Seriously, I did. This weekend showed me good fortune! And I got to spend the day with Morrie again!
Killer haul, am I right?
So at the start of the day, I do what I normally do, and I drove down to the grocery store to get a drink, as I normally am not ready for breakfast when I head out the door, but I like to have a nice cool Orange Juice.
As we drove out the parking lot, Juices in hand, Morrie asked me if I had seen the sale right next to the store as we were driving in. Just as I start to say "No," I see it on the right side. A local auto garage was hosting a Garage Sale. We parked, hopped out, and found what were probably our best items of the day.
This kickass pair of swords is definitely well constructed (insofar as cheap, display swords go.) The one looks kind of silly with its nonsensical edges and points. But at $5 each, it's a fantastic little find for a guy with nerf swords and axes hanging above his homebrew D&D map.
But that's not all!
I also got a bucket of lego, also for $5! I rarely spend $15 at a single garage sale, much less the first sale of the day. But this was more than worth the cost.
After that, we continued on our way down to the town of Sumner, which tends to be a really good place to find stuff. Along the way though we passed another sign, which we followed for several miles up steep roads, eventually finding several items. Among them, two DVDs of movies which, while certainly not my favorite of all time, were worth the $1.
We also got a Gameboy game, and Morrie got a T-shirt for work, but I'll talk about those later.
We eventually did make it down to Sumner, where I found this:
I've actually already got one of these, and let me tell you, they have fantastic power behind those little foam darts. more than I've ever seen a nerf gun have. I've got no problem adding another to my collection--though truth be told Morrie is the driving force behind our nerf gun stockpile, not me.
I think I paid $3 or $4 for this. I might have haggled a little harder, but I felt bad about accidentally shooting one of the darts onto their roof. (in my defense, why the hell did they load it?)
We found a few other things in the area, among them, WONDER WOMAN MUG!
I'm a huge fan of Greek mythology, so it should be no surprise that Wonder Woman quickly became one of my favorite comic book super heroes. The mug is pretty killer too. It's not a single image which repeats around the mug, but a bunch of different images, which is cool. It will be used for tea!
One of the sales we had in Sumner was almost a jackpot find for me. There was a huge box of NES games, including Metroid, and Snake's Revenge. Unfortunately, the guy running the sale seemed to be frustratingly stuck on the idea of making a ton of money off of his possessions. He had printed out price sheets off the internet for the value of the games, and expected an offer "in that neighborhood."
There's nothing wrong with making money, or hell, not even anything wrong with finding out what your items are worth prior to selling them. But if I'm going to pay $10 for an NES copy of Metroid, I'm going to buy it from the same place he got his prices: online.
As a guy running a Garage Sale, he's not selling guarantees, he's not offering a return policy, and if he screws me over there's jack shit I can do about it. In 30 seconds of searching, I found an NES copy of Metroid on eBay for $6.99, from a guy with 100% positive feedback. One, I might add, without the permanent marker writing on the back of it.
*end rant*
I did end up buying a few things from him. Morrie wanted this backpack, which I got for $8 (haggled down from $10) and four PS2 controllers which I got for a dollar a piece. Those things tend to break after awhile, and it's getting hard to find them.
The shirt, by the way, is the one I mentioned Morrie getting earlier in the day.
For the record, despite my frustrations with the guy, he was perfectly nice. He even took care of Morrie's coat after she forgot it there. (had to try on the backpack.) Additionally, some of his NES games were legitimately wroth a bundle. He had a number of the old unlicensed Christian games which were published for the NES. And those are wicked rare.
I should also mention that I ran into my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Ron whilst at this sale, which was a fun coincidence.
MOVING ON!
The rest of the day was pretty damned slow, which is alright. It happens from time to time. Though there were a few more good finds.
I found one absolutely KILLER garage sale out on some back roads just off Orting Highway (one of my main hunting grounds) but everything there was something I'm currently just not prepared to purchase. I would love, as an example, a nice air compressor, or a table saw, or a hunting bow, or a circa 1980 arcade game table...but not only can I not afford it, I can't store it.
On the way back down that road though, I did finally pick up a few NES games:
The one on your left is Kid Icarus, now famous due to his appearance in one of the Super Smash Bros games. If you've never played it, it's a pretty fun, largely vertical platformer. Nintendohard at its finest. On the right is Crystalis, which I had never heard of before. But when they accepted my offer for fifty cents per game, I wasn't gonna be too picky.
Turns out Crystalis is a pretty awesome game, with a large fan base. I still don't have a working NES, but I look forward to playing it. I thoroughly enjoyed the speed-run I watched.
At the bottom is the Gameboy game I mentioned picking up earlier, from the same sale I got the DVDs from. Dragon Warrior Monsters 2! It may be a Pokemon ripoff, but I love the Dragon Warrior series, and I have fond childhood memories of playing the first game in that series.
Center is Final Fantasy Seven, which is a highly overrated game which I love just as much as every other person who overrates it. My copy is kinda scratched up, and these disks look like they might be in slightly better condition. Plus, my original copy is a "Greatest Hits" edition, which the collector in me doesn't want.
The last item is one I got at the same sale I got FFVII from, and I got it for free...the power pad:
This was a shitty idea when they came up with it, and it was poorly implemented, but I took it for two reasons.
First, I don't have one, and I'm enjoying the process of collecting old NES and SNES gaming equipment. It's fun for me.
Second, it was in a free pile out by the curb. Typically what that means is that if nobody takes it, it goes in the trash. Sentimental fool that I am, I have a hard time bearing the thought of a collectible item like this being lost forever.
And hell, if nothing else, they go for $10 on eBay.
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