What was your best goodwill video game find?

[Verm3]

Finding a copy of Super Mario 3D world for WiiU in a good will/charity shop for £1 made me wonder what other good video game related finds have been made at good will/charity shops by people over the years?

[Stalvern]

Sister found a complete, sleeved copy of Link: The Faces of Evil in a thrift store for a couple of bucks (if that) and bought it for me as a silly little present. Turns out that they go for hundreds on eBay.

[BanjoPickles]

It wasn’t Goodwill, but I snagged a CIB copy of Earthbound—in very good condition, nonetheless—for $15 at Acme Comics in 2001! I sold it, eleven years later, for nearly $300!

[Sonicx9]

My two best goodwill video game finds are R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 for PS1 (the full 2 disc set which is steller deal.) and Muppet Monster Adventure for PS1 (would kill to see this remade on Unreal Engine 4 for modern systems with WB Games publishing it!)

[matmico399]

A Nintendo GameCube console for $20. Haven't found anything else good.

[Matchstick]

Oh, Goodwill. Or St. Vinny's. How times have changed. Used to be you could find nearly anything for next-to-nothing. Nowadays, I feel like every single item in most thrift shops is price-checked online first, taking a lot of thrill out of the find.

I recently saw a stack of NES games at a local St. Vinny's that was chock full of great titles. A few Mega Man titles, the OG Final Fantasy, all three Castlevania games, all three Mario games, Contra, and the list goes on. Castlevania III was $29.95. Mega Man V was $49.95. At a thrift shop. Give me a break!

At least cassettes and videotapes are still 5 for a buck. I might not be able to score any good games at my local thrift shops, but I can always load up on tapes. I'll take what I can get.

As far as my best thrift shop finds in history:

About ten years ago, I picked up a complete Model 1 Sega Genesis, with all the hook-ups and two controllers, for $10. It was one of the original "High Definition Graphics" models and sounded so, so, good when using the headphone jack. It completely revived my interest in the Genesis, and a few trips to my local secondhand shops yielded a boatload of great games for about a buck a piece. I wound up being out $20, and I had the system with two controllers, Sonic and Sonic 2, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, NHL '94, Road Rash II, Jurassic Park, and Super Street Fighter II.

I still keep that lineup next to the system as a reminder of how good of a deal you used to be able to get on that kind of stuff - and it was back in 2009, not even all that long ago. Nowadays, $20 for a haul like that? Forget it!

As a bonus, I also picked up a lime green tray-loading original iMac G3 from that same Goodwill for $20 a few weeks later. Came with the power cable and matching mouse and keyboard as well. Maxed out the RAM (512 MB - woooooo!) and reformatted the hard drive with a clean install of Mac OS 9.2. I used it to play all sorts of classic games, such as the LucasArts adventure games, Myst and Riven, The 7th Guest, the OG Diablo, Wing Commander III and IV, and the list goes on. Even had a basic install of OS 10.4 that I could switch to for iTunes, and used the computer as a jukebox / classic game station. I loved the way that emulators looked on that CRT screen, too. Wound up giving that iMac away once I moved across the country, but man, do I ever regret that. In a perfect world, I could have lugged it around with me wherever I went. Oh, well.

Much like my feelings about the thrift shops, at this point I'm just thankful for the memories

[Tron]

Oh, Goodwill. Or St. Vinny's. How times have changed. Used to be you could find nearly anything for next-to-nothing. Nowadays, I feel like every single item in most thrift shops is price-checked online first, taking a lot of thrill out of the find.

I recently saw a stack of NES games at a local St. Vinny's that was chock full of great titles. A few Mega Man titles, the OG Final Fantasy, all three Castlevania games, all three Mario games, Contra, and the list goes on. Castlevania III was $29.95. Mega Man V was $49.95. At a thrift shop. Give me a break!

At least cassettes and videotapes are still 5 for a buck. I might not be able to score any good games at my local thrift shops, but I can always load up on tapes. I'll take what I can get.

As far as my best thrift shop finds in history:

About ten years ago, I picked up a complete Model 1 Sega Genesis, with all the hook-ups and two controllers, for $10. It was one of the original "High Definition Graphics" models and sounded so, so, good when using the headphone jack. It completely revived my interest in the Genesis, and a few trips to my local secondhand shops yielded a boatload of great games for about a buck a piece. I wound up being out $20, and I had the system with two controllers, Sonic and Sonic 2, Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, NHL '94, Road Rash II, Jurassic Park, and Super Street Fighter II.

I still keep that lineup next to the system as a reminder of how good of a deal you used to be able to get on that kind of stuff - and it was back in 2009, not even all that long ago. Nowadays, $20 for a haul like that? Forget it!

As a bonus, I also picked up a lime green tray-loading original iMac G3 from that same Goodwill for $20 a few weeks later. Came with the power cable and matching mouse and keyboard as well. Maxed out the RAM (512 MB - woooooo!) and reformatted the hard drive with a clean install of Mac OS 9.2. I used it to play all sorts of classic games, such as the LucasArts adventure games, Myst and Riven, The 7th Guest, the OG Diablo, Wing Commander III and IV, and the list goes on. Even had a basic install of OS 10.4 that I could switch to for iTunes, and used the computer as a jukebox / classic game station. I loved the way that emulators looked on that CRT screen, too. Wound up giving that iMac away once I moved across the country, but man, do I ever regret that. In a perfect world, I could have lugged it around with me wherever I went. Oh, well.

Much like my feelings about the thrift shops, at this point I'm just thankful for the memories

Just like how the internet has ruined gaming it has ruined finding deals at thrift shops. I found Panzer Dragoon for Sega Saturn a few years back. I was so excited and thought for sure it would be at the very least reasonably priced. Once I saw the tag for a couple hundred, don't remember the actual price, my heart sank and I was pissed.

[djc]

A few reasonably good finds I had within the past few months at my local Goodwill:

A slim PS2 (picked up as a spare unit) w/two controllers and all connections: $25

Xbox 360 White w/hard drive (for one of my kids) w/two controllers and all connections: $40

Complete Wii w/two controllers and connections: $25

Philips CD-I 910 (picked up as a spare unit): $12 (I am pretty sure they didn't know what it was and assumed it was just a CD or DVD player)

Two Nintendo DS-Lites with a few games for $15 (this was probably my best score)

Agree with everyone else that the prices have gone up. I don't like how any cartridge game is a minimum of $10 while the Xbox 360, PS3, etc... games are $5.00

[JWK]

I found a complete Wii console (all hook ups, sensor, power supply, etc) for $10. They sold the Wiimote and nunchuck separately for $5, so $15 for all. I took it home hooked it up and found it hadn’t been used since 2008. Not only was it in mint condition cosmetically, but it had also barely been used. I pressed the eject button and out popped Mario Kart Wii. Because it was disc only and I already had the game, I sold it for $20. Essentially got everything for free.

I’ve had a few other good finds, but perhaps the best find was Resident Evil: Directors Cut. Nothing too special about the game, generally, but this is the very rare single disc variant that came between the DC dual disc version with the demo and the Dual Shock version. Prices are hard to come by for this thing, but most eBay listings place it between $110 and $140. I found it for $1. I have no intentions on selling it, but it’s nice to know I might get a bit of money for it if I do.

Oh, last one! Two weeks ago I found Parasite Eve complete for $3. I replaced the case and it looked almost brand new. I already had the game already, so I traded with a friend for Goemon’s Great Adventure (N64) which is worth about $55. We both needed each other’s games, and I threw in $15 since Parasite Eve is really only worth about $30. Not too bad to get the second Goemon game on N64 for $18 and a little leg work.

[Crummylion]

Found an Xbox for 20 dollars. Bought Grabbed by the Ghoulies along with it, it's a Rareware game despite its flaws. I sold it a couple years later to empty out the house though, that was a mistake.