Video Game Collecting

Chris Kohler of Wired magazine writes for the Game Life section.  Earlier today he had twittered that he was accepting questions so I jumped on the opportunity to ask three.  Two of the questions he answered which were about thrifting for video games:

What is your best/favorite find from a thrift store?

The best thing I ever found personally was a whole stack of boxed NES launch games — with the original round seal stickers and Famicom adapters inside — for $2 each. There was also a boxed Final Fight 3 in there. That was a pretty fantastic day.

My parents also found a boxed Vectrex with a light pen and tons of boxed games for $100 about a year ago. Everything together is worth more like $800.

How frequently do you thrift, and do you have a routine when you go?

I used to go every weekend, and yes, I had a routine — there’s a way to hit basically every Goodwill and Salvation Army in the city by looping up around through the Haight, the Mission, downtown and then back through the Richmond. These days I have a lot more to do on the weekends, so it’s catch-as-catch-can.

Cool stuff eh?  The rest of the questions he answered can be found here: http://www.formspring.me/kobunheat

And the Game Life section of Wired magazine can be found here: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/

In case you are wondering the third question was about the Classic Gaming Expo…