Car boots, charity shops and amazing retro finds from your loft

[Gorf]

Today I turned down a scruffy game boy color for £40

 

Got a Frogger CGL tabletop thing for £2, not in the best condition, seconds later some big southern prat told the guy who sold me it he would have paid him £40 for it “as they go for an absolute fortune on eBay”

 

7:30am as I was arriving some lucky sod bought what looked like 2 mint boxed zx spectrums and 2 carrier bags full of tapes from an old biddy probably for a couple of quid “I’ve got a wii as well still in the car would you be interested in that too dear?” “Nah I’ve already got one of those”

[Camel]

What’s southern got to do with anything?

 

Boot sales do bring out the worst dickheads, I’ve found over the years.

[yakumo]

54 minutes ago, Gorf said:

Today I turned down a scruffy game boy color for £40

 

Got a Frogger CGL tabletop thing for £2, not in the best condition, seconds later some big southern prat told the guy who sold me it he would have paid him £40 for it “as they go for an absolute fortune on eBay”

 

7:30am as I was arriving some lucky sod bought what looked like 2 mint boxed zx spectrums and 2 carrier bags full of tapes from an old biddy probably for a couple of quid “I’ve got a wii as well still in the car would you be interested in that too dear?” “Nah I’ve already got one of those”

I had that Frogger, mom bought it for me from Dixons when I was 8 years. Had great memories wasting my weekends playing it. Need to source one again, but I remember they use chunky batteries.

[Gorf]

1 hour ago, Camel said:

What’s southern got to do with anything?

 

Boot sales do bring out the worst dickheads, I’ve found over the years.

Just painting a picture, imagine a loud Glaswegian on holiday in the North of Scotland

[ucci]

On 23/06/2022 at 13:26, X_2_0 said:

Oh you go to Calverton too? 
 

I used to go regularly but have only been a couple of times this year, It’s been quite small both times.

 

Are there any other boots in the area you go to? 

Colwick racecourse every Sunday at 830am and Gotham outdoor at 1pm. Both mere shadows of their former size but brings out the public. 

[X_2_0]

15 hours ago, ucci said:

Colwick racecourse every Sunday at 830am and Gotham outdoor at 1pm. Both mere shadows of their former size but brings out the public. 

I didn’t realise the Colwick one was back on, and always forget about the Gotham one.

 

Hucknall is my closest, it’s usually small\medium in size but is at least nearly always open. 

[Nathan Wind]

I finally got a Radica arcade stick for my original Xbox, so now I can enjoy all those delicious CoinOps arcade games properly. It’s a surprisingly nice, compact, chunky, clicky stick. Found it up in Stewarton at Forgotten Worlds which, although technically a shop, is set up like a car boot. Boxes of stuff on trestle tables to rummage through, shelves stacked untidily with all sorts of retro goodies. Also got Rallisport Challenge and Hunter the Reckoning for a couple of quid each. Would highly recommend a visit if you find yourself in or around Glasgow, although the owner has been doing the retro convention rounds for years and years so I’m sure many of you are already aware.

[teddymeow]

My in-laws had one of their cars on show at a transport festival and another owner and I got to talking about how she was looking to have a massive clear out of her son's gaming stuff.

 

He's autistic and has, over the years, amassed loads of stuff that he just wasn't interested in anymore.

 

I offered to help go through it all and see if any of it was worth money.

 

Spent a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago sorting through piles of stuff.

 

An unboxed N64 (with decent pad), a non-yellowed Dreamcast, a PSOne with LCD Screen (LCD still had the factory installed screen protector on it!!), a Master System 2, a fully boxed MD1 with Pele Soccer.

 

Over 125 PSOne games (mostly filler but Ghoul Panic jumped out at me), a stack of PS2 games (again, filler), fully boxed N64 games like Rocket, Glover, Space Station Silicon Valley, Lode Runner etc...

 

Hopefully she'll be able to get some decent cash for it. I was tempted by the N64 and DC but I'd barely play them.

 

For my trouble, she let me have these... Minty fresh and I'm super happy!!

 

[Spartan]

Today's finds

 

Xbox 360 250gb super slim + 2 pads and some games £22

Amazon echo wall clock new in box £5

 

Tamiya Thunder Dragon RC car boxed, vintage 1989 £25 (find of the month for me!)

 

 

 

 

[Quest]

1 hour ago, Spartan said:

Tamiya Thunder Dragon RC car boxed, vintage 1989 £25 (find of the month for me!)

 

PICS PICS PICS

[Spartan]

23 minutes ago, Quest said:

 

PICS PICS PICS

 

1989!

 

Needs a new transmitter antenna but this beast is staying with me for now. Absolutely rockets along. Some git tried to buy it whilst I was handing the money over to the seller.

[Wonderm]

That is beautiful 

[Quest]

[Spartan]

Ooosh

[T Pot]

Last booty for a month up our way and it was pretty shite. Maybe 25 stalls tops. 

 

Picked up a handful of PS2 games as I've setup the old chunky PS2 in the bedroom recently. Other than that, nowt. 

[Spartan]

The weekends plundering

 

Bundle off a house clearance guy, Xbox 360 slim and a Xbox E, e's got a dodgy laser, headphones and ps2 dual shock £25, Not bad, not great. 

 

High end 1990's Pioneer CD deck, kinect, few games, Amazon hd8 tablet, PS4 camera, 3 kindles, bunch of cables and miscellaneous electronics off a few different stalls £45ish. 

 

And a set of new front tires for my car. Wonderful 

[Gorf]

Hee haw gaming related for me from about 80 car boots 

 

It seems everything and anything retro is being hoovered up regardless of price nowadays, here’s an example:

 

2 boxed mega drive games, nothing rare, Alex Kidd and cool spot, pen on both boxes, they were on display for just a few seconds and I was the first to ask about them

 

£10 for one and £8 for the other were the prices the seller had clearly memorised from eBay, absolutely no discount for buying them both either, so I declined

 

Noticed they were gone about 2 minutes later

It’s got me thinking about doing my own car boot soon with some of my retro stuff in the attic if the prices are that good for ordinary stuff

[Spartan]

Anything older than PS2 is a rarity these days unless its yet another copy of Dance Dance Revolution on PS1

[SeanR]

Went trawling charity shops. Lots of copies of PES 2009, not much else.

 

and there’s a shop selling second hand video games.

 

I wonder where they get their stock?

[erhgiez]

An incredibly lucky find down the local junk shop. A WM-F28, it’s mint, has original headphones and sounds fantastic, close to cd quality sound.

 

 

[Alexlotl]

Wow. How was it packed? It's spookily well preserved. I'm amazed the headphone foam hasn't crumbled into dust.

 

I don't miss cassettes, and won't be participating in any revival, but I do kind of miss portable cassette players.

[Dig Dug]

Feel like this thread is slowly going to become more about retro tech than retro games. Makes a change from how frustrating retro gaming can be nowadays.

[erhgiez]

8 hours ago, Dig Dug said:

Feel like this thread is slowly going to become more about retro tech than retro games. Makes a change from how frustrating retro gaming can be nowadays.

I used to find loads of retro gaming stuff but it’s become so rare and hard to find that I’ve pivoted in what I now look for, otherwise a charity shop trawl or hunt ends in disappointment.

 

All the charity shops google everything to the eyeballs now and often games don’t even hit the shelves. There’s a few people in the area who seem to hit them each day when they open asking what new stock they have. There is even a guy on YouTube who records himself doing it!

 

The car boot sales still have good stuff but you have to beat the traders which is exhausting and turns my hobby into a chore. Anything not a sports game gets bought instantly. I had good luck a few times at the Nine Elms boot sale, it seemed unpicked which was nice.

 

To get things vaguely back on gaming track, this was a nice find - adventure game books - a very rare one! Mint and complete!

 

 

[Alexlotl]

Ooh, always wanted those two books as a kid, plus the mysterious Great Frieze.

 

I’ve seen a few of another series of Asterix game books which are the same size as the albums - I picked one up last year, but haven’t played it yet. 

 

I don't think I posted it here, but this was one of my better Charity Shop finds of the last 12 months - 20 Asterix books for £1 each.

 

 

I went home with 10 of them, leaving duplicates and things like Twelve Tasks which just aren't very good.

 

 

They seem to be mostly 1990s editions (a bit after my time) with not particularly pleasant uniform cover art. They also all have rubber stamps in the front indicating they were imported to Pakistan and sold there.

 

I've been trying to build a complete set from charity shops and car boot sales, and I think I only need 2-3 books now to finish the original unbroken run of 26.

[erhgiez]

Love Asterix and TinTin but don’t see too many in charity shops, would love a full set. My 4 year old daughter loves reading TinTin with me, so it’s always a highlight if we can find one, Asterix seems even rarer, great find!

[erhgiez]

19 hours ago, Alexlotl said:

Wow. How was it packed? It's spookily well preserved. I'm amazed the headphone foam hasn't crumbled into dust.

 

I don't miss cassettes, and won't be participating in any revival, but I do kind of miss portable cassette players.

It was just in a bag, No box unfortunately. The foam is replacement that I had from some knock off replicas that came with another Walkman I bought. The headphones came without the foam, probably disintegrated as you say.

 

You would be surprised at the sound quality out of this thing. My previous experience was with the cheapest of the cheap cassette player and terrible headphones from when I was a kid. If the tape is in good condition then the sound quality is close to cd, probably more akin to vinyl.

 

I might try and capture the sound and put it in the Cassette topic I made on the music forum.

[MikeBeaver]

Today the bootsale God's were smiling down on me... got a rathr lovely bundle of tat, I shall actually stick pictures up shortly.

OK, so my expectations are pretty poor these days, but started the morning with a PSOne and some games for a fiver, then a couple of stalls down, there was a chap with just junk, like a house clearance but grubbier... anyway, several 360, wii, DS and Gamecube games later, I then pull out a Spectrum Vega 😛

[MikeBeaver]

All that for the cheeky sun if £51 😳

[Ftsthe]

50 minutes ago, MikeBeaver said:

All that for the cheeky sun if £51 😳

that’s a fantastic haul! Congrats. Where did you pick it up? 
 

I’ve never heard of the bad boys game, I’ll look up some reviews right now! 

[MikeBeaver]

15 minutes ago, Ftsthe said:

that’s a fantastic haul! Congrats. Where did you pick it up? 
 

I’ve never heard of the bad boys game, I’ll look up some reviews right now! 

My local one, Friday Street in Suffolk, it's usually shit tbh, I half considered enjoying my hangover and staying in bed to play Xenoblade 3... glad I didn't now.

Oh, there was also Frankie Goes to Hollywood - Relax and Donna Summer - I Feel Love on 12" vinyl that I picked up, included in that price !!!