Where are people finding snes games?

I'm just getting back into some older stuff and am having trouble finding snes games.  Going to ebay everything seems to have a retail value asigned to it.  Yards sales a weak up here in the great North of Maine.

I've sent some pm's in the trading section here but nothing has come of it yet.

TLFerrill said:

I'm just getting back into some older stuff and am having trouble finding snes games. Going to ebay everything seems to have a retail value asigned to it. Yards sales a weak up here in the great North of Maine.

I've sent some pm's in the trading section here but nothing has come of it yet.

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Pawn shops or mom and pop shops are about it besides Ebay.

I've had my best luck on eBay, can usually find some cheap stuff. I would recommend just looking at auctions and not buy it nows.

Also mom and pop stores are good but the ones in Cleveland have been raising in prices so I haven't bought from those in awhile.

And it depends on what your looking for. If your looking for the Mario's/donkey kongs/first parties etc.. You'll be paying a good buck.

Yeah, you have to do a little work finding them, eBay, craigslist, yard sales etc. That being said, I have not bought any SNES games in nearly 10 months, due to all these people buying them all willy nilly. My NES collection has grown on the other hand.

If there are specific carts you are after my suggestion is eBay. I have saved searches that I check frequently to see if I can get what I want for the price I want. If you can wait it out you can get some pretty good deals. I just bought Final Fantasy III for SNES for $20 (buy it now that I found within the first two hours of it being posted) a few days ago that was in great condition. That one was purely luck of the draw though as I haven't been looking for the Final Fantasy games as I'm not really much of a fan of the franchise (Chrono Trigger being so much better and having only three games in the series). I just happened to do a quick search out of curiosity and saw that come up. I know that last time I looked FFIII was between $40-60 so I knew that price was super low. Did a quick double check of recently closed auctions and saw that $20 was still incredibly low so I snagged it.

I've had some good luck on some of the upper end carts too, over the past year or so I picked up Mega Man X3 for $118, Harvest Moon for $108, E.V.O. for $100, Metal Warriors for $99, and Super Turrican 2 for $90. I recently started looking for Hagane and Wild Guns so don't bid against me for those!

I've been having some good luck at Flea Markets lately. None of the super rare games, but I finally found Super Castlevania IV for $25 yesterday. It's pretty beat up, but I plan on disassembling it and cleaning it up. Also found Batman and Double Dragon II for the NES for $8 each. 

I go to yard sales when I can, but most of the time I just use trading sites. Buying from ebay is just crazy these days, not worth it. 

If you live in Maine, avoid this guy-

https://www.facebook.com/Thegameguyne

The Game Guy loves to scalp commons.

I've found some good keepers from goodwill, but most of the snes games I've found were from craiglist.

Thrift stores and flea markets have been best for me.

My friends and I buy most of our retro gaming stuff at Core Gaming in Salem, NH.  They have NES, SNES, GAMEBOY games and consoles as well as Sega Genesis, gamegear, xbox ps1.  Lots of accessories available  and the  guy who works there is pretty cute too! 

Consider buying the Japanese versions of the games you want. It's really easy to modify the SNES to play Japanese games, considering you do need to buy a $4 screwdriver piece, and get a pair of strong pliers, you're set.

But to modify a Super Famicom to play SNES games, you'll need to take off the top plate and dremel a significant amount around the cart slot.

I've found myself searching thrift shops lately, but haven't found much of anything.

I use a few avenues to find old games. 

With Ebay,  I first off tend to avoid buying first party stuff due to the inflated prices until I find it as part of a larger lot. So basically I wait until I find a decent lot with at least a few games I'm looking for and buy it that way. When you divide out the cost per game, it usually ends up being cheaper per game than buying single games at a time. Then, I trade the carts I don't need with other guys either here on CAG or on CL or whatever. I try to keep it 1 for 1 in most cases so I always have a flow of games going in and out. The stuff I really want for my personal collection gets "vaulted" and I keep it.

Another path is just bartering on Craigslist. Retro games unfortunately are commanding pretty high prices now compared to 10 years ago, so you have to get in where you can if low on cash. I've bartered other household shit from time to time for games and accessories. For example, I got a couple boxes of .270 by mistake and I don't have that caliber rifle, mine is a 30-06, and since ammunition is non-refundable I found some dude who was more than happy to give me a bunch of "crappy old" NES games for the ammo. I essentially paid 30 bucks of ammo for like 12 decent NES carts. Sometimes you get lucky.  

Decent SNES games are hard to find consistently for decent prices in the NW. I check CL for garage/yard sales that say something about "old nintendo" or "old video games" and check the other items they are mentioning to see if it is worth going to. If so, I show up around the start time on the first day. Sometimes "old nintendo" are Wii/Gamecube/, but sometimes NES/SNES. When I find them, they are mainly NES games/systems nowadays, but sometimes SNES. It takes some time and you need to be able to travel around.