In May there was an outdoor rummage sale my wife wanted to check out (she collects a few odd things too). For whatever reason we couldn't get out of the house on time and ended-up getting there when some sellers were starting to pack-up. So it was a short outing but I managed to find a copy of Jeopardy for the Sega Genesis mixed-in with a box of VHS tapes.

A couple weeks later there was a neighborhood garage sale I decided to check out. At the very least I figured it would be a good excuse to take a long walk on a summer morning. At the first house I stopped at they had Virtua Racing for a whooping $2. I say "whopping" because it originally retailed for $90!? Actually playing this would be a royal pain though because I'd have to unhook the 32X to do so. There's an extra chip in the cartridge that doesn't work when played through the 32X or something. I guess Sega assumed that anyone who owned a 32X would have the 32X version which was $30 cheaper.  

Went out for a quick garage sale run one morning when the forecasted temperature was something over 90. Only stopped at 2-3 sales that day but found a couple Super Nintendo games for a quarter each. Rival Turf has the dorkiest artwork of any cartridge I own. Vanilla Ice has more street creds than the pair of tools on that label.

Same neighborhood as the last two games.. this was an "unadvertised" garage sale. No signs with arrows pointing to the house, just a couple tables under a gazebo and a crude sign in the lawn. It was mostly junk, toys that looked like they survived a fire. However there were a couple NES games, controllers, and a Game Genie. The only NES game I didn't have was The Last Starfighter so I grabbed that and the Game Genie.

These two were in my own neighborhood. I was just driving through and saw a garage sale so, as usual, I made a quick stop. They had a few Nintendo 64 games out for $1 each so I bought Mario 64 and Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I passed on some Pokemon game and Majora's Mask (which I already owned) - in hindsight I should have bought them if only to sell later.

This wins the "Best Find of 2006" award. I wasn't' even out hunting at the time, just happened to drive by a rummage sale at a high school gym that was closing in an hour. Usually in the last hour it's "all you can haul away for $5" so I stopped by. They mostly had large items and, sure enough, everything was $1 for the last hour. Under one of the tables was a Sega Pico in box which I snatched up immediately. I cleaned it off, hooked it up, and had my three year-old give it a spin. It was an immediate hit. She figured out what to do as if it was a natural instinct. It turns out this is a fun little system. It looks like an interactive storybook reader but in reality it's a Sega Genesis with a pen interface. Each storybook is loaded with slightly-educational mini-games that are easy for kids to pick-up. My kid thought it was great and logged many hours on it (hey, it's better than TV).

It was another extremely hot summer day but we weren't out hitting garage sales, just regular ol' boring errands. I had to stop at the nearest Starbucks which was conveniently located next to a GameStop. Ducked in there for a second to see a bin of Nintendo 64 games labeled "2 for $1.50". Despite seeing hundreds of cartridges, there were only two distinct titles. Better than nothing I suppose.

Getting into late summer now so I went out to hit a few final garage sales for the year. It wasn't a particularly productive outing as all I found was the original NHL Hockey for the Genesis. Yeah, $2 was about $1 too much for this game but whatever. Finding games with boxes is semi-rare and I couldn't draw up the energy to haggle.

In the fall garage sales pretty much dry up around here. In the summer there are 10-15 within a five mile radius vs. 2-3 in the fall. I went out on a Saturday afternoon not expecting to see any. I spotted one and paid a quick visit to find a pair of books. The "Street Fighter II Look and Find" is the interesting one - it's basically a "Where's Waldo" book but with Street Fighter characters. It's an odd but welcome addition.