Trophy Room 2026
This is sort of the 20th anniversary of this section. It's technically the 19th entry and we'll get to why in a moment.
The first year I posted this series was 2006. The pictures were much worse but the finds much better. Ten years later I questioned whether this annual roundup would continue much longer. Game prices grew absurd, which dampened my interest in even trying to look for deals.
Then there was an unplanned two year hiatus. Where I live there were no garage or estate sales in 2020. A small scattering appeared in 2021, not enough to make it worth the time. In 2022 they crept back and I felt reenergized to write these recaps, now from a different perspective than the much younger person who started them.
The days of finding boxes of retro games for $1 each are gone. There's a chance I'll get lucky. It doesn't matter, I barely have space for my current collection anyway. In 2022 this section was re-tooled to focus on the absurdity of modern pricing and odd things found in the wild. I think I enjoy writing it more than I did twenty years ago.
So what did this almost 20th year of game hunting find anyway...
One chilly Saturday in January I was out doing whatever when I spotted a sign for an estate sale. The sign was deceptive. The sale was actually a store that dealt with abandoned estates. The owner is exactly who you are picturing would run a shop like this. We talked for a bit. I learned that his business works like - 1) Someone dies without an estate or relatives (or relatives that want to deal with their stuff). 2) The bank that owns the mortgage for their house needs it cleaned out and hires someone like him to do it. 3) There is some agreement, like a consignment, where the bank receives a cut of what he sells. This does not sound like an easy living but he seemed perfect for it.
He had a decent collection of mostly common video games there. It's about what you'd expect. If someone had a video game hoard worth 5+ digits I expect some distant relative would be happy to claim their estate. By far, the most interesting item was one I didn't buy:
What you see here is two NES Advantage controllers modded into a dual stick PlayStation controller. I assume this was done to play a favorite flight or tank game. I suppose it could have been made for accessibility purposes, I think my first impression is more likely. I performed a couple searches to see if this mod was documented anywhere and found nothing.
I have no use or space for this controller. I debated whether it was worth spending $40 to satisfy my curiosity. I don't have any games that would benefit from this setup but would like to try it all the same. Maybe I should have bought it if only to donate to the Midwest Gaming Classic's game room. Whatever, finding this will make someone else's day.
I sort of felt obligated to buy something so I went with this Atari 2600 game I didn't own, also because I'm a fan of Imagic box art:
Ever since getting the Atari 7800+ I've been playing so many 2600/7800 games that don't appear on the roughly 800,000,000 collections of Atari games and Flashback systems. Trying a "new to me game" is a great way to spend a 5 minute break during the day.
This is all I have so far. I posted this in January and hopefully I'll spot some more interesting things throughout the year.
Related
