Toronto Thumbs

A Great Flea Market Find

Many years ago (I am thinking around 1997 or 1998) I decided to make a trek to London, Ontario to visit the Gibraltar Weekend Market on Dundas Street. I really wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but video games are always on the radar so I thought I might find something cheap. I’m always looking for that hidden gem in the pile of junk in the corner and my hopes were on that for this visit.

After going through the usual ‘treasure piles’ (some would say junk piles) I made my way back to a vendor that looked like a video store. It had all kinds of movies (mostly VHS at this point, of course). I often find that these are the places that have video games too if they had anything to do with a rental business.

Interestingly enough, just a week or two prior I had printed out a Nintendo NES game list (complete with rarities) and had gone through my collection and ticked off every game I owned. I paid particular attention to the rare ones and knew enough to keep an eye out for the ones marked “ER” (extremely rare).

When I walked around one corner, something that looked like a cartoon character out of a video game caught my eye. I walked up to find Linus Spacehead. It looked like a video game, but I didn’t know what an ‘Aladdin’ was.

Something clicked as I looked closer at the box and realized that I was looking at the Aladdin Deck Enhancer (for the NES) version of the game. Something told me it was extremely rare, so I consulted my game list. Sure enough, ER+!

I know the Game Genie was harder to find in the United States because Codemasters had brought them into North America through Canada and the legal issues pertaining to it were happening in the United States, not Canada. This must be why the products from these guys were easier to find up here, and why they are much rarer in the States.

I found five different titles marked at $10 each. They seemed to have quite a few copies of some of them, so I started thinking that maybe I could get a deal if I bought a bunch and then resell some. I asked for the manager and was informed that he would not be there that weekend, but would be there the next.

Sigh. I picked up one of everything just in case for the time being. The following weekend I went back and found the manager. I walked him over to the games and asked him about them.

“How much if I take all of them?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement. “I’ll pay you cash and I don’t need a receipt,” I continued, trying to entice him further.

“Hmm,” he replied while clearly deep in thought. “Well you know, I gotta, I gotta get at least three dollars for each,” he said. “Is that okay?”

“Hmm,” I replied, trying to calm my inner child who was jumping up and down excitedly. “Uh, yeah I guess so.”

So off he went to find me some boxes to carry my treasure out it. It looked like there were around 50 pieces or so. He came back a few minutes later and made me even happier by mentioning that he had even more in the back. My eyes widened when I saw the actual Aladdin decks themselves. I picked one up.

“How much are these ones?” I asked.

“Same” was the reply.

I ran to the bank machine.

In the end, I managed to get around eight complete sets of Aladdin Deck Enhancers. One game comes with the deck and then there are six other titles. I kept two sets for myself (one set I’m considering selling at this point). At the time, eBay wasn’t as big as it is now so I sold sets for $125 USD on newsgroups. Needless to say, it didn’t take long before they were all gone. I eventually sold the last of the games through eBay, sometimes getting as much as $40 to $50 per individual game.

I’m not really sure how much I made through this find, but I can tell you that finds like this don’t come around too often. These deals are out there though; you just have to be patient and keep looking.

Posted in Blast From the Past, Flea Market Finds, Nintendo, Odd Prods |