rare" items for which always makes me very mad. Also I would never buy the following items from anyone at a flea market either:

-CD Based Games
-Systems with no hook-ups (Depends on how cheap it is)
-Carts with messed up labels
-Carts that haven't been tested

Talk them down.

If they say something along the lines of, "It goes for this much on eBay." or "It was 'insert price here' when I bought it" atleast try to get them to lower the price. Sometimes it's successful and sometimes it's not. I have had them say everything from "Oh okay... I guess I can let it for 'insert lower value here'" to "Are you kidding my friend told me it's worth big bucks." and if you're feeling daring reply with "Then sell it on eBay not at a yard sale or flea market!"

If you follow these rules you should have a pretty nice hunt and even find something!

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