Sources for hunting down popular games.. the top 100 from 80s

Malice95

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Sources for hunting down popular games.. the top 100 from 80s

Like many of you, I am searching for basically the top 100 games from the 80s
KLOV lists on their site but I am finding many to be very elusive unless
I want to spend about 800 to 1k each (which I don't).

I am looking for machines that need some work, I can get at an affordable
price and put money into them over time.

I run an ad on Craigslist, I monitor it near real time in the in my state
and the surrounding ones, and I check ebay daily...

What sources am I missing? I've tried a run or two at a couple operators
but they want insane prices for essentially crap.

I'm not looking for someones super secret source (although I'll take it:)
but more to just make sure I am not missing any obvious sources.

Malice95
 
Honestly craigs list and ebay are your two best sources. Look everywhere though of course. Look at flea markets, garage sales, auctions everywhere. Most people that collect many games and stay in the hobby eventually make connections with other collector and often operators who can help them find what they need. Keep in mind that for some reason certain games are harder to find in some areas. For example it seems zoo keeper's although uncommon in general seem to turn up for sale much more on the east coast than the west. I would say right now the biggest issue with finding games is that no one is willing to pay good money for them (probably due to the economy). When games are not selling well people tend to hold on to them rather than let them go for next to nothing. Of course there are times when the opposite happens. When the dot coms crashed there were a ton of games in California for next to nothing to free because a lot of people who came to CA for the big money decided to move away from CA. No one wanted to haul these big games with them so they were all over CL for very cheap. There were so many deals that even good games were not selling very quick.
 
Yep- CL, ebay, flea markets, etc.

I think this forum is a great place to find games as well. MOST of us have games or project games we're selling. I also think it's a bonus to buy a game from a forum member that possibly has done some troubleshooting on the game, but just doesn't have the want, time or space to fix it up or keep it. Like the Centipede that I'm selling for example ;) I've found 4 games from members on here for a fair price.
 
I've got a follow up question. When searching for nothing in particular, what search term do you use? I'm currently only looking for "arcade" or "pinball" (depending on what I'm shopping for, obviously more terms when looking for something specific)
 
try coin op, video game/videogame, pacman, atari, etc. you'll find there are games that slip through the arcade term search cause someone listed it as 'old standup videogame' or pacman tabletop game, etc.
 
I've got a follow up question. When searching for nothing in particular, what search term do you use? I'm currently only looking for "arcade" or "pinball" (depending on what I'm shopping for, obviously more terms when looking for something specific)

Broken/Free/non-working 'arcade' or 'pinball'. :D

But seriously, Have you posted up any ads. on Criagslist yet? If not, minimize this screen right now and go create one!
 
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