I find it very ironic. Every now and then I watch videos of American collectors and those who complain about no longer finding deals are the same ones who over the years have gone to these places to buy and resell, fueling the reseller market. You are basically complaining about what you have spread. It's actually very funny.
@@ayceod " In fact, you can't really call him a collector. He is a reseller who has some things he collects, which he pays for by being a reseller" 🤓lmao how do u think collectors get their stuff? if ur not doing this u are just getting BAD deals, not supporting local markets, and not meeting cool people.
@@ayceod I'm with you on this. There are a lot of fun resellers to watch, but htey're honestlyi no longer "collectors' if they're just shuffling off for more money to buy more stuff. (It was so painful for me when i _Had_ to sell stuff, that i really hated giving up)
I'm sorry to say sir, but you have greatly contributed to the sad state of retro collecting. Most likely when you quit collecting and began resale and brag about the amount everything was worth as you buy it. It used to be about adding to the collection and adding more when you sold the doubles. Not making a living off selling to collectors at the eBay prices you used to speak out against.
Watching this just hurts my soul... It was supposed to be about hunting for stuff you want to have and add to your collection to play and so on. But now it seems to be all about the big bucks and clearing every store that tries to make/keep retro gaming affordable and sell it for profit online, just to be brag about how much you make, by reselling.... Just sad at this point, the heart of retro gaming getting pushed and punched around.
the internet killed thrift stores. places like goodwill put the good stuff online for top dollar. I remember going to the goodwill and getting an nes in a bag with all the wires, two controllers and 3 or 4 games for $10. that was the mid to late 90s. same thing with old stereos and speakers. now its all the stuff they don't think will sell online or isn't worth the effort putting online. same with pricing, before it was some old lady randomly throwing prices on crap. they had no idea lol. whats this tv game thing worth? 50 cents? now they go by highest they can find on ebay.
Facts i used to CLEAN UP at goodwill now its just broken trash and and anything else is sold on the internet or those stores. Its terrible now but he's in California so im sure its always stuff floating around
@@justowordslanga I had a coworker that had worked for Goodwill and what you get really depends on what neighborhoods are nearby. The locations near the rich neighborhoods often times have really nice stuff that's being gotten rid of for a tax writeoff when they do an unnecessary upgrade. So, there can be some really cool stuff available.
I paid 100 for an nes 2 controllers and like thirty games (all primo too like contra, super c, punch out, etc) and that was like 6 years prolly longer ago
Found a stack of Sega CD games for $3 each. In that stack was the cleanest copy of Snatcher I’ve ever seen. It’s still one of my most prized possessions in my game collection.
Man I can't stand shit like shit. It hurts. It's like going around and bragging about buying good deals and robbing it from others so you can sell it for more.
Yep. They started doing that around 2014. I remember going to goodwill with my dad as a kid and they had TONS of NES SNES N64 games and accessories. When he told me they take the donations and sell them on their own instead of putting them out, it broke me😂
@@NKRetro I remember buying games at Goodwill and I went in a couple weeks in a row and they didnt have them anymore. When I asked they said "Oh yeah, you were the only person buying them and we get more selling them online out of the [next town over] store's Ebay store." Went online and of course everything was marked tf up. They did the same with lego, put the sets online
Resale shops are NOT Thrift stores! Thrift stores are donation only and they sell for too much now. Try out a salvation army the clothes cost more than new clothes. $10 games for $25 untested.
Yep. That is exactly how they are here for me too, assuming any of them actually put the stuff out to begin with. Most of the gaming related stuff ends up being sold to either Gamestop or Exchange, which both price items as high as possible based on market trends. Ebay has become my friend (mostly) for a reason.
You can blame the resellers for that. It's just an unfortunate reality that if there aren't going to be any decent clothes available for people that have little money either way, the stores might as well just charge something closer to the market rate for the items and use the money for operations.
Eco Tek and Eco Town are Japanese second-hand stores. They also own Book off in the US anf Hard Off in Japan. That's why you saw all the Japanese games. They are regularly imported to the US.
If there were locations of Eco Town or Book Off around Texas, I'd be in the car heading there right now. I've seen all those people filming their Japanese Hard Off and Book Off visits and drool at all the cool stuff. We just don't have that kind of thing around Dallas. We do have loads of Daiso locations, though.
Everyone’s going to say I’m lying, but I found and bought a clay fighter sculptures cut authentic from Salvation Army for $20 in 2020. Craziest thrift find I think anyone has ever had. Happy to share the story
My biggest flip was from Goodwill, I paid $20 for a special collectors edition of Sharpe TV series, with a replica letter opener and map. Only 1 set of the DVDs was open. Within 20 minutes of me putting it on eBay, it was sold to a lady in Tennessee for $600. My son got his Quest 2 for Christmas that year.
You can still score some good finds at thrift stores, but they often check eBay prices and set their game prices accordingly. Just yesterday, I saw Wind Waker for GameCube priced at $99.99, Mary Skelter for PS Vita at $89.99, and Silent Hill 4 for PS2 at $129.99. The downside is that thrift stores usually don’t offer refunds, and they often don’t verify the condition or authenticity of items, which means buyers are taking a big risk. That said, I’ve occasionally found titles priced well below eBay listings, so if you’re lucky and in the right spot at the right time, you can snag some great deals.
@@JaneTheDoe-id2vx yup..that is why I didn't bother with picking it up. The Gamecube Windwaker had a deep scratch and it cost $99.99. For Silent Hill 4, it was Disc and case. No manual. It shows a lot of the Thrift store don't check for condition and put out the price just because it was sold as much.
I used to be able to find entire Vinyl record collections in very good shape at thrift stores. Now the employees raid those things and flip them. All you can get is garbage Christmas records from people you've never heard of, now.
I'm in Oregon, and they still have what I understand is the last Goodwill Tech store, but everything is super over priced. I grew up in the flea-market/garage sale/antique shop/thrift world, and one day my mom found 4 books of 12 (or 16) ,1 oz. National Park coins marked $4 each. She tried to tell the woman they were EXTREMELY underpriced, but the woman cut her off to say, "NO BARTERING," so she bought 48+ oz of .995 coins for $16.
Biggest flex ever at a thrift (Goodwill) was when I found an NES Top Loader with about 5 games (commons) with 2 controller and the hookups for 10 bucks back in 2019. The same trip they had $1 N64 games: Super Smash, Mario 64, Mario Kart, Goldeneye, and several others
Probably the three biggest events that affected my thrift store collecting where is follows: When I bought Eternal Champions CD from a video game exchange I asked seriously they're still selling NES games by the time of the Sega CD at your store but you don't touch ColecoVision or anything other than NES and today's stuff. Where do I go for that. They recommended one of the original true retro stores that touch the those pre-crash brands video game connection Cleveland and then said in general look for goodwills salvation armies and other thrift stores and yard sales for video games cheap. I found Lots of retro consoles and games and controllers with lots of games for 5 bucks a piece in the '90s . That was my collecting only phase when I was just acquiring and didn't know what to do with extras. The second event that affected me was Rush Limbaugh advertising for eBay as one of the first spokesmen for eBay. (At least the spokesman locally on his radio show. Not for media outside his radio show.). That was actually a positive change cuz now I have a market to dump this off at other than hoping some crazy collective buys it. And then the third event which ruined their shopping was ironically the song Thrift Shop by Macklemore. When that hit number one suddenly the secret was out on Thrift shops even though none of the lyrics contained any mentions of old video games. People thought I'd be cool to go there and then they saw these old video games that are like wow that's amazing Three bucks for $50 game on eBay. pick it up. The Secret of Thrift stores was going to eventually come out anyway at least it came out in a cool way with Macklemore's song
I was living in the Central Valley California area at the time, near Sacramento. But this was 6 years ago. All California Goodwills aren’t worth game hunting anymore. They send all video games to their online stores or sub stores
Thrift stores near me are a joke, they literally have Dollar Tree items marked $3.99 when you can buy them new for $1.25. That's just an example of how bad all of the items are marked.
Man I wish thrift stores were still like this in Canada. Nowadays because of resellers, if your not in the location the moment the store opens every day to check for new inventory, you likely won't find anything more than some generic/bad Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360 games. Whatever you do find, if you get that lucky, is typically market value, just under or just above. The problem with that is that these are thrift stores, you don't get the same liberties sites like eBay give you, where you can get a refund, you can get a protection plan, you pay shipping fees which contributes to their market value. Here, they don't even know if it works, they don't know what's 'good condition' compared to 'bad condition', and I wouldn't expect them to it's just their job, but the fact that the higher ups choose to charge basically the first price they see for it on eBay is kind of disgusting. In Canada, while we have some Goodwill's, their mostly exclusive to Toronto and Vancouver, which means people living outside of those two cities are stuck with Value Village and the Salvation Army. There are some other smaller thrift chains like Telize, but their all mostly the same. Salvation never has anything, maybe they just never get games but every time I've gone they had nothing, only ever bought one game from them and it was Sleeping Dogs for the 360. Value Village rarely has something, usually massive amounts of PS3 or Xbox 360 games for $5 a pop, anything older and it's above market value. In the US, you guys complain about not finding content at thrift stores, but I don't think you guys realize how much better you have it in terms of collecting. So much easier to collect and find games at thrift stores than in Canada.
I always get lucky and find a gem at Goodwill. But about a year ago I saw a dude with a whole basket of ALL the goodies. He cleaned house. It kinda pissed me off because I won't buy everything single thing even if I kinda wanted it. It feels nice to leave something for someone else, that I don't really need, to enjoy. Since then I just assume someone like this is hoarding everything. They probably also have a hookup on the inside in sorting. Even still I do get lucky and find gold every other time I go.
I feel like it honestly comes down to where you live because here where I live we just have a few Goodwill's and they barely ever put anything cool out. I've found games before but rarely but overall I never find much or anything, watching this video wherever he's from has so many amazing thrift stores and videogame stores so of course he's going to find a lot but it literally comes down where you're from and what stores you have around you!
Biggest find at a thrift store is actually a 3 way tie between a vintage Carhart arctic parka for $20, 14k gold Hamilton watch for $50, and a Hamilton khaki field LL Bean manual wind watch for $6. Each item is worth somewhere around $700
Game related: NIB original xbox console for $30, sealed gba metroid fusion and castlevania circle of the moon for $5 each, about 100 early Nintendo Power magazines for $0.50 each. Non game related: Nakamichi Dragon cassette player for $15, Beatles Butcher album for $0.49, bunch of 80s/90s hip hop concert tees (biggie, tupac, dmc) for $3 each
Found a Jeff Philips Breakout complete skateboard at Goodwill for $3. Some have sold for thousands on eBay. Thrift stores are hit and miss just like the flea markets around me but it’s all about the thrill of the hunt!
Not quite a video game, but I found a camera at a thrift store, I thought it was overpriced at first but I still decided to pick it up. Best choice I've ever made. Paid $125 CAD, and the camera body alone was worth a few hundred, but the lens was the real steal. I listed it for sale, and it sold for $9000 CAD. Safe to say I love thrifting now
Retro liberty you guys got me back into my gaming hobby a long a time ago, being a hoodlum for so long and forgetting what made me happy, I remember watching your channel and it making me happy, remembering how much I loved video games that was over 12 years ago and I'm still gaming thanks for the memories of your old channel and new channel as well 🖤
Yeah my local savers is plagued by this couple who are resellers who are there from 9:00 to 8:00 all day waiting by the door for them to send out the carts. The key is unfortunately you have to go every day to find good stuff. One of these days I'm gonna snag something out of their cart and run to buy it and flip them off even if it causes me to be banned from the store
Hey pro tip, I'm not like making a living out of selling stuff yet, but one tip thats really helped me narrow down prices, is going over to the filter in ebay listing, and you can actually filter by only recently sold listing, giving you a way better idea of prices people are actually paying! Hope that helps someone
I've been hitting thrift stores consistently since 2020 for games and all kinds of vintage goodies! St. Vinnies,Value Village, ect.... they all got stuff if you got the keen eye for it. Also it never hurts to build relationships with the workers there because then they'll possibly hold stuff for you or give you the inside scoop on what hasnt hit the floor yet,Never stop hunting! NEVER!!! Best finds are: 99. Cents for Ncaa Football 14 PS3 and Pokémon Collesum for $2 at St. Vinnies
The issue isn't as much that thrift stores don't have good deals anymore, it's moreso that one physical store that specializes in retro entertainment has cornered the local physical market to the point where they bought out what all the other local stores had already & they decided to exit & corner a different, more lucrative type of market. In my area, we had 6 thrift & used media stores & an indoor flea market. A couple of the thrift stores closed, one moved because the city it was in wanted the whole street redone with more lucrative storefronts & came up with a deal to buy them all out & one of the other used media stores decided to no longer accept trade ins. This is, of course, excluding Gamestop, that mostly specializes in more modern stuff, anyway. Anything corporate kind of ruins their own selection to focus on what is lucrative. But, the one guy left in the indoor flea market has an insane amount of product from nearly every single generation of gaming, plus tons of used DVDs, Blurays & VHSs & some other related merch.
Found a Big boss man wrestling buddies for 1.99 at Goodwill, found a 2 super rare Pyrex bowls for 2.99 each and sold for 400 each. Found a bag full of Hotwheels redlines for 2 bucks and sold them all for around 300. Don’t sleep on Goodwill I catch them slipping all the time.
Glad I was doing it 7 years ago and built a serious collection then. I found Chrono trigger for $3 at Goodwill in 2018, that would never happen nowadays. :( the pandemic was a blessing and a curse for the Retro market
Na what's killed bargains is the internet in general because people can quickly identify how much something is roughly worth now and then mix in scalpers and sites like eBay all that has effectively wiped out bargain hunting across the board. You can still find stuff out there it's just got and is getting alot harder
I’m a videographer/photographer I once found an Manfrotto Avenger combo stand worth $500 listed for $75! The cashier and workers were asking me what it is. In the film industry world these stands are built for grip and lighting. It was at a Savers store in NM.
I remember finding a then sealed copy of Rayman for ps1 for a dollar. I eventually opened it because I legit wanted to play it but It was such an amazing surprise to see it in the wild in that way
Last spring I found the Pokemon Colosseum bonus disc for GameCube at Goodwill of all places for $5.99. Complete and minty. I was extremely surprised because the local stores are notorious for sending EVERYTHING out to the online store. They even charge $5.99 for Blu-rays! I think the only thing that kept it from getting snatched up before I found it was the price tag was covering the GC logo on the spine.
Warriors of virtue was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I remember seeing the preview for that movie come on TV and I was in love instantly I had to go watch it in the movie theaters I had to have all the toys growing up. I love that movie.
My son found Silent Hill and Resident Evil for the PS1 last year at a thrift store for 1.00 each in the CD section. Less than 2 months ago, I found Battletoads, Double Dragon 2 CIB. Sonic Adventure NFR, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Shuffle, Worms Armageddon, Xbox Green Halo ( Red Ringed) when i got home to look at it. This was at the same thrift store my son found Silent Hill and RE.
4-5 years ago I use to flip opshop/thrift shop clothes and items to get by as I was a student and needed money. As the years have gone on I've seen the shops get so busy and people line up outside. Prices increased insanely and everyone is reselling online. These days I go into the shops and regret even wasting my time going in.
My best find was a lot of 26 vintage 70s/80s Star Wars figures with some accessories in a vintage Darth Vader case for $30!! It was in 2021, and I still really can't believe it!!
In the area I live in used to work at a retro game store and the owner of that was friends with the owner of our local thrift/pawnshop chain. He told us that all the thrift stores these days only put the cheap stuff they get on the shelves. Anything actually good they resell on ebay. I find when it comes to video games you won't be walking in and finding any crazy great deals anymore, the only time I've found that to happen these days is when I go hunting through yard sales now.
I found a prosthetic leg at goodwill for fifteen dollars. I resold it on ebay for five hundred dollars. Hands down the strangest and most profitable item I've found at a thrift store.
A lot of the imported Japanese games could have more demand for speedrunners cause some regions play slightly faster then other regions (beyond just the PAL/NTSC stuff).
Not only that but depending on the title and how savy the buyer is they could mod it. First Pokemon Crystal I bought was Japanese and when I did sell it, asked the buyer saying this is cheap because it is a different region, and buyer flat out said he was getting it on the cheap to mod it. So hey to each their own.
Mine was back in 2020. I found a box that had about $12, 000 worth (at that time) of 1950's baseball cards. I bought them for $60. 🤯 I sold some of them and I was able to buy a car. 🤗 The ones I kept have been steadily increasing in value. My greatest find ever... 🤘
i found the cartridge used to distribute the mythical Pokemon meloetta in Pokémon black and White for 10€, resold it for only 100€ but that was 10+ years ago, it's worth way more now
Definitely a fun store I wouldn't mind going through a game store like that a seeing what they had because some times unlocking those memories are the best.
This was agonizing to watch. I couldn't even get beyond 10 minutes because you were just overplaying the garbage that you found there pretending like it was worth your time or money. This is the problem. You are the problem.
The best score at a thrift store is a 20 dollar black gamecube with a gb player, but it didn't come with startup disc and instead had Mlb baseball 2002 and only had av cables
In regards of Eco Tek, they're basically just the US Affiliate of Hard Off/Book Off which are the Japanese #1 Second Hand market. Thiss is why they do have like 10 Mario 64 games in a single store because it's just littering everywhere in Japan for less than 1000 JPY ($7). I just wish they do open affiliates in continental Europe (however, we have some kind of local variants which are sometimes cool but they do price-chart)
Oh my biggest flex at a thrift store is the time i found a bunch of Adventures in Odysee vhs tapes and a bunch of McGee and Me tapes, all rare and worth big dollars. Paid 50 cents for each tape. All tapes worth $30+ each! Filled 2 bags
You make very cool videos. I like your self awareness about filming in public it’s funny lol. Been watching you every once in a while for about 2 years keep up the good work happy hunting.
I love when youtube randomly recommends me a video of a game/console flipper complaining about not being able to find cheap things for them to flip unironically never admitting that they are the reason behind most of things sucking.
You can 100% still find good stuff in charity shops (thrift stores) here in the UK. Always helps to get friendly with the staff as well to get access to the back rooms early 😊
In my area, I'm pretty sure any game worth anything now gets sold in online Ebay auctions. When I first moved up here it was a little better, I even managed to snag an original full in box copy of Space Quest IV. But even at that time anything on a console was being price checked to the online market place. I still see occasional games, but it's mostly mass market sporting titles for Xbox 360 and the Wii.
i got a gameboy color for $5 a couple years back. i was cometely blown away that they go for $80 now. nothing would have stopped me from getting the dragon ball skate deck OR the spawn action figures! :)
The best deal I got at a thrift store was the first deal that made me start collecting. I bought a nes with controler + super mario bros for 10€ + megadrive with 2 controllers + 6 cool games for 25€ + dreamcast with 2 controlers and 1 memory card + 5 games for 20€. In the middle of the dreamcast games was not only Sonic adventure 2 complete in box but also one of the rarest dreamcast games also complete in box: project justice 2 rivals schools 2 who costs 200€+
My best find was a GeForce 980TI for 45$ in 2019 at goodwill. Best game collecting find was a haul of Wii’s and Genesis’ at a Salvation Army in Iowa City. The lot together was enough to get the switch my wife wanted when I traded them in 2018. It was a lot of consoles and consoles only, no cables or anything. It was weird why they had so many for just like 3$ each lol
The only good deals I ever see is at pawn shops because I've seen loads of ps2 games for like 2$ each, Gameboy color for 50$ and ps1 for 60$ but I've passed them up because for 50$ you can buy a handheld emulator that plays ps1 and below easily
I've had over 40 years of gaming stuff taken from me. I'll never have the money to replace all the consoles, cartridges and discs in this kind of market now. That's why I've turned to emulation, i might not ever see my NES with the vintage puffy stickers it was packed with but at least I can still play the games and remember through them. 😅👍
I found at a thrift store down the road from me a stack of N64 Nintendo Power Magazines with Zelda, Super Mario 64, Yoshi Story etc, best find I had so far!
I appreciate that you found the hookups deck. Skater since 1990.. well I was 4 so. Rode since I was 4 lol. Also memories of getting every system in Xmas. I was lucky enough to already have an NES when i was born in 86. Love the CIBs dude. Great video
basically any time something becomes an influence trend, it dies. used to be that you could pick up an old dell optiplex for 100-200 dollars, it would have a solid processor in it, you could install an ssd and a gpu and have a high end gaming pc for 500 bucks. Now those same computers go for 500-600 dollars. Thrift stores and pawn shops used to be full of cheap old video games but now they all just sell on ebay for top dollar. Even yard sales rarely have any sort of good deal.
When I was a kid thrift stores actually had some cool stuff but once I became an adult the internet ruined thrifting. Every time I go to a thrift there’s absolutely nothing and usually are like 3 other people that are obviously there to flip stuff which sucks cause all my favorite games I’ve gotten on bargains growing up. UA-cam ruined video game hunting I can’t even go to the swap meet without them trying to charge me either the same as eBay prices or more than them. I can see the spots you chose were carefully picked for the content cause there’s absolutely nothing like that in my area and I’m like 40 minutes away from LA so obvi everyone here and there buys to triple the price online or at their “gaming business”.
I find it very ironic. Every now and then I watch videos of American collectors and those who complain about no longer finding deals are the same ones who over the years have gone to these places to buy and resell, fueling the reseller market. You are basically complaining about what you have spread. It's actually very funny.
"Oh no, too many people learned my grift and now it's more difficult for me to grift!"
@@ayceod And he's in a place where "curated" thrift stores are apparently more abundant. In my area we have Goodwill and that's it.
@@ayceod " In fact, you can't really call him a collector. He is a reseller who has some things he collects, which he pays for by being a reseller" 🤓lmao how do u think collectors get their stuff? if ur not doing this u are just getting BAD deals, not supporting local markets, and not meeting cool people.
@@ayceod I'm with you on this. There are a lot of fun resellers to watch, but htey're honestlyi no longer "collectors' if they're just shuffling off for more money to buy more stuff. (It was so painful for me when i _Had_ to sell stuff, that i really hated giving up)
@@ayceodI hear you, Friend
Just gonna say, youtube re selling killed thrifting
My stores have been loaded! Everyone out there buying new stuff right now for gifts, this is the perfect time to get out there!
And the door thing
Manchildren
Plus goodwill sells everything on line now
@ it’s crazy to see the prices people are paying for that stuff too. All it does is fuel more from goodwill to sell online
I'm sorry to say sir, but you have greatly contributed to the sad state of retro collecting. Most likely when you quit collecting and began resale and brag about the amount everything was worth as you buy it. It used to be about adding to the collection and adding more when you sold the doubles. Not making a living off selling to collectors at the eBay prices you used to speak out against.
resellers mined it to death.
Watching this just hurts my soul...
It was supposed to be about hunting for stuff you want to have and add to your collection to play and so on.
But now it seems to be all about the big bucks and clearing every store that tries to make/keep retro gaming affordable and sell it for profit online, just to be brag about how much you make, by reselling....
Just sad at this point, the heart of retro gaming getting pushed and punched around.
the internet killed thrift stores. places like goodwill put the good stuff online for top dollar. I remember going to the goodwill and getting an nes in a bag with all the wires, two controllers and 3 or 4 games for $10. that was the mid to late 90s. same thing with old stereos and speakers. now its all the stuff they don't think will sell online or isn't worth the effort putting online. same with pricing, before it was some old lady randomly throwing prices on crap. they had no idea lol. whats this tv game thing worth? 50 cents? now they go by highest they can find on ebay.
Facts i used to CLEAN UP at goodwill now its just broken trash and and anything else is sold on the internet or those stores. Its terrible now but he's in California so im sure its always stuff floating around
@@justowordslanga I had a coworker that had worked for Goodwill and what you get really depends on what neighborhoods are nearby. The locations near the rich neighborhoods often times have really nice stuff that's being gotten rid of for a tax writeoff when they do an unnecessary upgrade. So, there can be some really cool stuff available.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade right on for advice
I paid 100 for an nes 2 controllers and like thirty games (all primo too like contra, super c, punch out, etc) and that was like 6 years prolly longer ago
@@justowordslangatrash at a mark up lol
Found a stack of Sega CD games for $3 each. In that stack was the cleanest copy of Snatcher I’ve ever seen. It’s still one of my most prized possessions in my game collection.
Man I can't stand shit like shit. It hurts. It's like going around and bragging about buying good deals and robbing it from others so you can sell it for more.
I bought a machete off the shelf at goodwill. The cashier asked me where I found it and was shocked. She said “someone’s getting fired today”
Found a bug-a-salt gun at the toy isle at goodwill. Pressurized salt weaponry is not what I would consider a "toy".
My area mostly has Goodwills and Salvation Armies. They dont even put out video games, they sell them on ebay.
Bastards 😂
Pcs too. Really normal my man. Everyone want to make money.
Yep. They started doing that around 2014. I remember going to goodwill with my dad as a kid and they had TONS of NES SNES N64 games and accessories. When he told me they take the donations and sell them on their own instead of putting them out, it broke me😂
@@NKRetro I remember buying games at Goodwill and I went in a couple weeks in a row and they didnt have them anymore. When I asked they said "Oh yeah, you were the only person buying them and we get more selling them online out of the [next town over] store's Ebay store." Went online and of course everything was marked tf up. They did the same with lego, put the sets online
Resale shops are NOT Thrift stores!
Thrift stores are donation only and they sell for too much now. Try out a salvation army the clothes cost more than new clothes. $10 games for $25 untested.
Yep. That is exactly how they are here for me too, assuming any of them actually put the stuff out to begin with. Most of the gaming related stuff ends up being sold to either Gamestop or Exchange, which both price items as high as possible based on market trends. Ebay has become my friend (mostly) for a reason.
You can blame the resellers for that. It's just an unfortunate reality that if there aren't going to be any decent clothes available for people that have little money either way, the stores might as well just charge something closer to the market rate for the items and use the money for operations.
I went to my local salvation army to look for used jeans. They were literately only $1.00 cheaper than new pants at big box.
Eco Tek and Eco Town are Japanese second-hand stores. They also own Book off in the US anf Hard Off in Japan. That's why you saw all the Japanese games. They are regularly imported to the US.
You are correct. I was about to say the same. They just take the stock from Japan and sell it to Americans.
Its a bit sad that those us stores seem to have better stuff then book off Japan, and believe me, ive been to alot of them.
Yeah I was like that’s hard off lol I didn’t know they had US versions.
@@johan1840 naw, I can't believe you on that one😂. I've been living in Japan for 15 years and what you said is blasphemous 😂. But agreed to disagree
If there were locations of Eco Town or Book Off around Texas, I'd be in the car heading there right now. I've seen all those people filming their Japanese Hard Off and Book Off visits and drool at all the cool stuff. We just don't have that kind of thing around Dallas. We do have loads of Daiso locations, though.
Honestly I am so offended by 97% of resellers.
So grossed out that I don't want to give these bums for retro games.
Everyone’s going to say I’m lying, but I found and bought a clay fighter sculptures cut authentic from Salvation Army for $20 in 2020. Craziest thrift find I think anyone has ever had. Happy to share the story
I blame youtube hipsters.
My biggest flip was from Goodwill, I paid $20 for a special collectors edition of Sharpe TV series, with a replica letter opener and map. Only 1 set of the DVDs was open. Within 20 minutes of me putting it on eBay, it was sold to a lady in Tennessee for $600. My son got his Quest 2 for Christmas that year.
You can still score some good finds at thrift stores, but they often check eBay prices and set their game prices accordingly. Just yesterday, I saw Wind Waker for GameCube priced at $99.99, Mary Skelter for PS Vita at $89.99, and Silent Hill 4 for PS2 at $129.99. The downside is that thrift stores usually don’t offer refunds, and they often don’t verify the condition or authenticity of items, which means buyers are taking a big risk. That said, I’ve occasionally found titles priced well below eBay listings, so if you’re lucky and in the right spot at the right time, you can snag some great deals.
just take a look at the disc, thrift store games are scratched to hell
@@JaneTheDoe-id2vx yup..that is why I didn't bother with picking it up. The Gamecube Windwaker had a deep scratch and it cost $99.99. For Silent Hill 4, it was Disc and case. No manual. It shows a lot of the Thrift store don't check for condition and put out the price just because it was sold as much.
I used to be able to find entire Vinyl record collections in very good shape at thrift stores. Now the employees raid those things and flip them. All you can get is garbage Christmas records from people you've never heard of, now.
I'm in Oregon, and they still have what I understand is the last Goodwill Tech store, but everything is super over priced.
I grew up in the flea-market/garage sale/antique shop/thrift world, and one day my mom found 4 books of 12 (or 16) ,1 oz. National Park coins marked $4 each. She tried to tell the woman they were EXTREMELY underpriced, but the woman cut her off to say, "NO BARTERING," so she bought 48+ oz of .995 coins for $16.
Biggest flex ever at a thrift (Goodwill) was when I found an NES Top Loader with about 5 games (commons) with 2 controller and the hookups for 10 bucks back in 2019. The same trip they had $1 N64 games: Super Smash, Mario 64, Mario Kart, Goldeneye, and several others
Probably the three biggest events that affected my thrift store collecting where is follows:
When I bought Eternal Champions CD from a video game exchange I asked seriously they're still selling NES games by the time of the Sega CD at your store but you don't touch ColecoVision or anything other than NES and today's stuff. Where do I go for that.
They recommended one of the original true retro stores that touch the those pre-crash brands video game connection Cleveland and then said in general look for goodwills salvation armies and other thrift stores and yard sales for video games cheap.
I found Lots of retro consoles and games and controllers with lots of games for 5 bucks a piece in the '90s .
That was my collecting only phase when I was just acquiring and didn't know what to do with extras.
The second event that affected me was Rush Limbaugh advertising for eBay as one of the first spokesmen for eBay. (At least the spokesman locally on his radio show. Not for media outside his radio show.). That was actually a positive change cuz now I have a market to dump this off at other than hoping some crazy collective buys it.
And then the third event which ruined their shopping was ironically the song Thrift Shop by Macklemore. When that hit number one suddenly the secret was out on Thrift shops even though none of the lyrics contained any mentions of old video games. People thought I'd be cool to go there and then they saw these old video games that are like wow that's amazing Three bucks for $50 game on eBay. pick it up.
The Secret of Thrift stores was going to eventually come out anyway at least it came out in a cool way with Macklemore's song
Must not be in any major city because I've lived in Atlanta, Tampa and now LA in the last 10 years and they've not had those prices in a long time.
I was living in the Central Valley California area at the time, near Sacramento. But this was 6 years ago. All California Goodwills aren’t worth game hunting anymore. They send all video games to their online stores or sub stores
Thrift stores near me are a joke, they literally have Dollar Tree items marked $3.99 when you can buy them new for $1.25. That's just an example of how bad all of the items are marked.
I’m high-key jealous of you for going to the second store. That place looked like a dream😂
5.99 violin goodwill ended up being an early 1900s original. Sold for 500 to local shop to fix up same day, worth 2k after refurbishing.
Man I wish thrift stores were still like this in Canada. Nowadays because of resellers, if your not in the location the moment the store opens every day to check for new inventory, you likely won't find anything more than some generic/bad Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360 games. Whatever you do find, if you get that lucky, is typically market value, just under or just above. The problem with that is that these are thrift stores, you don't get the same liberties sites like eBay give you, where you can get a refund, you can get a protection plan, you pay shipping fees which contributes to their market value. Here, they don't even know if it works, they don't know what's 'good condition' compared to 'bad condition', and I wouldn't expect them to it's just their job, but the fact that the higher ups choose to charge basically the first price they see for it on eBay is kind of disgusting.
In Canada, while we have some Goodwill's, their mostly exclusive to Toronto and Vancouver, which means people living outside of those two cities are stuck with Value Village and the Salvation Army. There are some other smaller thrift chains like Telize, but their all mostly the same. Salvation never has anything, maybe they just never get games but every time I've gone they had nothing, only ever bought one game from them and it was Sleeping Dogs for the 360. Value Village rarely has something, usually massive amounts of PS3 or Xbox 360 games for $5 a pop, anything older and it's above market value. In the US, you guys complain about not finding content at thrift stores, but I don't think you guys realize how much better you have it in terms of collecting. So much easier to collect and find games at thrift stores than in Canada.
I always get lucky and find a gem at Goodwill. But about a year ago I saw a dude with a whole basket of ALL the goodies. He cleaned house. It kinda pissed me off because I won't buy everything single thing even if I kinda wanted it. It feels nice to leave something for someone else, that I don't really need, to enjoy. Since then I just assume someone like this is hoarding everything. They probably also have a hookup on the inside in sorting. Even still I do get lucky and find gold every other time I go.
I feel like it honestly comes down to where you live because here where I live we just have a few Goodwill's and they barely ever put anything cool out. I've found games before but rarely but overall I never find much or anything, watching this video wherever he's from has so many amazing thrift stores and videogame stores so of course he's going to find a lot but it literally comes down where you're from and what stores you have around you!
My biggest flex for a thrift store is my CIB Original Xbox i found in 2018. Had everything even the foam packaging. Best find to this date.
Biggest find at a thrift store is actually a 3 way tie between a vintage Carhart arctic parka for $20, 14k gold Hamilton watch for $50, and a Hamilton khaki field LL Bean manual wind watch for $6. Each item is worth somewhere around $700
Best three finds at thrift stores:
Atari 2600 game that was a prototype.
CIB Atari 2600 Qberts Cubes
Milton Bradley Dark Tower Board game in box.
Game related: NIB original xbox console for $30, sealed gba metroid fusion and castlevania circle of the moon for $5 each, about 100 early Nintendo Power magazines for $0.50 each. Non game related: Nakamichi Dragon cassette player for $15, Beatles Butcher album for $0.49, bunch of 80s/90s hip hop concert tees (biggie, tupac, dmc) for $3 each
Found a Jeff Philips Breakout complete skateboard at Goodwill for $3. Some have sold for thousands on eBay. Thrift stores are hit and miss just like the flea markets around me but it’s all about the thrill of the hunt!
Not quite a video game, but I found a camera at a thrift store, I thought it was overpriced at first but I still decided to pick it up. Best choice I've ever made. Paid $125 CAD, and the camera body alone was worth a few hundred, but the lens was the real steal. I listed it for sale, and it sold for $9000 CAD. Safe to say I love thrifting now
Retro liberty you guys got me back into my gaming hobby a long a time ago, being a hoodlum for so long and forgetting what made me happy, I remember watching your channel and it making me happy, remembering how much I loved video games that was over 12 years ago and I'm still gaming thanks for the memories of your old channel and new channel as well 🖤
My best thrift store find was two $3 Dreamcast controllers with VMUs inside.
Yeah my local savers is plagued by this couple who are resellers who are there from 9:00 to 8:00 all day waiting by the door for them to send out the carts. The key is unfortunately you have to go every day to find good stuff. One of these days I'm gonna snag something out of their cart and run to buy it and flip them off even if it causes me to be banned from the store
My best was an in box Sony Walkman that wasn't working for $7. I opened it up, replaced a single drive band, and flipped it for $600.
Hey pro tip, I'm not like making a living out of selling stuff yet, but one tip thats really helped me narrow down prices, is going over to the filter in ebay listing, and you can actually filter by only recently sold listing, giving you a way better idea of prices people are actually paying! Hope that helps someone
I've been hitting thrift stores consistently since 2020 for games and all kinds of vintage goodies! St. Vinnies,Value Village, ect.... they all got stuff if you got the keen eye for it. Also it never hurts to build relationships with the workers there because then they'll possibly hold stuff for you or give you the inside scoop on what hasnt hit the floor yet,Never stop hunting! NEVER!!! Best finds are: 99. Cents for Ncaa Football 14 PS3 and Pokémon Collesum for $2 at St. Vinnies
Are you in the Atlanta area? We've got St. Vincent de Paul thrift stores here... games are kinda hard to come by here though...
@@taylorc.duncan6235 They're national, if not international, although around here there aren't really that many of them.
The issue isn't as much that thrift stores don't have good deals anymore, it's moreso that one physical store that specializes in retro entertainment has cornered the local physical market to the point where they bought out what all the other local stores had already & they decided to exit & corner a different, more lucrative type of market. In my area, we had 6 thrift & used media stores & an indoor flea market. A couple of the thrift stores closed, one moved because the city it was in wanted the whole street redone with more lucrative storefronts & came up with a deal to buy them all out & one of the other used media stores decided to no longer accept trade ins. This is, of course, excluding Gamestop, that mostly specializes in more modern stuff, anyway. Anything corporate kind of ruins their own selection to focus on what is lucrative. But, the one guy left in the indoor flea market has an insane amount of product from nearly every single generation of gaming, plus tons of used DVDs, Blurays & VHSs & some other related merch.
Like these types of videos thanks riff n ps love that lil dance you do in between 😄
Found a Big boss man wrestling buddies for 1.99 at Goodwill, found a 2 super rare Pyrex bowls for 2.99 each and sold for 400 each. Found a bag full of Hotwheels redlines for 2 bucks and sold them all for around 300. Don’t sleep on Goodwill I catch them slipping all the time.
Glad I was doing it 7 years ago and built a serious collection then. I found Chrono trigger for $3 at Goodwill in 2018, that would never happen nowadays. :( the pandemic was a blessing and a curse for the Retro market
Pandemic and social media
Na what's killed bargains is the internet in general because people can quickly identify how much something is roughly worth now and then mix in scalpers and sites like eBay all that has effectively wiped out bargain hunting across the board.
You can still find stuff out there it's just got and is getting alot harder
@@cozzy4447 100% agree, there’s a lot of factors. I still hunt tho 😂
I’m a videographer/photographer I once found an Manfrotto Avenger combo stand worth $500 listed for $75! The cashier and workers were asking me what it is. In the film industry world these stands are built for grip and lighting. It was at a Savers store in NM.
This is one of your better videos Riff. Keep doing stuff like this! I'm a big fan! Great work!
Working on more like this! One about GameStop will be released the day after Christmas 🎄
They make adult size shorts for going out in public lol
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Yep
I remember finding a then sealed copy of Rayman for ps1 for a dollar. I eventually opened it because I legit wanted to play it but It was such an amazing surprise to see it in the wild in that way
My wife found a super Mario 2 double sided store display. We paid 8$ for it. Our best find.
Last spring I found the Pokemon Colosseum bonus disc for GameCube at Goodwill of all places for $5.99. Complete and minty. I was extremely surprised because the local stores are notorious for sending EVERYTHING out to the online store. They even charge $5.99 for Blu-rays! I think the only thing that kept it from getting snatched up before I found it was the price tag was covering the GC logo on the spine.
Thanks for stepping out of your comfort zone and putting yourself out there, Riff! We appreciate you, fam!
Thank you very much! I felt all….tense hahah
As a video editor and i can respect that went into this video
Warriors of virtue was one of my favorite movies as a kid. I remember seeing the preview for that movie come on TV and I was in love instantly I had to go watch it in the movie theaters I had to have all the toys growing up. I love that movie.
It all depends on whether the thrift store you go to is sending all the video game items online for sale.
My son found Silent Hill and Resident Evil for the PS1 last year at a thrift store for 1.00 each in the CD section.
Less than 2 months ago, I found Battletoads, Double Dragon 2 CIB. Sonic Adventure NFR, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Shuffle, Worms Armageddon, Xbox Green Halo ( Red Ringed) when i got home to look at it.
This was at the same thrift store my son found Silent Hill and RE.
7:21 i downloaded the app but it keeps crashing and it won't open on android. Is anyone else have this problem?
4-5 years ago I use to flip opshop/thrift shop clothes and items to get by as I was a student and needed money. As the years have gone on I've seen the shops get so busy and people line up outside. Prices increased insanely and everyone is reselling online.
These days I go into the shops and regret even wasting my time going in.
Solstice is a hugely underrated NES game.
favorite video yet my friend. Love the style.. more story telling and following you as a personality.
Ricky’s wife didn’t let him out this day 😢😂
😂😂😂😂
😂
My best find was a lot of 26 vintage 70s/80s Star Wars figures with some accessories in a vintage Darth Vader case for $30!! It was in 2021, and I still really can't believe it!!
Thanks for another great video Riff :)
My best thriftstore find was a vintage Playstation sign for 10 bucks 😍❤️.
In the area I live in used to work at a retro game store and the owner of that was friends with the owner of our local thrift/pawnshop chain.
He told us that all the thrift stores these days only put the cheap stuff they get on the shelves. Anything actually good they resell on ebay.
I find when it comes to video games you won't be walking in and finding any crazy great deals anymore, the only time I've found that to happen these days is when I go hunting through yard sales now.
I found a prosthetic leg at goodwill for fifteen dollars. I resold it on ebay for five hundred dollars. Hands down the strangest and most profitable item I've found at a thrift store.
@@ayceodhe didn’t rob a disabled person for their leg lmao
@@ImClassix only a racoon could do something like that.
A lot of the imported Japanese games could have more demand for speedrunners cause some regions play slightly faster then other regions (beyond just the PAL/NTSC stuff).
Not only that but depending on the title and how savy the buyer is they could mod it. First Pokemon Crystal I bought was Japanese and when I did sell it, asked the buyer saying this is cheap because it is a different region, and buyer flat out said he was getting it on the cheap to mod it. So hey to each their own.
Mine was back in 2020. I found a box that had about $12, 000 worth (at that time) of 1950's baseball cards. I bought them for $60. 🤯 I sold some of them and I was able to buy a car. 🤗 The ones I kept have been steadily increasing in value. My greatest find ever... 🤘
You'll probably wanna offload those soon.....
@@ShinzouKatsunewhy do you say that?
Don't sell them old cards almost never go down
My father has sports cards from the late 70s to early 80s, he’d used to get them with packs of bubblegum. It’s considered junk wax nowadays
Brand new sealed Parasite Eve 2 with the hang tab for $5 at goodwill will forever be my best find
i found the cartridge used to distribute the mythical Pokemon meloetta in Pokémon black and White for 10€, resold it for only 100€ but that was 10+ years ago, it's worth way more now
Out here in AZ, we have none of that. Best thrift deal i got was a full wardrobe of suits just weeks before my consultant job for about $100.
2 Best Thrift Finds my family found;
-$700 Leather Bomber Jacket for $30-$40.
-$2,000 Double Rotary Fan Ceiling Fan with the remote control for $100.
I found a clear tapped up container of madballs (85-87) for 7.99, kept my favorite and made well over 1000 doll hairs
Definitely a fun store I wouldn't mind going through a game store like that a seeing what they had because some times unlocking those memories are the best.
Bought a copy of Western Samurai for PS2, MINT, at a habitat for humanity store for $1.99..... retails for $200+.... was super stoked.
This was agonizing to watch. I couldn't even get beyond 10 minutes because you were just overplaying the garbage that you found there pretending like it was worth your time or money.
This is the problem. You are the problem.
The best score at a thrift store is a 20 dollar black gamecube with a gb player, but it didn't come with startup disc and instead had Mlb baseball 2002 and only had av cables
My best find was mighty final fight for the nes for $.99 in a thrift store.Great pickups!!👍
In regards of Eco Tek, they're basically just the US Affiliate of Hard Off/Book Off which are the Japanese #1 Second Hand market. Thiss is why they do have like 10 Mario 64 games in a single store because it's just littering everywhere in Japan for less than 1000 JPY ($7). I just wish they do open affiliates in continental Europe (however, we have some kind of local variants which are sometimes cool but they do price-chart)
I've found some old vintage board games even modern ones at thrift stores usually 5$ or less and sometimes there worth up to 100s of $
Oh my biggest flex at a thrift store is the time i found a bunch of Adventures in Odysee vhs tapes and a bunch of McGee and Me tapes, all rare and worth big dollars. Paid 50 cents for each tape. All tapes worth $30+ each! Filled 2 bags
You make very cool videos. I like your self awareness about filming in public it’s funny lol. Been watching you every once in a while for about 2 years keep up the good work happy hunting.
I love when youtube randomly recommends me a video of a game/console flipper complaining about not being able to find cheap things for them to flip unironically never admitting that they are the reason behind most of things sucking.
Best thrift find for me was a cartridge only Pokémon Soul Silver for $3.99. Absolutely wild.
Fake fake
14:00 that store's supply and logo appear to be a USA branch of the 'Hard-Off' stores in japan
You are correct. They own Book off, hard off, eco tek and Eco Town.
My biggest flex thrifting was a Cannon digital camera at Goodwill 2 years ago. I bought it for 5 dollars and sold it for 285 dollars.
You can 100% still find good stuff in charity shops (thrift stores) here in the UK. Always helps to get friendly with the staff as well to get access to the back rooms early 😊
In my area, I'm pretty sure any game worth anything now gets sold in online Ebay auctions. When I first moved up here it was a little better, I even managed to snag an original full in box copy of Space Quest IV.
But even at that time anything on a console was being price checked to the online market place.
I still see occasional games, but it's mostly mass market sporting titles for Xbox 360 and the Wii.
It was a local thrift store in Brockton, Massachusetts. I found Marvel vs Capcom 2 on PS2. No manual, but it was only $4
i got a gameboy color for $5 a couple years back. i was cometely blown away that they go for $80 now. nothing would have stopped me from getting the dragon ball skate deck OR the spawn action figures! :)
As long as people declutter, get evicted, get divorced, lose loved ones, etc; there will always be finds out there. Sad but true.
The best deal I got at a thrift store was the first deal that made me start collecting. I bought a nes with controler + super mario bros for 10€ + megadrive with 2 controllers + 6 cool games for 25€ + dreamcast with 2 controlers and 1 memory card + 5 games for 20€. In the middle of the dreamcast games was not only Sonic adventure 2 complete in box but also one of the rarest dreamcast games also complete in box: project justice 2 rivals schools 2 who costs 200€+
My best find was a GeForce 980TI for 45$ in 2019 at goodwill. Best game collecting find was a haul of Wii’s and Genesis’ at a Salvation Army in Iowa City. The lot together was enough to get the switch my wife wanted when I traded them in 2018. It was a lot of consoles and consoles only, no cables or anything. It was weird why they had so many for just like 3$ each lol
The only good deals I ever see is at pawn shops because I've seen loads of ps2 games for like 2$ each, Gameboy color for 50$ and ps1 for 60$ but I've passed them up because for 50$ you can buy a handheld emulator that plays ps1 and below easily
Best Goodwill Find: I found Echo Night & Castelvania SOTN in the CD section for $1.99 each.
I've had over 40 years of gaming stuff taken from me.
I'll never have the money to replace all the consoles, cartridges and discs in this kind of market now.
That's why I've turned to emulation, i might not ever see my NES with the vintage puffy stickers it was packed with but at least I can still play the games and remember through them.
😅👍
This dude is a reseller that does fasting, literally the root of the problem
Yea intermittent fasting is killing the hobby for sure
The best find at a thrift store was a copy of Wild Arms 5 for PS2 in case and great condition for $5.99.
I found at a thrift store down the road from me a stack of N64 Nintendo Power Magazines with Zelda, Super Mario 64, Yoshi Story etc, best find I had so far!
Sometimes those solo hunt days have the best finds out of nowhere. Nice work Riff
I appreciate that you found the hookups deck. Skater since 1990.. well I was 4 so. Rode since I was 4 lol. Also memories of getting every system in Xmas. I was lucky enough to already have an NES when i was born in 86. Love the CIBs dude. Great video
basically any time something becomes an influence trend, it dies. used to be that you could pick up an old dell optiplex for 100-200 dollars, it would have a solid processor in it, you could install an ssd and a gpu and have a high end gaming pc for 500 bucks. Now those same computers go for 500-600 dollars.
Thrift stores and pawn shops used to be full of cheap old video games but now they all just sell on ebay for top dollar.
Even yard sales rarely have any sort of good deal.
When I was a kid thrift stores actually had some cool stuff but once I became an adult the internet ruined thrifting. Every time I go to a thrift there’s absolutely nothing and usually are like 3 other people that are obviously there to flip stuff which sucks cause all my favorite games I’ve gotten on bargains growing up. UA-cam ruined video game hunting I can’t even go to the swap meet without them trying to charge me either the same as eBay prices or more than them. I can see the spots you chose were carefully picked for the content cause there’s absolutely nothing like that in my area and I’m like 40 minutes away from LA so obvi everyone here and there buys to triple the price online or at their “gaming business”.
It 100% depends on where you live. Because I can show you as far as video games only, there is nothing in my area at goodwills.