shop recomendations??

zing zong

Anybody know of any good second hand or "cash converter" type shops that are *great* for picking up retro games, consoles, and bits and pieces?

Cheers

o1s1n

There are no great ones unfortunately. All you can do is scour all the charity shops/car boot sales/cash converters in your local area and hope for the best!

zing zong

true, but i came across a second hand place in Cork yesterday that had a lot of game cube and snes, megadrive games yesterday, called "xconvert". and even and actual out and out retro game store that had *tons* of stuff, but the selection was lacking

ive not come across that before other than bits and bobs here and there, so im wondering if anybody else has come across any similar shops around the country?

o1s1n

The problem with places like that is they're extremely over priced. There's the one in Cork that you mentioned and a shop on Talbot street in Dublin that has a few bits and bobs.

I'd rather pay a tenner for a console in a second hand shop/car boot sale than 50+ in a 'retro' shop

Adverts.ie is another great place to get older consoles and games. Keep an eye on the trading thread here too. Good few people have multiples they'd be looking to get rid of. Myself included.

zing zong

ya the place in cork, to be fair, was very expensive, i was more giddy that it existed at all more than anything.

as for adverts, been keeping an eye on there for way too long, its often as over priced as anywhere else, bar the odd find

the trading thread sounds good tho, cheers

Joe Musashi

zing zong wrote: »

true, but i came across a second hand place in Cork yesterday that had a lot of game cube and snes, megadrive games yesterday, called "xconvert". and even and actual out and out retro game store that had *tons* of stuff, but the selection was lacking

ive not come across that before other than bits and bobs here and there, so im wondering if anybody else has come across any similar shops around the country?

Is that on McCurtain street? I think that may be the old cash converters but with a new name. The last time I was in cash converters they didn't have any Snes or Mega Drive stuff. They did have gamecube, xbox and ps2 stuff though. Was there a decent selection of Mega Drive games?

That other shop on North Main street is a waste of time. The stuff is overpriced. The consoles in there are pretty dirty too.

I usually just get stuff from UK sellers on ebay or through forums. I haven't had much success using adverts.

ghostchant

Adverts is good if you're willing to check it constantly, have picked up a boxed virtual boy with games, a boxed famicom disk system with famicom, and a boxed limited edition R7 Dreamcast in the past year. Haven't seen anything i'd personally jump at in recent times, though haven't been looking as much.

o1s1n

As a matter of interest, just going to list off what I've gotten through this forum and adverts over the last couple of years so just to show you what a goldmine the place is -

Dreamcast console, 3 pads and games.
2 Dreamcast light guns & HOTD
Modded Dreamcast arcade stick
About 15 Neo Geo MVS carts..possibly more
Secret of Mana & Secret of Evermore for the Snes
Xmen: Children of the Atom CPS2 board
Street Fighter II Championship edition CPS board
Super Famicom and super Wild card
Scramble LCD game
PSone with LCD screen
Eternal Champions (Free)
Olympic Gold (Free)
GBA SP (Practically free)
Street Fighter 2 Snes (Free)
Have someone on the Airsoft forum sending me out his Megadrive & games for free.
3 Atari 2600s, two six switchers and a four switch.
A PSP phat
Final Fantasy IX (And two other ps1 games from CCCP which I can't think of right now)

Mods -
Modded Megadrive 2
Modded & overclocked Megadrive 1
Region modded 32X

That's all I can think of at the moment. There is most definitely a lot more. There are also all the ebay auctions people here have pointed me in the direction of. Such as my arcade cabinet.

...

I love you all!

zing zong

Joe Musashi wrote: »

Is that on McCurtain street?

Im not from Cork, so I cant be sure, its on the same street as the metro hotel if that helps? not a lot of megadrive games, but a few bits and bobs from consoles since

zing zong

o1s1n wrote: »

As a matter of interest, just going to list off what I've gotten through this forum and adverts over the last couple of years so just to show you what a goldmine the place is

I wont pretend Im not Jealous, thats a great lot of stuff you've gotten, I cant fault you on what you've gotten through the forums, but even though you can come across great stuff on the adverts, which you've proved :P , but I sub to the RSS and check it daily, great stuff from time to time, but the lads selling the stuff generally take the piss price wise

pinksoir

Is Secret of Mana worth much? I have a PAL copy. Unboxed though. Sweet game.

o1s1n

zing zong wrote: »

I wont pretend Im not Jealous, thats a great lot of stuff you've gotten, I cant fault you on what you've gotten through the forums, but even though you can come across great stuff on the adverts, which you've proved :P , but I sub to the RSS and check it daily, great stuff from time to time, but the lads selling the stuff generally take the piss price wise

Oh I'm not disagreeing that some people can really be having you on with prices. I've seen some very silly prices on adverts.

You do need to be on every day to get a good deal. Chances are if one appears it's bought up very quickly.

pinksoir wrote: »

Is Secret of Mana worth much? I have a PAL copy. Unboxed though. Sweet game.

I saw a PAL complete copy sell for 64 sterling last night (Or was it the night before?)

You could get about 30-40 euro for a cart only. Maybe a bit more. Bear in mind that the battery in it is probably dead or about to die, so that'll need to be replaced before you can save in it.

pinksoir

Naaaah, I'll keep it. It'd be a shame to break up my collection...

ghostchant

Think there's a copy on adverts at the moment going for 20 euro unboxed. Not too bad

o1s1n

ghostchant wrote: »

Think there's a copy on adverts at the moment going for 20 euro unboxed. Not too bad

That's pretty damn good. I paid €25 for mine and thought I got a good deal.

Myrddin

zing zong wrote: »

I wont pretend Im not Jealous, thats a great lot of stuff you've gotten, I cant fault you on what you've gotten through the forums, but even though you can come across great stuff on the adverts, which you've proved :P , but I sub to the RSS and check it daily, great stuff from time to time, but the lads selling the stuff generally take the piss price wise

Adverts prices have certainly taken a jump in recent times. But I think you'll find, well with the more established users/sellers, that the price is purposely set high, in order to combat the ever increasing low ball offers going on there. Its nearly guaranteed to be offered half your asking price within the forst few posts of an ad these days. Its pretty annoying I must say, to see someone register the same month as your ad (the same day in most cases), and just bluntly offer you half the asking price.

The good sellers will know their ad is overpriced, but they wont pass by a decent offer. Ultimately what I'm saying is, dont judge the ad by its asking price. Do your homework on the item, find out what its worth, and make a REASONABLE offer

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

Adverts prices have certainly taken a jump in recent times. But I think you'll find, well with the more established users/sellers, that the price is purposely set high, in order to combat the ever increasing low ball offers going on there. Its nearly guaranteed to be offered half your asking price within the forst few posts of an ad these days. Its pretty annoying I must say, to see someone register the same month as your ad (the same day in most cases), and just bluntly offer you half the asking price.

The good sellers will know their ad is overpriced, but they wont pass by a decent offer. Ultimately what I'm saying is, dont judge the ad by its asking price. Do your homework on the item, find out what its worth, and make a REASONABLE offer

I'll offer you 25 euro for each one of those Phoenixed CPS2 boards. :pac:

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

I'll offer you 25 euro for each one of those Phoenixed CPS2 boards. :pac:

You can have my last two for 50

o1s1n

€50 for the pair? that was my offer :P

I'll also offer a €100 for your car too if you're interested.

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

€50 for the pair? that was my offer :P

I'll also offer a €100 for your car too if you're interested.

Super Street Fighter 2 (Phoenixed) & Hyper Street Fighter 2 Anniversary Edition (A reprogrammed CPS2 game, has a slight sound issue somewhere, because the motherboard the chips are plugged into is an older CPS2 motherboard. I remember trying the chips is my Alpha 3 board and it was perfect). Yours for 50 bones if you want em dude. B boards only, I've no A boards left, but they are dirt cheap.

Regards the car, no thanks

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

Super Street Fighter 2 (Phoenixed) & Hyper Street Fighter 2 Anniversary Edition (A reprogrammed CPS2 game, has a slight sound issue somewhere, because the motherboard the chips are plugged into is an older CPS2 motherboard. I remember trying the chips is my Alpha 3 board and it was perfect). Yours for 50 bones if you want em dude. B boards only, I've no A boards left, but they are dirt cheap.

Regards the car, no thanks

WTF? Obscene lowball offers aren't meant to work! :eek: I was just trying to reinforce your previous well written point! Now the OP is going to be going to adverts and offering 5 euro for everything.

If you actually don't want them I'd happily take them from you both for €50. Would the A board from my Children of the Atom work with those? The whole A/B board thing is something I've never really read in to.

Myrddin

o1s1n wrote: »

WTF? Obscene lowball offers aren't meant to work! :eek: I was just trying to reinforce your previous well written point! Now the OP is going to be going to adverts and offering 5 euro for everything.

If you actually don't want them I'd happily take them from you both for €50. Would the A board from my Children of the Atom work with those? The whole A/B board thing is something I've never really read in to.

It's more a case of me being too lazy to relist them. I just know if I put them on adverts, the first three comments will be:

1) Offer 5 each
2) What are these?
3) Can you deliver to Achill Island?

So 50 quid off the o1smeister see's me happy avoiding all that The arcade scene here seems to be more or less us on the forum, pity really. I remember one lad telling me my Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, and Alpha 3 boards were way overpriced at around 150 each. He reckoned he picked up Alpha 3 in Japan for 7 euro or something really thick like that. Yes, Adverts is a god send, but sometimes patience is required when dealing with the masses

Your existing A board will work perfectly, all the A board does really is power the Bo board. The B board on its own has no inputs/outputs of any kind except the 4 connectors it connects to the A board with. The A board provides you with a jamma connector, q-sound, and powers up the game board. They're yours so man, pm me with whenever you wanna take possession of your new beasties.

o1s1n

Excellent stuff man, cheers! I'll make sure to give them a good home. The way I'm going I'll be able to open up a gaming museum soon enough

Regarding picking them up, do you mind hanging on till the end of the month when I get paid? I'm not sure if the bank balance can take another whack after buying that Dreamcast stick. I'll see if I can get the necessary parts to fix that Megadrive too if you'd mind having a look at it?

EnterNow wrote: »

The arcade scene here seems to be more or less us on the forum, pity really.

I know, what's the deal? There are others here with arcade cabs. Maybe everyone's just gone all MAME.

I don't mind to be honest, more boards for me!

EnterNow wrote: »

Your existing A board will work perfectly, all the A board does really is power the Bo board. The B board on its own has no inputs/outputs of any kind except the 4 connectors it connects to the A board with. The A board provides you with a jamma connector, q-sound, and powers up the game board. .

Just had a quick read up on it. Said to think of the A board as a console and the B as a game. Cool stuff, time to dig COTA out of storage.

I haven't replaced the battery in that but it's still alive. Weird. Maybe the previous owner bought a Phoenixed one without realizing. Either that or Capcom accidentally put a nuclear reactor in the thing instead of a battery!

Myrddin

Not a prob man, Ill put your name on them so. So if you wanna look back into that Megadrive sound amp thing, we can do the whole thing around the same time yeah?

I can't complain about MAME - Hyperspin & my JPAC have me COMPLETELY sold dude.

That console & game analogy is actually spot on. The A Board will run whatever B board you throw at it. Regards you battery, have you opened the B board and confirmed there is a battery there? If the battery is missing, the board is Phoenixed (although those boards usually have a brief "Phoenix Edition" splash screen when booted, well the ones done by Raz do anyway. If there is a battery there, the board is NOT phoenixed, and I'd strongly advise you order a replacement if your unsure of the history. All is not lost however, as if it ever suicided, Raz can make the board rise from its ashes (hence the Phoenix name). My biggest worry with having batteries present, was a catastrophic leak from the battery, which no amount of Phoenixing will fix. I remember seeing pics on Arcadeotaku of various B boards, with young enough batteries, where the acid leaked out and basically destroyed the boards. Some users there made a good point that if your storing B boards with batteries, store them upside down, so any leakage will drip away from the pcb.

o1s1n wrote: »

Excellent stuff man, cheers! I'll make sure to give them a good home. The way I'm going I'll be able to open up a gaming museum soon enough

Regarding picking them up, do you mind hanging on till the end of the month when I get paid? I'm not sure if the bank balance can take another whack after buying that Dreamcast stick. I'll see if I can get the necessary parts to fix that Megadrive too if you'd mind having a look at it?



I know, what's the deal? There are others here with arcade cabs. Maybe everyone's just gone all MAME.

I don't mind to be honest, more boards for me!



Just had a quick read up on it. Said to think of the A board as a console and the B as a game. Cool stuff, time to dig COTA out of storage.

I haven't replaced the battery in that but it's still alive. Weird. Maybe the previous owner bought a Phoenixed one without realizing. Either that or Capcom accidentally put a nuclear reactor in the thing instead of a battery!

zing zong

EnterNow wrote: »

Do your homework on the item, find out what its worth, and make a REASONABLE offer

sound advice, cheers!

o1s1n

EnterNow wrote: »

Not a prob man, Ill put your name on them so. So if you wanna look back into that Megadrive sound amp thing, we can do the whole thing around the same time yeah?

Perfect, I'll put up a post on Sega-16 when I get home and see if anyone knows the best way to sort it out.

EnterNow wrote: »

I can't complain about MAME - Hyperspin & my JPAC have me COMPLETELY sold dude.

Sometimes, while moving my cab out from the wall to change board (And scraping the floor in the process) I almost agree with you there!

What I plan on doing is once I get it moved into my future house, buy one of those JAMMA harness extension cables and run it out of the cabinet. So I can just have boards on a little table beside it and do an easy quick instant change.

EnterNow wrote: »

Regards you battery, have you opened the B board and confirmed there is a battery there? If the battery is missing, the board is Phoenixed (although those boards usually have a brief "Phoenix Edition" splash screen when booted, well the ones done by Raz do anyway. If there is a battery there, the board is NOT phoenixed, and I'd strongly advise you order a replacement if your unsure of the history. All is not lost however, as if it ever suicided, Raz can make the board rise from its ashes (hence the Phoenix name). My biggest worry with having batteries present, was a catastrophic leak from the battery, which no amount of Phoenixing will fix. I remember seeing pics on Arcadeotaku of various B boards, with young enough batteries, where the acid leaked out and basically destroyed the boards. Some users there made a good point that if your storing B boards with batteries, store them upside down, so any leakage will drip away from the pcb.

That's good advice about storing them upside down. Would have never thought of that.

I haven't opened it up to check, no. I do have a replacement battery at home though. Could just never psyche myself up to do the change! heh. I think I'd rather just get it Phoenixed though. Leaky batteries are scary things. Which reminds me, I really have to take the batteries out of my MVS and PGM motherboards. Would be a disaster if I lost either of those.

zing zong wrote: »

sound advice, cheers!

I'm sorry for totally derailing your thread! I can get a bit carried away whenever arcade boards are mentioned. I'll shut up now

Here's a tip in relation to charity shops - befriend the people in them. They're not legally allowed to sell electronic devices anymore. However if you can get some good contacts they'll hold anything like that in the shop and offer it to you

Myrddin

I always figured getting the board Phoenixed was the best choice for me. I changed a few batteries in my boards when I first got them, and to be honest man, people blow the whole changing the battery thing WAY outta proportion. It takes literally hours for the Caps to lose their charge & the algo data lost. The battery takes all of a minute to change.

I remember sending Raz the chips from YOUR SSF2 board. Took the chips out, & battery out on the same day. Sent the chips off to Norway, few days later got them back, put them back in the board, eagerly turned it on...nothing. Got in touch with Raz & told him what was happening, he told me that he has seen boards literally take weeks to fully suicide. He also said unless the board has fully suicided, the Phoenixed chips wont boot.

Reason is those chips are still being fed with a decryption key, which they are now not asking for (something along those lines). He gave me a shortcut though, there is a point on the underside of the B boards with three little solder pads. Bridge them all together for 20 seconds, & it drains all the data. Done that & bang - SSF2 Phoenix Edition. So to sum up, spending 5/10/40 mins changing a battery will do you no harm.

Get in touch with Raz though, think its around 40 quid including return postage (registered).