In 2007 I sold off a portion of my collection to fund my exit from Ford Motor Company.  Part of the reason was due to the impending loss of over 50% of my wages as I went back to college to better myself (courtesy of the Ford Glass House).  I remember the process being very easy and clinical.  I pretty much cherry-picked most of the expensive stuff in my collection and sold it in a combination of ebay and to employees at the assembly plant I worked at.  At the time selling that stuff was necessary, so I didn't let it bother me much.  However, some of it was... painful. 

Well, all that is past me now.  I've thought long and hard and I've decided to try and reclaim part of it.  I say part because I don't have any accurate records of exactly what I sold off, so I don't have any real idea of the scale of what I am getting into.  Sure, I remember a good chunk of it, but I'll never remember exactly what games I had for the original Xbox, SMS, or PSX, but I do remember the big stuff (as well as some of the little stuff).    Due to my inability to remember everything I'm going to treat this as a living document, and add to it as I remember, which is an almost daily occurrence. 

Okay, enough of the why.  Time for the how.  I've set to compile a spreadsheet showing which games and consoles I remember having, how much they go for now, and if I want to pursue acquiring them again.  My plan is to replace as much as is feasibly possible that I have listed on my 2007 spreadsheet, with some changes allowed here and there that will hopefully reduce some of the cost (getting Dragon Quest IV on NDS instead of Dragon Warrior IV on NES, for example).  Some things I just won't be able to get back due to rarity (the Funcoland SOTN pre-order Music CD) and some of it I just don't feel the need to acquire again (Timex Sinclair 2068)

Outside of that I really don't have much of an idea how to progress.  When I normally collect I don't do it with anything in mind.  In fact, until I went on my hunt for C64 stuff most of my collection gathering was done by casually wandering into a game shop, thrift store, or garage sale with the goal of maybe buying something related to gaming.  Now I apply what I learned during my sales stint with my current employer: gather pricing information in a targeted market, create fair market value statistics for that market, and purchase.  On ebay there is a great deal of patience needed, as price fluctuations occur for seemingly no reason.  One can view an item that sold for only a few dollars and only a few moments later ten or twenty times that price.

So what am I up against, you ask?

A2600
Blueprint
*Demon Attack

GB/GBC
*Final Fantasy Adventure
*Link's Awakening
*Metal Gear Solid  (GBA)

GC
The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition

GEN
Might and Magic: Gates To Another World
Outlander
Todd's Adventures in Slime World
Warriors of the Eternal Sun

N64
?Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64, getting XBOX instead)

NES
Blaster Master
Destiny of an Emperor
Dragon Warrior III
?Dragon Warrior IV (Replacing with Quest IV on NDS)
*Final Fantasy III (JP)
Ghengis Khan
Guardian Legend
?Hillsfar
*Hydlide
*King's Knight
?NES Top Loader
Nobunaga's Ambition
Shingen the Ruler
Spelunker

PS2
Dark Cloud
Dark Cloud 2
Document of Metal Gear Solid
*Dropship
Gungriffon
I-Ninja
?Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (Metal Gear Collection might be a better choice)
?Namco Museum (Getting 50th on XBOX instead)
Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song
*Seek & Destroy

PSP
Activision Reloaded
EA Replay
Legend of Heroes
Legend of Heroes II
Legend of Heroes III
Namco Museum Battle Collection
Popolocrois
Sega Genesis Collection
Silent Hill Experience

PSX (looking over PS lists for additional titles)
Alundra 2
Arc the Lad Complete
*Blaster Master Blasting Again
Bushido Blade
Dragon Warrior 7
Front Mission 2 (JP)
Front Mission 3
Legend of Mana
Lunar The Eternal Blue Complete
Lunar The Silver Star Complete
Metal Slug (JP)
SaGa Frontier
SaGa Frontier 2
Threads of Fate

SAT
D
Grandia (JP)
King of Fighters '96 (JP)
Shining Wisdom
Three Dirty Dwarves

SMS
Sega Master System (Original)
(going through the VG Bible now to determine games)

SNES
Dungeon Master
?Earthbound
Inindo
Lagoon
Outlander
Populous
Soul Blazer
U.N. Squadron
Uncharted Waters
*Zelda: A Link to the Past

XBOX
*Breakdown
Conker Live & Reloaded
*Gunvalkyrie
MechAssault
MechAssault 2
Mercenaries
Metal Arms
Otogi
Otogi 2
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Simpson's Hit & Run
ToeJam and Earl III

The asterisk is there for games that I've already purchased or will be soon (I've been slowly adding to this article for a bit now), and the question marks are things that I may not get.  Also,  I don't necessarily want everything in that list, but rather just copied and pasted it from my spreadsheet.  I'm going to create a new folder in my collection that will house the final list of games, then add and cull from at my leisure (also extremely useful while on the go with the RFG app).  I might keep the spreadsheet for cost analysis, but I doubt it.

Now the acquisition.  The cheap, low hanging fruit seems the smartest to get first (NES, Xbox, PSP, Gen), although I am trying to keep a close eye out for good deals for some of the pricier games (the Working Designs games, for example).  What do you guys think?

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