Today I went to a thrift store that I stopped going to a few months ago.  They used to sell video game cartridges for $1.99 or so and I could usually find some decent ones for my collection.  Game consoles were $4.99 to $9.99 depending on how many controllers and goodies they packaged up with them.  Now, games are $2.99 to $4.99 and their consoles are rediculous.  A Super Nintendo is $59.99 and a original Nintendo is 49.99 and same prices for Nintendo 64’s.   They have an original grey Game boy with the green screen that barely bring 5 to 10 bucks online for $19.99, it is “CRAZY”, it drives me nuts.  I understand this thrift store is supposed to be working for a charity, and making as much money for them as possible,  but I can’t find what charity they are working for.  All their items are donated and they have eBay setup in the back looking up prices of everything.  Their shelves are so cluttered you can’t even see anything, stuff just piled up on top of each other.  The reason for this is, their prices.  Well, today was great, I was standing near the registers and noticed this elderly fellow buying a brass kick plate for a door.  I heard him talking and getting louder when all of a sudden he yells out, “Did I walk into a thrift store, or a F***ing Walmart”,  he went on to explain to the cashier, which has no control over the prices, that he would purchase a lot more if their prices were lower and he can buy the exact same things brand new at Walmart.  I laughed all day about him flipping out.  Some people just don’t care.  I will try and get pictures of this place, it’s nuts.

I usually go to my local Goodwill in the Mornings and sometimes an hour or two before they close, if I get a chance.  I head straight for the electronics, toys, video game area.  Today I spotted from a distance a Pac-Man board game sitting there.  Later that evening I went back and found some 1983 He-Man and A-Team Lazer Blazer stickers still in the packages.  They aren’t worth much, but since I am an 80’s toy fool, it was a treasure.

Whooo hooo….as I said earlier, I am going to collect every Gameboy game and console I possibly can.  I have always loved anything Nintendo.  Today was my lucky day.  I went out early this morning and the first 3 garage sales of the day was a total JACKPOT.  Gameboy city.  I also purchased two very large and very nice guillotine style paper cutters for $5 for both, that I will sell later on.  I had about 30 to 35 sales programmed into my Garmin GPS, which I should do a little review on.  Very happy with it.  It’s a Garmin Nuvii 255W. Below are the games and systems I found.  GOOD STUFF…..I am on my way, this is just a fraction of what I have. 
I was mad about the green Gameboy pocket, it was fine until my Dad smashed it under the chair in his truck by accident.  BOOO

As usual I was browsing around my local area on Craigslist looking for my therapy, “video games” and ran into this person that advertised a Super Nintendo, I thought ohhh goody.  I clicked on the ad and almost got sick.  What in the world is splattered across this Nintendo.  I swear people are crazy trying to sell video games on Craigslist for these prices, especially when they have been dipped in the toilet. Unreal…… even the Wii remote to the left is starting to turn brown.  At least clean up your stuff “A Little bit” before you try and get eBay prices for it.

Here is a new one, I was at a local sale and saw this giant cola bottle with this sign….Good stuff

My new mission is to collect every Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Advance game there is.  I don’t know what is making me want to do this so bad, but I have a goal in mind with a huge display of them.  I have been finding some decent stuff at some garage sales.  I haven’t been doing much thrift store shopping lately.  Laziness is kicking in, I will update later with some of my most recent finds.

I have been using this camera for about 2 weeks now.  If you remember I was using the Argus Bean, well I got tired of standing too still to try and get a good clear picture so I retired it to my many other retired cameras.  This FujiFilm Finepx Z30 is great.  The few main features I was looking for in a blogging camera and everyday use camera was reliability with clear photos, fast start up time and portability.  I can throw this thing in my pocket and don’t even know it’s there, the pictures are great, very happy and the starting time is fantastic.  You just slide the front cover over and it is on ready for the first shot.  I absolutely love taking stupid random pictures with this.   It has a bunch of features packed in this little thing.  It’s almost as fun as my Nikon.

Today started off bad and I just knew I shouldn’t go hunting.  You ever have one of those days where you just know you should call off the whole day because of the way you feel.  Today was it.  I was a little excited there was an ad in our local newspaper of “a whole street full of garage sales”, I should have known better.  3 houses total of about 40 houses on the street.  I love it.  While I was traversing through the massive 3 home sales, I dropped my Pocket PC phone and cracked the screen, that was nice.  I never took out any insurance for the phone, because I just knew I would never break it, Ha ha.  I ended up calling it quits after that happend.  Not a thing found, except at my local Goodwill.  I got me a LCD bracket donated from Target still in the pack to mount my monitor for $10, a Texas Instruments Speak & Math and a Photoshare LCD photo album, not so satisfied with it, but I can’t complain for $3.  Oh well there’s always Saturday.

I know this has nothing to do with garage sales or any kind of sales, but I about died from laughing when I saw this container label.   I was searching Toys R Us website for their Toys R Us exclusive toys when I ran into this.  Boudreaux’s “BUTT PASTE”.  That is great.  I periodically search their site or go into the store and see what exclusive toys they might have that I can clutter my shelves with.  I thought this was the best advertising label I have seen in a long time.  I almost ran to the store and bought this for the heck of it just because I thought it was so funny.

I was told about the Englewood Ohio community sale the day before it started. I didn’t even know about it. I almost missed out on some good stuff. There were sales everywhere. From Church sales to boosters and even the local High School band had a sale to raise money.

Huge rummage sale all donated by people for the local Boy Scouts

I found a couple goodies here. A sega CD system and a Milton Bradley Fireball Island board game in excellent condition and 100% complete. My Dad picked up a huge box of Legos for 5 bucks. It was a good stop for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was ticked off here. If you remember in a previous post at my Dad’s garage sale. I put a 15″ computer monitor in the free pile with a sign that said “Take me and I will give you $1.00″ No one took me up on it. This guy put $60 on a monitor similar to the one I had and many others try to sel. ERRRR, I hate that. Do these people really think they will sell it at that price or are they just joking. People must really think there are some total idiots running around. It’s crazy, I feel dissrespected when I see this. ha ha ha

Big waste of time heading east.  It was like going from antique mall to antique mall, not that I don’t like to browse around antique malls, but I hunt for deals and there were no deals.  I know when you head toward Springfield Ohio, there are a bunch of antique malls along the way and I should have known better.  I didn’t even take any pictures it was so depressing.  Oh well life goes on and I will probably do it again next year. 

Well this is the third year in a row that I have gone on the US 40 garage sale.  I usually only go about 40 to 50 miles one way and then back the other side.  Today I went West on 40, through Lewisburg, Richmond Indiana and turned around in Centerville Indiana and headed back.  I found some goodies, pictures after tomorrow.  I am going to go East on 40 tomorrow morning.  Probably end up around Springfield or a little further, depends on how it goes.  These long garage sales are pretty commercialized.  There are a lot of dealers, flea marketers that might only come down a dollar on something.  I want the real deals, that’s why I usually leave the main road if someone has a sign pointing down a side road.  I have done better at those.  Richmond Indiana downtown is a neat place with a lot of little shops and stores along the way.

Richmond Indiana “Downtown” heading west

Headed through Richmond on US 40

These people were setup here last year and it doesn’t look like they sold any of it, the same old over priced stuff.  I would think people would get tired of hauling around the same stuff from sale to sale.

This was the first stop of the day

Now this is the kind of sales I like, people like this are just emptying out everything trying to either get rid of it quick or make a dollar.  When they have stuff just thrown everywhere, I seem to do a lot better, but not this exact sale, I didn’t buy anything.  My Dad picked up two nice big boxes of Lincoln Logs for 5 bucks.  This lady said she just cleaned out her storage space and this stuff “needs to go”.

I love sites like this, they are ready to sell anything

This house here, I thought ohhh yeah here we go, nope….All they had done was bring some of their antiques from their booth they run in an antique mall.  They were even telling people that.  It drove me nuts, neadless to say I didn’t spend much time here.

Errr...Antique Dealers faking me out

Saw this lamp at a sale and these two older ladies were talking about who in the world would want this in their house.

Don’t know about this lamp, Reminds me of a Muppet Head, I don’t know why…Its the first thing that came to my mind

These sites are 10×20 feet and rent for $10 a day.

This is what a typical space along the 40 sale looks like

On our way back into Lewisburg you always have to stop at Sylvia’s Grey Barn.  She is an older lady that helps run an antique shop in Lewisburg and keeps all her goodies here.  She is one of the nicest ladies.  If you ever get a chance to stop in Lewisburg, check out her store, she loves to meet people.

Sylvia’s Grey Barn

Here are some views of all the stuff she has accumulated over the many years she has been collecting and dealing in antiques.

I am headed off early in the morning for my East bound trip….More to follow, hopefully