A few nice yard sale finds today, though nothing too earth-shattering.

The Find of the Day for me was an excellent condition copy of Vandal Hearts for the Playstation. I nearly didn’t stop at this sale because the classified ad listed “glassware, antiques,” etc., which is usually just code for “grandma died and we’re clearing out her house.” This was around 11:30 too, pretty late in the day for 32-bit gems to be just sitting around.

The funniest thing was that this was only game they had (too bad!), and the only other thing I saw that looked like it was made for someone under 40 was a single Spider-Man action figure. Most everything else, was the ad said, was antique.

The asking price was $1 and I happily paid it. This is my first ever copy of Vandal Hearts and it will be staying in the collection for sure. I’ve been on a tactics RPG kick lately, so perhaps I’ll end up playing it someday. (Then, I say that about the other 400 games that I own.) Now just to find Vandal Hearts 2…

Low point of the day: Snobby bitch mom trying to sell PS2 launch titles (those are from 2000, in case you forgot) and Game Boy Color games for $10 each. I held up Zone of the Enders. “This game is $5 at Gamestop.” “Oh no it’s not, I buy games there all the time.” I give up.

• Bust-a-Move, Game Gear, complete and minty — $2
• Pac-Man, Game Gear, complete and minty — $2
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, Game Gear, complete and minty — $2
• Super Columns, Game Gear, complete and minty — $2 (These all came from the same guy who sold me the complete Genesis games two weeks ago.)
• Star Wars: Dark Forces/Jedi Knight Special Edition, PC — $1
• X-Com: UFO Defense, DOS/PC — $1
• Aladdin, Genesis — $0.50 (Much nostalgia for this one!)
• PS2 demos: Jampack, Dark Cloud 2, War of the Monsters — $0.25 ea
• Resident Evil 4 EGM preview DVD — $0.25
• Playstation 2 Kiosk 2-12 Spring 2004 promo demo — $0.25 (So cool to find these in the wild! I’ve never owned any kiosk demo discs before. All the demos came from a guy who used to work at both Software, Etc. and Wal-Mart.)
• Xbox Wal-Mart Demo Disk Version 2.0 — $0.25 (No idea what’s on here. I thought I might pop it in my 360 to find out, but then I remembered it’s probably not backwards compatible. Anybody know what’s on the disc? Put it in the comments!)Find of the Day:
• Vandal Hearts, PS1, complete — $1

Update 07.30.08: I had a friend pop the Xbox kiosk demo disc into his original Xbox, and here’s what’s on it:

Playable Demo:
NCAA Football 2003
RalliSport Challenge

Video:
Madden NFL 2003
NASCAR Thunder 2003
Prima Strategy Guides
Xbox Live - Play Online!
Xbox Now $199
Blinx: The Time Sweeper
Kakuto Chojin
Kung Fu Chaos
Mech Assault
NBA Inside Drive 2003
NFL Fever 2003
Quantum Redshift
Shenmue II
Sneakers
Whacked!
Xbox.com
Xbox Accessories
ESRB Ratings

Warning:
Microsoft Legal

I mentioned a few weeks ago about a rare Aerith’s Theme music box from Final Fantasy VII. Well, one has just shown up on eBay with an opening price of $1000 and one bid so far.

The box is larger than I thought it was, measuring 10 inches on the longest side. The seller says this music box is an edition of only 500, with this one being #044. Here’s the seller’s description:

If you look at the silver part with the six screws and the strips, it is made to look like a piano and as the music box plays, the strips move just like it’s playing a piano (looks amazing). At the front of the music box there’s a gold harp shaped piece that if you move to the left it stops and if you move to the right it plays. The dimensions of its box are 10 inches by 4.25 inches by 6.5 inches. The reason why it’s so expensive is that the music box has 50 NOTES. Most music boxes have only 18 notes, and play only 1 tune. The music box is made out of curubixa wood which is supposed to be one of the best woods for music boxes (curubixa wood is an exotic type of wood : dense and excellent for sound insulation). This is very high quality item. Don’t miss out on this super rare FFVII item. Auction started from $1,000 (no reserve) and buy it now option $1,700.

I keep having an impulse to bid, but then I remember what an obscene amount of money that is.

Final Fantasy VII Aerith Music Box Limited Edition

I had some OK yard sale finds today. Once again, my best find came early in the day — Zelda Collector’s Edition for Gamecube for $3. I found this at around 8:30 (sales start around 8 in this area) at community sale at a car wash. The games belonged to a kid. He had a bin of Gamecube games (mostly kids’ games) marked $5.00 each, but took my $3 offer without hesitation. As I was leaving, he was getting ready to mark the games down from $5 to who knows what, and his mother scolded him, telling him to wait. I thought it was amusing that he was so anxious to sell them after only a half hour.

• Jet black Gamecube, with nice case, 2 controllers, 3 memory cards — $10
• Microsoft Works Suite 2001 — $0.25
• Spryo the Dragon, PS1 — $0.50
• Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi PS1 — $0.50
• Beyond Good and Evil, Xbox — Asking $5, offered $3 (one of the better finds of the day)
• Zelda Collector’s Edition, Gamecube — Asking $5, offered $3
• Pokemon Red (cart only) and Blue (complete) — Asking $7 ea (!), offered $2.50 ea

For those who collect Final Fantasy soundtracks, GameMusic.com has a few bargains in their clearance section:

• Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII Limited Edition soundtrack, $9.99
• “Melodies of Life” single (Theme from Final Fantasy IX), $2.99
  and for the Halo fans,
• Halo 2 Original Soundtrack Volume 1, $4.99

These are legit Japanese printings, Nippon Crown and King Records labels on the FF CDs, respectively. If you’re new to soundtrack collecting, here’s a nice FAQ for avoiding bootleg CDs.

Good deals, especially since I paid 1000 yen for the Melodies of Life single from Yahoo Japan just a few months ago… d’oh!

Update: Speaking of Dirge of Cerberus, Square just (unexpectedly) announced that they are releasing a new version in Japan, Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII International. Pretty ballsy for such a poorly-received title. [via AdventChildren.net]

I just got back from another successful Saturday morning of yard sales.

I was lucky enough to get my very first Sega Saturn today. This is the first one that I’ve seen in the wild at a reasonable price. The seller was asking $5, but I offered him $3, and he took it. (I admit, my definition of “reasonable price” is pretty lowball when it comes to yard saling.) It was pretty dirty and scuffed (photos are after cleaning) but to my surprise, it does, in fact, work. What surprises me most is how quiet it is for such an old CD-ROM system. Heck, my new PSP is noisier than this.

The last Sega Saturn set I saw in the wild was at the same Goodwill where I picked up the Super Famicom (!), though that set was a bit too pricey for me at $50. It had some nice games though — Bust-a-Move 2,  Sonic 3D, etc.

I was wondering why I keep finding copies of Final Fantasy XI at yard sales and Goodwills, and then I remembered Gamestop doesn’t take it for trade-in.

• Sega Saturn, 2 controllers, all hook-ups, with Virtua Fighter 2 and some hockey game that I’m not even going to bother to copy down — asking $5, offered $3
• Final Fantasy XI Xbox 360 — $2 (A Final Fantasy game that I don’t have, at a yard sale. How novel!)
• Vectorman, complete and mint –  $2
• Sonic 3D Blast, complete and mint –$2
• Frogger, Spyro the Dragon, Spyro: Ripto’s Rage, Ape Escape, all minty — $2
• Playstation pre-DualShock Analog Controller SCPH-1180, mint in box — $3 (Some crazies believe that this is the most comfortable Sony controller ever made. The PS1 and Genesis games all came from a guy who told me he had a ton of game stuff, but was eBaying portions of it. He told me he just sold a mint copy of Super Mario RPG for $91 on eBay [link]. I responded with a frustrated “aaahhh!!” Guess I wasn’t going to get any amazing deals from him.)
• Nintendo A/V hookups — $0.75
• TI-83 Plus graphing calculator — asking $5, offered $4 (Easy resale come August/September.)
• PSP charger — $1 (Great for my Crisis Core PSP, since I needed another American cable.)

aaaand the Find of the Day:
• Nintendo DS fatty — $5

Found this at the very first sale of the day. Amusingly, they also had a 1st-gen indigo GBA that they wanted $10 for. Huh? I’m sure the DS would not have lasted long had I not gotten there early. The lady said it worked OK, but she didn’t have the “batteries.” Er. By that, I guess she meant the power cable. I plugged it in immediately once I got home and hit Power. Nothing. I was disappointed as I was sure I had just bought someone’s brick. I kept pressing Power and then I heard the speakers clicking. A few more times, and it powered on. It lives! I guess it needed a minute to charge.

The touch screen is pretty scratched. Does anyone have any suggestions on fixing scratches? If so, leave a comment.

And no, Phoenix Wright wasn’t included.

Just a quick note about this — I was happy to see that eBay announced on Thursday that they will be retracting 2 of the disastrous changes that they made to their feedback system earlier this year.

First, neutrals will no longer count “against” sellers when their “positive” percentage score is calculated. This is good. That eBay decided that a “neutral” was the same as a “negative” was asinine in the first place, and certainly buyers never got the memo that leaving a neutral would negatively hamper a seller’s score.

Second, eBay will be re-instating a form of the Mutual Feedback Withdrawl system to let buyers change feedback after they’ve left it. Until now, feedback left under the new system was absolutely final. Again, buyers didn’t get the memo. Their news write-up pains itself to say that it will not be the “same” system as before — after all, that would admit that they were wrong in taking it away in the first place. God forbid. Among the biggest change is that a dissatisfied buyer will actually be able to change a negative feedback into a positive one, which was not possible under the old Mutual Feedback Withdrawl system.

As cynical as I am of the auction giant, it’s good to see that for the first time this year, eBay isn’t biting the hand that feeds them. (To eBay: I’m talking about the sellers, who actually pay you, despite your new president’s claim that the buyers are eBay’s customers, not the sellers.)

What I ordered:

What I got:

This is one “wrong item received” that I won’t be filing a complaint for.

I believe the look on my face was priceless when I opened the evelope and thought, “I………. didn’t order this…… did I?” The fact that I couldn’t answer that clearly is the reason I named this blog what it is.