Garage Sale Finds Weeks of March 28 and April 4

Welcome to another installment of my Garage Sale Adventures. I didn't post last week since I didn't find much. But I did hit a few sales and picked up a few shovelware PS2 games and one Wii game for $1 each. I spent $4 and about an hour of my time.

This weekend was better. I saw a sale a few miles from where I live that listed PS1/PS2/Dreamcast stuff for sale. I knew I had to go for the Dreamcast stuff. The garage sale wasn’t busy when I got there around 8 am. I saw the white Dreamcast on a table and with the system was 2 controllers, a joystick, VMU and a mic.

The guy wasn’t certain if the Dreamcast worked. He said he looked at prices online and said it was worth $40 but I could have it for $10. I gave him the money and he pointed out he had a PS2 as well.

I checked another box and it was a PS2 slim with a handful of games. My PS2 slim had just stopped reading discs this week and although this slim was a little dirty, it was better overall condition of my ps2 slim. I paid the man $20 for the PS2 Slim, 8 games, two wireless PS2 controllers, 2 wired controllers, and all the hookups. I didn't really want to haggle since the Dreamcast was a great score, but thinking back I might have gotten the PS2 for $10 as well.

As I was leaving, another person running the sale mentioned they put out the DC games on another table. I checked the table and the games were mostly common stuff, 21 titles in all. Most of them are complete. The best games of the bunch were Seaman, Grandia II, Sonic Adventure, and Crazy Taxi.

I went to another sale that had N64/PS3/360 games but the seller wanted market price for PS3/360 games. He wanted $10 for Black Ops 2, $10 for Uncharted 1, $10 for Rage, but $3 for Deus Ex HR and $3 for Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City. I have played most of the games he had. The steelbook for Raccoon City was cool for the 360 but other than that I didn't feel the urge to buy anything.

I asked about the N64 games and he mentioned he had sold them all earlier and they were commons. He did mentioned he had purchased a $10 copy of Conker for N64 and was selling it for $100. This might explain some of his prices and he also took the time to tell me he was getting back into retro gaming. I wanted to ask him was he getting back into this as a reseller or collector?

I am planning to keep the PS2 slim. The rest of the games will be trade fodder on 99gamers or CAG. I’m going to sell my broken PS2 slim or send it to a Gamers Lounge staffer to mess around with. As for the Dreamcast, I already have a console in great shape. I’m going to keep a few games, but the rest will be traded.

Garage sale tip of the week, don't be afraid to use CIF, cash in your face. Often times sellers may have a price listed. A good example was that PS2. With it priced at $20, I may have taken out $15 and shown the seller and made an offer. Cash motivates people, and this method has often worked in my favor.