|
[img width=700 height=525]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/846/29230617908_3a5b459ef7_c.jpg[/img]
My very first customers lining up on opening day!
At some point during this week, my stint as a game store owner will be coming to an end. It's been right around 5 years since I opened a local store called Game Quest and I'm pretty excited to move on from it at this point in my life.
Continue reading Game Store Chronicles
[img width=383 height=510]https://farm1.staticflickr.com/798/41107281982_f508161abd_z.jpg[/img]
Through some relatively recent unfortunate financial circumstances, I was compelled to sell off my copy of Stadium Events for the NES. My journey to complete my NES collection and the fact that I'm just a handful of titles away from having all the unlicensed games as well, made it quite a difficult decision to let go of this game. A brief little background for those unfamiliar, but it took me nearly 10 years to gather a copy of each licensed NES game. This journey lead me to meet many friends over the years, some from RFGen, NintendoAge, Facebook, locally and many other areas that helped me reach this achievement. The final game to cap off my collection was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Ubisoft) and it was sent to me as a surprise when a group of amazing buddies on RF Generation pooled their resources to purchase me a copy and send it along with a card signed by each contributor's signature. It was truly the perfect end to a fantastic journey and has held a special place in my home for the last several years. The recent selling of this single game however has me really contemplating what and how I plan to collect going forward. This may have changed my overall approach to collecting.
Continue reading Contemplating a Change in Collecting Style
[img width=700 height=376]https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4263/35220171350_5bd51101ca_o.jpg[/img]
Is there any better feeling for a collector than adding a new item to your collection? How about simultaneously adding a new item while helping a friend also get something they crave? Lately, I've seen the phrase "Trade is King" used quite often in game collecting groups. I really can't argue with it. Other than perhaps scoring a crazy good deal at a garage sale this is my favorite way to get new games these days. And honestly, it's a lot more likely to happen than a thrift store pick up nowadays.
Continue reading The Art of the Deal - Lining Up That Perfect Trade
[img width=610 height=305]https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4177/33568129213_dbff52856d_o.jpg[/img]
I had an interesting conversation with someone not too long ago about how they want to collect on a larger scale, but just get overwhelmed with the task and had given up multiple times. I had two pieces of advice to offer. The first, and probably the most important, is to take a good look at your goal and make sure it's something that you actually want to invest the time and resources into. Collecting something like a full library can take years and thousands of dollars. If you're not committed and have stalled or even gone backwards in that goal, is it really something that is important to you or simply something that used to seem enjoyable, but maybe isn't quite what you though it was? Even on a smaller scale, such as collecting all the games from your favorite series, can be a huge task. There are dozens of games across multiple platforms in series like Mario, Mega Man, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Pac-Man, Harvest Moon, Pokemon, etc. Beyond the time and money, you had better enjoy research and have the space available in your home to display or store them like you want to.
If all that checks out though, then my next suggestion is to enter the delightful world of Sub-Sets!
Continue reading Collection Baby-Steps AKA Sub-Sets
[img width=350 height=500]https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2111/32302133874_3b19110d66_c.jpg[/img]
As my collection has been growing, my acquisitions have been slowing. It makes sense that at some point, you will eventually reach a saturation point in your collecting in which it's harder to find titles that interest you than it used to be when you had less games. However, I still really enjoy gaming and collecting so I don't want it to stop quite yet. Over the last few weeks, one of my collecting goals has been to update my rfgen wishlist. Sounds simple enough. Yet, I found myself pouring well over 50 hours into this project. I wanted to make sure my list was comprehensive and accurate. This meant reaching out to trusted friends with expertise beyond mine for certain libraries, doing a fair bit of research, and watching a ton of YouTube playthroughs before assigning a coveted checkmark to the wishlist box.
Continue reading Collecting Wishes
Its obvious that most of you guys are pretty crazy into grabbing up games of all sorts. Do you have any other collecting vices? Comics, Sports Cards, Celebrity Genital Molds, Troll Dolls?
Heres some pics of the only thing besides Video Games I've cared enough about to collect.
[img width=700 height=525]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/IMG_1976.jpg[/img]
Thats my Judas Priest collection, minus a few pieces that arnt in the picture. Notable ommisions are the British Steel and Painkiller CDs aswell as a few old tour posters and tour books.
I've acquired everything locally which makes this collection extra special to me. I've gotten every studio and major live release on CD. I'm only missing 3 more records and I've got all the major releases there too. Somehow I've gotten the European cover variants for Point of Entry and Killing Machine locally in North-Western Canada?
There are still a few big whole to fill in such as Halfords other bands after leaving JP and Glenn Tiptons Solo album. I've got a few of the Tim Owens albums, but as you can see in the picture above the are not allowed to touch the REAL Judas Priest stuff. Man that guy sucks.
These are two of my favorite pieces. Neither are overly valuable, but are just really cool items in my mind.
[img width=700 height=524]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/IMG_1977.jpg[/img]
The CD is a live recording of Rob Halford filling in at a couple Black Sabbath concerts on vocals. Its pretty poor quality, but its awesome to hear some Sabbath songs with an actual singer (Ronnie James Dio stuff aside, because he is freakin awesome in Sabbath. Ozzy sucks!!!). Whoever made the CD also added a few bonus tracks such as Rob singing Delivering the Goods with Skid Row, a song with Ugly Kid Joe and a few other gems.
The Vinyl Album is the 80's Hair Band version of Band Aid. It was organized by Ronnie James Dio and includes guys from Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Spinal Tap, Yngwie, Night Ranger, WASP, Queensryche, Blue Oyster Cult, Twisted Sister, Dokken, Motely Crue, Y&T, Ted Nugent, Queit Riot and others. It has the cheesiest lyrics you can imagine ("Who cries for the children........... I doooooooooo" and "We are Stars!!"), but with the very talented vocalists at the helm, they somehow pull it off. Oh yeah and there is also a 5 minute long guitar freakin' solo with some of the craziest guitarist around at the time that will blow your mind!!
Heres the Video for the song We're Stars:
Check out the awesomeness of the 80s Hard Rock scene all mashed into one song.
So what else are you guys passionate about? I'd love to see pics and hear stories about your non-gaming related collecting habits.
After what seems like an eternity, Lucas (my shelving friend) and I got together after conflicting schedules over the last few weeks and started work on the shelving. We finalized the plans, did a lot of measuring and marking, cut a few boards and put up a solid frame to start with. Heres some pics of what we did so far:
[img width=700 height=525]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/IMG_1591.jpg[/img]
[img width=700 height=525]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/IMG_1592.jpg[/img]
[img width=700 height=525]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/IMG_1593.jpg[/img]
[img width=700 height=933]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/IMG_1594.jpg[/img]
The plan is to finish building and mounting the shelves on wednesday evening. After that I'll probably take a day or two to paint it and then I'll finally be able to start filling it!!
|
|
|
|
