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

Cecil Kay

By Cecil Kay,
in Retro & Arcade Gaming

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BeeJay

BeeJay

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NOOOooo. Really. Dangit. I was hoping to fire up them up as I had never played the expansion and loooved playing the first one.

That's why I bought them again. I problem is with direct x. On install, it checks to see which version of direct x you have and tries to install 3 I think. Unfortuantely, if you have anything past about 5 it will not recognise that you have it and force you to quit the install.

You may be able to get round it somehow by changing the install file or something. All you'd have to do is cancel the dx check and I'm sure it'd work fine on, on xp at least.

I have a few other games that have the same issue.

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Alexlotl

Alexlotl

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I like the fact that whenever anyone in this thread is beaten to a purchase or just beats someone else to a purchase, the other is always a "trader".

Do they wear adverts for their Ebay Store on their hats, or are you just defining them as someone who's there every Sunday looking for old games/consoles? Wouldn't this define most of you?

Not trolling, just curious - I love this thread, lets me car boot vicariously :(

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BeeJay

BeeJay

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I like the fact that whenever anyone in this thread is beaten to a purchase or just beats someone else to a purchase, the other is always a "trader".

Do they wear adverts for their Ebay Store on their hats, or are you just defining them as someone who's there every Sunday looking for old games/consoles? Wouldn't this define most of you?

Not trolling, just curious - I love this thread, lets me car boot vicariously :(

I think by 'trader' most of us mean people who have their own stalls. Most of the gaming stuff at my boot that isn't bought by me ends up being bought by traders to put on their stall and later stuck on ebay. They're not shy about it.

They will get there early, park their cars in their selling spot and run around the boot looking for stuff to sell. Once they think that they've had a good enough search they'll set their own stalls up adding the stuff they've just bought.

I tend to drop in on their stalls before I leave the boot as generally they don't have a clue what they're buying.

Some of them get very worried now when I buy something from them as they suddenly worry that the item is worth a lot more than they just sold it for. It's quite fun to wind them up.

There are a couple of guys who sell every week who I would describe as gamers. The rest see games purely as a nice little earner.

EDIT: I think I am the only gamer who goes to my boot who doesn't have a stall. I very rarely see anyone else but the traders buying stuff. Then again, I'm always going home by the time it gets properly moving anyway.

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SeanR

SeanR

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do you give it all with the

"yes. I'd gladly pay <x amount> for this item" calmness

and then, when the transaction is completed turn to someone and say

"holy fuck! Look what I just got me for <x amount>, fucking BARGAIN! It's worth <amount Y> on eBay!"

within earshot of the trader?

I used to do that. :(

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BeeJay

BeeJay

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do you give it all with the

"yes. I'd gladly pay <x amount> for this item" calmness

and then, when the transaction is completed turn to someone and say

"holy fuck! Look what I just got me for <x amount>, fucking BARGAIN! It's worth <amount Y> on eBay!"

within earshot of the trader?

I used to do that. :(

:( I would never do such a thing. Another good one is:

When you are at a stall with a trader (both looking to buy), pick up a random crap game and tell them how rare it is. That you haven't seen one in years. Then say "but I've got a copy already so I don't need it". It's great to see their brains trying to process it all. They hardly ever buy it buy it's funny to see them all confused. Of course, some of them are so focussed that you can't get them out of the zone at all.

This weekend I was looking through some xbox games when one of the traders asked the woman how much this leather jacket was. She responded with £10. He offered her £5 and she told to go jump. When he'd gone she explained to her mate that he was a trader and she'd happily let it go for £5 but not to see it turn up on someone else's stall 2 minutes later at twice the price.

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Anthony Taylor

Anthony Taylor

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To be honest, I'm getting a little disillusioned with car boots at the moment. It kinda seems pointless when traders are buying up everything at 6am and trying to flog it on at ridiculous prices. This morning I had some woman tell me a Tomita album was worth a tenner, and another trader tell me F-Zero on the SNES was really rare so he needed at least £15 for it. It's just starting to wind me up, because if I'd been able to get into the boot early before the doors open like those sods can, then I would have got those things for a few quid.

I wrote a lengthy reply to your post this morning just as my pc decided to crash.

Anyway my advice would be to either pay for a stall (£10?) which will give you a fighting chance of finding some decent retro games or, if the potential finds don't justify the expense then look elsewhere for other boot sales and jumble sales.

The former option might sound ridiculous but if its a large cat boot the cost of a stall would be made up with 1-2 finds.

I pay £5 for an early bird pass to a local car boot and its always been worth the cost - I got a ps2 with 13 games for £18, a GBA SP for £3, an N64 with 4 games and 2 controllers for £8, 4 LP's Inc the Beatles White Album for £10, some hamster accessories for £2 (worth £10-12) and some decent ps1/dc games yesterday.

How big is the boot and how many traders are hoovering up the goods? If there are only a few traders you could potentially do quite well.

Alot of car boots start at 5am and alot of games buyers are there before any sellers are, the result being alot of competition so you might even have an advantage.

Personally though, i'd probably look elsewhere. I'd be very frustrated if I had to put up with that every weekend.

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El Pibe

El Pibe

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As others have said, the traders are easily spotted. At my local boot there are quite a few and they run along the rows shouting the same thing at all the sellers - 'Got any mobile phones, DVDs, or computer games?' If the answer is 'Yes' on any count, then they stop and have a look. It always makes me laugh when some old dear says 'Oh yes!' roots around in the boot for 10 minutes, whilst the trader frantically scans the other cars nearby, and then produces an old cassette tape or the oldest, largest, and most battered mobile phone in the county! ;)

A few of them move in packs and have two-way radios that they use to ensure nothing is missed or the same areas covered.

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deKay

deKay

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Seems ridiculous doesn't it. But i'd rather pay 5 quid and have 1-2 traders to compete with than paying 50p and having half of britain diving in sellers cars when they pull up. Its a refreshing change of pace to be honest.

Hang on - you'd have to pay entry to get in anyway?!

What sort of backward county do you live in? Do they charge on entry to McDonalds there too?

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Anthony Taylor

Anthony Taylor

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Hang on - you'd have to pay entry to get in anyway?!

What sort of backward county do you live in? Do they charge on entry to McDonalds there too?

Most car boots charge for entry, its anything from 50p to a quid usually.

If I were to go to Mcdonalds I would be making a purchase which is where they would make their profit. If the food was 'free' then an entry fee would be sensible.

On the other hand I don't make any purchases within a car boot that benefits the organisers.

Rather they make money from charging buyers and sellers an entry fee. Its surely not a backward concept to charge for providing a service to those two groups of people.

A family member organises the occasional car boot in Lancashire and she says it can be quite expensive to do regularly as well...

Oh, and yes in the 'backward' confines of West Yorkshire we do have Mcdonalds :lol:

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Spartan

Spartan

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Hang on

Some of you PAY to go into a carboot? Just to buy?

Jesus wept, in nearly 18 years of going, I have NEVER had to pay to go into one and would never on principal.

The organisers make enough from charging £5 a car for sellers

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El Pibe

El Pibe

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Of the boots I go to, the council run one charges nothing for buyers.

The others are all in fields and charge 50p for parking/entrance.

However, there is one that charges £1 and that becomes £2 if you want to go into before 10am (buyers set-up from 8am and so it's pretty much £2 to get in for anyone that is interested in buying something good). I stopped going to that one in the end and found a new one to go to. £2 is cheeky, I think.

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BeeJay

BeeJay

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This weeks buys: (not all car boot)

dscf0897bq9.jpg

Found the alien breed games, frontier and x-com at a local charity shop. The amiga games are mint.

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Got really lucky with the PS1 games this week and the SNES maximum carnage I found today for £1.50 at the boot.

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God hand is fun but blooming hard, as is superstar baseball. Really enjoyed neo contra too, glad I bought that.

dscf0900na5.jpg

Family guy first 4 seasons for £10 all in. Also picked up a big box of duplo lego for my daughter.

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