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I'm back home after spending far too much time and money in Edmonton and Calgary over the last week or so. I met up with Krunch from Nintendoage early on and he took me game hunting around Edmonton. It was the typical day for any game collector. We stopped by his place first and checked out his impressive Nintendo collection, then we hit a few stores, stopped at the post office to mail off a trade he had, hit a couple more stores, did a craigslist deal in a parking, had lunch and then hit a few more stores.

Last store of the day was owned by another Nintendoager, Kain76. He was going to the Calgary Expo on the weekend as a vendor (which is where my wife and I planned to spend the weekend) and he gave us a sneak peak at the goodies he was bringing along............. I was a bit sad I didn't bring thousands of dollars along with me. He 3 boxes crammed full of stuff like: 4 copies of Little Samson (1 CIB), 4 CIB Earthbound, Clayfighter Sculptor's Cut CIB, Sealed and graded River City Ransom and Wayne's World on the NES, Hagane, etc., etc. Really awesome stuff. While I didn't make off with any of the awesome stuff he had prepped for the expo I did manage to grab a few things I needed for my collection.

The first store Krunch and I stopped at was an Antique Mall. It was kind of like a flea market, but classier. Vendor's could rent out a cabinet and sell their stuff without having to be present. A person would come by with a key and let you check out someone elses items to buy. Unfortunately that means no haggling though. I did end up grabbing a copy of L'empereur and Magic Darts though, both in fantastic condition.

One of the next stores we stopped at I ended up with a copy of Defenders of Dynatron that had a few rental stickers I'll need to clean off it. Another store or two and I snapped up a copy of Destiny of an Emperor. At the next stop I spied 3 Vectrex machines and had the guy set one up for me so I could try it out. It was awesome!! But at $200 I really had to think about it and since he had 3 I decided to take at least a day to mull it over. At a Nexwave Games I grabbed a copy of Ninja Crusaders that had a tiny bit of label damage. Unknown to me at the time Kain76 was the owner of both the Nexwave Games stores in Edmonton. When Krunch and I made our final stop at Nexwave Games and met up with Kain76 we were chatting a bit. I mentioned how I had picked up a few of the games he had in his store already, but that his were either cheaper or in better condition. He graciously told me that if I had picked up any of them at his other store that were in better condition I could swap them straight across. So I upgraded my Ninja Crusaders to a nicer copy :) After that I asked him if he had a Vectrex because I was thinking about one from another store. He literally took one step and grabbed one that was hiding behind the counter. It was missing the controller and the monitor has some issues, but he let me take it with 2 extra games for $10, so I couldn't say no to that. Hopefully I can get this baby running again and then grab a controller for it. Since he gave me a good deal I grabbed a couple more games from his store even though one of them was in pretty rough shape. Picked up Fist of the North Star and the final Taito game I needed for my collection, Toki.

At the end of the day I grabbed a CB copy of Motor City Patrol and a CI copy of Ultima Quest of the Avatar from Krunch as he dropped me off. I'm gonna keep the Motor City Patrol game and the rest of those is heading down to WildBil52 to help his collection along. So it was a pretty awesome first day in Edmonton and we still had 3 days left to go at the expo in Calgary where I got to meet up with 2 more guys from Nintendoage.

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Fast forward to Expo Day!!!

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Since I had spent much of my cash already game hunting with Krunch already I didn't pick up anything new (gaming related) at the Expo. But I did get a few things signed that turned out pretty cool. The first day we spent mostly getting signatures and I ended up with these bad boys:

I mentioned these to my dad when I got back home and apparently his cousin (whom I've always referred to as my "uncle") went to school with the Hart brothers. Would have been cool to know about that prior to meeting Bret so I could ask him about it.

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After that my wife and I got her friends copy of The Princess Bride signed by Cary Elwes and Chris Sarandon.

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And then I got probably my favorite item of the trip done up. I got Peter Kent, Robert Patrick, Michael Beihn and Linda Hamilton to sign my copy of Terminator 2 for the NES. Both Peter Kent and Michael Beihn made a comment and snickered about writing directly on Arnold's face :)

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Day 2 of the expo we spent mainly enjoying the panels and entertainment. Saw some really good ones like the Terminator and Stan Lee panels and some ok ones like the Boondock Saints and Torchwood panels. There was a costume contest at the end of the day which was pretty good and I even got to see Harley Quinn propose on stage to the Joker which was pretty amazing.


Now back on day 1 I met up briefly with a couple guys also at the expo that I've chatted with from Nintendoage, The_Wizard_666 and Dr.Morbis. We were going to try and get together that night and play some NES together, but after we both were running a bit late we ended up missing each other that night. So I called Dr.Morbis on Sunday and we made plans to get together after a little more Expo-ing on Sunday afternoon. This was my last chance for the last 2 signatures I wanted so we got there early and stood in the cold to get to Stan Lee nice and early since his line was pretty massive the first couple days. Got one of my favorite box art signed by him first thing that morning.

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After that we rushed over just in time to meet Carrie Fisher as she got to her booth:

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After the signing's we watched the X-Files panel (it was the first TV series my wife and I ever watched together so it was pretty good!). I would have liked to stay and watch a few more panels they had, but I had made plans to meet up with Dr.Morbis so we took off to his house. Unfortunately The_Wizard_666 couldn't meet up with us though :(. Dr.Morbis had a very impressive game room/collection. He has been at it for a VERY long time now and has his room incredibly organized and very well and uniquely presented. So we plopped down on his couch and spent about 4 hours just playing the crap out of Nintendo and Famicom games. It was a ton of fun and I hope to make it a tradition every time I head down that way.

It was an awesome trip, but the best part was that I got my picture taken with Duke.Togo's favorite Final Fantasy character. He's gonna be sooooo jealous ;)

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Lol, I recognize that Mega Man. Wizard's actually got an account here on RFGen too, if I'm not mistaken.
Sweet signatures, and awesome on the Motor City Patrol - never actually seen a copy before.

It's always nice to meet up with members of the community. You'll have to drop by again some time, and I'll make sure the Neo Geo cab has both controllers working this time.

Other than Toki every one of the games I picked up was the first copy I've seen in the wild. If I had the money I probably could have come within 5 games of completing my licensed collection in one day there. It was pretty cool, but also made me remember how sad and slow the collecting scene is back home. I saw extremely good condition CIB copies of Bandit Kings and Bomberman 2, sealed Wanye's World, loose Mighty Final Fight and Kid Klown plus most of the rest of my list. Just couldn't afford it all at once.

Your right that Wiz has an account here, he is just much more active over at nintendoage. I'd love to come back to Florida eventually. I'll tell my wife that the Neo Geo cab will be fully functional this time, that's sure to light a fire under her ;)

Man, it looks and sounds like you had an awesome time.  You got some really cool stuff, but of course my favorite has to be the Vectrex. Glad you got to play one and enjoyed it and good luck on the repair. :)

Very awesome stuff man thanks for sharing! Stan Lee signature is too cool.

That's awesome! :D

I thought you'd like that :D. It was a really fun machine to play. I'm pretty excited to open up mine and try and get it running again. It'll suck not having a controller for a while, but at least I'm on my way now.

Looks like a great trip, and a great haul! I love the signed NES carts.  8)

You typed "Moon Patrol" above and I got all excited, as that is one of my all-time favs, then I saw something called Motor City Partol and that was the first time I said "wtf?"

The second time I said it was when I saw where your right hand is in the last picture. WTF?

Were you hoping Lightning would strike...in your PANTS?!?!

Anyway in all seriousness, great write-up and pics. Sounds like a hell of a trip.

Oops. Fixed that to Motor City Patrol. Thanks for catching that ;)

OMG YOU LUCKY DUDE!!!!

sounds like an awesome trip!

That looks like a lot of fun. Glad you got to go.

I'm not into autographs just for the sake of having them but when they are on a item/game related to the autographer, that's pretty neat. I have a few myself and really like them.

Nice to see you got a Vectrex. That overlay alone is worth nearly $10. I've been lucky and haven't had any problems with my Vectrex but as I understand it, taking one apart enough to access the insides involves de-soldering wires from the circuit board :-\   Hope you have good luck with it though.

Vectrex controllers can be a bit spendy, I've heard of people buying a Vectrex with two controllers, selling one, and making most of their money back. There is a way to hack a Genesis controller to work on the Vectrex. Other controllers work too. This guy:
http://shop.recycledgamer.com/
makes different controllers and sells them. I've met him at a couple shows I've been to. Seems like a good guy.

Good luck!

I've already opened it up and it looks like its gonna be fun :) Just from cleaning it up and tightening connections I got the picture back, but there are a couple other issues I need to deal with also. If I can get the machine running again I'll likely splurge for a controller shortly afterwards. I was aware they arn't cheap when I bought the thing.

Thanks for the info though its greatly appreciated!

I tell ya any game that is autographed is cool in my book. I have only 1 in my collection which is a David Crane Auto on an atari 2600 Pitfall! cart. Bret the hitman hart auto is awesome. Its little things like that, that puts a collection into a different league. From programmers to people from a movie to whos on the cover of the game. Very cool

Sounds like you had a fantastic weekend, Crabby. It must have been a blast to hook up with fellow collectors for a game hunting trip and see their collections in person. And of course, getting those autographs. Awesome stuff! You must be happy to closer to that complete NES set and those new additions are sure to have significance of the trip and the memories.

Thanks for sharing the story and pictures. It was fun to read and go to the expo vicariously through your post.

Damn....Bret Hart autographed NES cart.  That is really one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

He is, afterall, the best there is the best there was and the best there ever will be.  I met and took a picture with The Dudley Boys some years back, but they're no Hart Brothers.  Jealous guy over here.