Flea Market Finds - Original Nintendo Chest (1988)

I finally made it out to the flea market for the first time this year. I found a remarkable Nintendo chest (1988) that I never expected I would run into. I'll go over all the deals I found, games I bought, and give you the prices and values of what I picked up.

I woke too late on Saturday to make it to the flea market so I decided to just go to the thrift stores instead. I didn't find too many great deals but I did still manage to pick up a few games. At the first thrift store, as I was walking up to the games, a guy was directly in front of me and he darted right for the gaming section. It's the type of thing that happens when you go to these kinds of places later in the day. You'll rarely find any great game deals if you don't make it to the stores within a half hour of them opening.

Thrift Store Pickups - Total Cost $5 - Approx. Value=$35
Age of Empires III ( PC )
Product Number 03 ( Gamecube )

Next I stopped at a used game store that I used to get great deals on Nintendo games all the time. The owner apparently hired some employees so this time I was unable to negotiate any prices. I noticed that they had nearly zero NES and boxed NES games, so I asked why they didn't have them anymore. The guy basically said that they are now putting all of their boxed and valuable stuff on eBay now. This pretty much means I won't be stopping at this store anymore in the future.

Used Game Store Pickups - Total Cost $10 - Approx. Value: $10
Advent Rising ( Xbox )
Too Human ( Xbox 360 )
Overlord: Minions ( Nintendo DS )

I woke up bright and early Sunday morning, grabbed a coffee and picked up my brother on my trip out to the flea market. The place was far more packed than I had ever seen in the past and since I hadn't come to a flea market in over a year or more I was quite surprised at the size and crowd. As I was walking around the rows, I ran into a lady who was selling an NES with about 8 games including Super Mario Bros. 1, 2, & 3. Mario 3 was boxed. That wasn't even what caught my interest though. Below the other games, I saw a light grey cartridge. I took a look and it was obviously just a hack cart or something and it apparently had 64 games on it. It had no label or anything so even though I figured it wasn't worth anything, it was unique. I asked the lady if she'd sell me it separately and she said she couldn't split it up so I passed on it.

Before leaving the flea market, I stopped back and managed to talk to her husband who said he didn't want to split up the set of Mario games. He let me purchase the grey cart and I was on my way. I wrote an article on the strange grey Nintendo cart listing which games were on it.

I also ran into a game my friend has been telling me to look into for a while called Khet. The game is based around guiding your laser to the final point of the board. You arrange your pieces which are mirrors to reflect and guide your laser beam around your opponent in order to win the game. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun so I can't wait to play it.

Next I ran into a guy selling a loose Magnavox Odyssey 2 (already have 2 boxed consoles) and 7 boxed games. The games were in great shape so I wanted to buy only the games but once again, the seller wouldn't split them up. I offered the guy $10 for the games and he said $20 for the entire set. I probably would have done this price but I figured I would leave and come back to see if he'd drop the price or decide to split them up.

As I was walking away, I saw something I never expected. It was an original 1988 Nintendo wooden chest. On each side of the chest it had original artwork from each of the Super Mario games (1, 2, & 3) as well as art from Zelda I & II. I knew once I saw this I just had to get it. The guy said he wanted $45 for it so I managed to get him to do $55 for the Nintendo chest and all the Odyssey stuff.

Flea Market Pickups - Total Cost $66 - Approx. Value: $150-200
Original Nintendo Chest
NES grey hacked cartridge
Khet (Board Game)
Magnavox Odyssey 2 Console
Alpine Skiing! (Odyssey 2)
Football (Odyssey 2)
Las Vegas Blackjack (Odyssey 2)
Showdown in 2100 A.D.! (Odyssey 2)
Speedway! / Spinout! / Crypto-Logic! (Odyssey 2)
SubChase!/Armored Encounter! (Odyssey 2)
UFO! (Odyssey 2)