Alf

This past Sunday October 21st Nintendo Joe and I hit up a local Retro Video Game Swap. This time around Nintendo Joe was just shopping; hoping to scoop up the last few affordable NES carts towards his goal of a full NES set. While I setup shop with our mutual friend Flavio to both buy and sell.

Flavio is a bit of a Titan when it comes to selling. He’s constantly buying large lots of games and re-selling at these kinds of events. Over the years he has really helped me bolster my Sega Master System collection. In fact, for years now he has become my only source for Master System games.

If you’re hunting for Retro Video Games be sure to visit Falvio’s Facebook page.

This Sunday was no exception; for $110 CAD (~$84 USD) Flavio sold me a complete and truly mint condition ALF for the Sega Master System.

Occasionally Flavio and I would take a break from our sales table and leave the other to man our station solo so that we could each browse around and do some game hunting. On my first go around the event floor I found a really excellent condition boxed Star Fox for the Super Nintendo. It was missing the manual but everything else was there, the condition was fantastic and it was selling for $25 CAD (~$20 USD). But because I didn’t bring any money with me I promised my self I would come back and snap it up once I had sold some stuff.

I had a few common Genesis games and some consoles for sale and it didn’t take long for a few items to sell. I dashed back for my Star Fox as soon I had the cash in hand.

Part of my excitement was because I knew I had a Star Fox manual at home so now this excellent game is complete and close to pristine.

When I was paying for Star Fox I saw this same seller had a complete Death and Return of Superman for the Genesis for $80 CAD (~$60 USD). That was about $20 less than the best I’ve ever seen for this title; so again I felt some urgency to sell more stuff.

When all was said and done I had sold a Model 1 Sega Genesis, a Sega Dreamcast, an original Xbox, some old Taiwan bootleg carts, an At Games handheld console and a few common Genesis games… and maybe a bit more that I’m forgetting about. All in, everything I sold was enough to pay for Alf, Star Fox and Superman and still left me with $70.

As we were nearing the end of the show and when things had really died down a lot, I found it. Something I so very rarely find at these local game swaps. A Japanese Sega Mega Drive game. I love these things! And this one game just happened to be a fantastic title that was not among my 200+ Japanese Sega Mega Drive game collection; Bare Knuckle III (or Streets of Rage III on the Genesis).

And with $70 burning a hole in my wallet I was a bit concerned when I saw the price tag of $200 CAD (~$150 USD). The event was done and there was no more time for selling. So I asked they guy selling Bare Knuckle III if he wanted to check out my table and see if I had anything he wanted to trade for it. Honestly, I was a bit concerned when he glanced over my remaining wares, looked at me and said ‘how much cash you got?’. This guy was going to clean me out. Straight up I told him I had $70. So he suggested my two Nintendo DS Lites, Mario Kart and New Super Mario Bros. (both for the DS) and my $70 cash. I did a lightening quick calculation in my head trying to compare the total value of my stuff next to his game. I panicked and all I could process was Bare Knuckle III + Bare Knuckle III = awesome. So, I said ‘awesome’ and he took my stuff.

Did you know that Bare Knuckle III came with a ‘move list’ sheet that is separate from the manual?

Now that the transaction is done I can more casually reconstruct what happened. I remember that I was trying to sell my two boxed DS Lites as two bundles; each coming with one of the Mario games. My price was $60 CAD for a completed Boxed DS Lite and one complete Mario game. So both bundles had a value of $120 plus my $70 cash for a total of $190 CAD. Had I found an interested buyer there is a good chance I might have been talked down to $50 for each bundle. So the cost of my Bare Knuckle III comes in at somewhere between $170 and $190 CAD (~$130 – $145 USD). Which is not amazing, not terrible but just about right. And I do like that I managed to unload some gaming stuff instead of paying for it all in cash.