In Collecting

So my friend Justin got back into town yesterday because he goes to film school and gets about 14 months of vacation a year. He calls me while I'm in class and leaves a voice mail telling me they're going treasure hunting and want me to join them. In our lame nerd posse, "treasure hunting" means looking for NES Games. Well me and my friend Chuck already had plans to go skating after class, so I was taking care of that when we ran into Justin and Justin (there's two). We piled in the car and headed for one of my town's better NES mines: The Loan Ranger, a crappy pawn shop in the north side of town.

Now, Justin is a bastard and ALWAYS gets the best luck with NES Games (except for the time he was outbid on eBay for Little Samson by 50 cents...by ME! I didn't even know it was him...) so I knew he was going to end up bargaining with the pawn shop guy and get some ridiculous deal that none of the rest of us would ever get. So I forget what games he picked out, but there were four. I remember Pro Wrestling and Baseball. There were 3 $2 games, and 1 $5 one. He asked the guy "Would you take $10 for all these?" The guy picked them up, looked at the prices and said "Yeah, sure" so Justin gets his wallet out and pulls out a ten. I was thinking "Okay, he saved a buck. Ten bucks for 4 games is reasonable." Looks like Justin's luck wasn't working today. Justin sets the ten on the counter and the guy says "I'm gonna need 50 cents for the governor", so as Justin starts to fish out two quarters for tax, the guy takes the games over to another counter to ring them up and bag them. Justin starts to head over and the guy says "You got that 50 cents?" and Justin says "Oh! Yeah. Here ya go." and hands the guy 50 cents. Justin turns around and looks at me with the biggest dumbest grin on his face. I look confused for a second and look at him like "Dude, it wasn't THAT good of a deal..." But as soon as we're out the door, Justin pulls the ten out of his pocket and goes "Dude, I just 4 NES Games for 50 cents!"

The rest of us groan out loud and he starts laughing hysterically. Lucky bastard!!! The STUPID pawn shop guy didn't take the ten when he went to the other counter, so Justin was about to hand it to him when he asked for the 50 cents. Justin, surprised, HID the ten in his hand and just handed over the 2 quarters. That guy must make 200 identical transactions a day, and JUST SO HAPPENED to mess up and forget the whole "money" part as soon as Justin came in. LUCKY BASTARD!!!

Thats awesome dude. I wish i had a nes store around here I could go to.

Nice story...closest thing i got is paying $2 for an NES game from a pawn shop and had to scrub CAKED MUD out of it in order for it to work. Little League Baseball, for those curious.

holy crap thats hilarious dude i thought he was gonna be paying the same price a he did before he bargained lol but thats hilarious dude

That guy is so lucky dude! Man, if I could make out like that, I'd be one happy mo-fo. That guy's so lucky, he gets 14 months of vacation a year! Some people have all the luck!

I didn't have luck with buying games, but with buying VHS videos at a store. All had the same prices (about 5$) escept 1, which was 20$, but the woman at the counter didn't look carefully and gave me all for 5 each. Saved 15$ that time.
Not as lucky as our 14month vacation guy here.

Jeez, the guy never mentioned anything? Do you guies plan to go back there another time?

I don't think that such a thing will happen twice.

Okay, here's a great followup that really pisses me off.

I haven't been able to verify the validity of this story yet, but apparently he went BACK into the Loan Ranger today and they took $40 for all their games. I guess they had about 40 games left and he bargained with them to get every one for a buck a piece.

He's unstoppable!! A video game store that recently went out of business in town reopened, and they have Crash n' The Boys Street Challenge. He has his eye on that game, but I'll be damned if he steals THAT game from under my nose. I'm going up as SOON as they open tomorrow to pick it up before he can get it.

I haven't been able to verify the validity of this story yet, but apparently he went BACK into the Loan Ranger today and they took $40 for all their games. I guess they had about 40 games left and he bargained with them to get every one for a buck a piece.

He's unstoppable!!

Ha! Your friend seems to be gifted at the haggling aspect of shopping! I've never been able to talk people down for anything! I think it's just a gift!

By the way, report back on if you get the game or not! Good Luck!!!

a 14 month vacation!?! i thought there were only 12 months in a year?

anyways, that's awesome, i wish i was cool enough to do something like that

Some hard-working people's years are VERY long.

i guess so

As for vacation. My vacation starts next week and lasts about 2 months.
It's so good to be a student. )

Why do you have a two month holiday starting in Feburary? It's not like it's the summer or easter or anything (I suppose it will be Easter in 2 months though ).

Regular university holidays are from February 11th until April 10th.
Isn't that great?
The summer holidays are even longer.

"The STUPID pawn shop guy didn't take the ten when he went to the other counter"

All I have to say for the pawn shop guy is

Ok I will play the devils advocate... If you see a man drop a 100 dollar bill and then walk off not knowing.. you going to pick it up and just walk off? I think not unless you are totally cruel.. We own a small business and honesty goes along way. What your friend did is bascially stealing even if the guy missed the 10 it is still wrong no matter how you look at it.

Hmmm....this reminds of when I went to GAME (big chain store here) and I wanted two games (twin snakes & smash bros. melee for those interested) T.S was 25 pounds and S.S.B was 10. In the end I basically got both for 8! No idea how but I was pleasently suprised. I didn't feel guilty, after all they are the leading computer game retailer here and make a ton of money anyway