Best Flea Markets to Find Games?

antofarabia

Everyone knows that flea markets can be one of the gems of finding games to put in your collection, but sometimes they are terrible.  Which ones are good, and which ones suck?

Suck - Severville Flea Market Tennessee - one game shop that sells games overpriced at best (they had Destiny of an Emperor for $40 cartridge only, Common Games were like $12).

Suck - Acworth Flea Market Georgia - a few game dealers...NES games will usually cost you about $6-$10 and some of the dealers even use PERMANENT MARKER to write the prices on games.  Best find at this place was a SNES Tetris / Dr. Mario that cost me $10 and the flea market is kind of a ways away...so it's a big waste. 

NationalGameDepot

Green Acres Flea in Aloca TN is the best hands down. They have 2-3k games every week inside and you can find deals outside as well. Kinda of a trashy place though so be prepared.



The Sevierville one does suck, but you can talk the lady down with the high prices. I have gotten Jimmy Connors Tennis and Pro Sport Hockey from her for less than 5 each before, but she doesn't usually have a huge selection either.

~~NGD

antofarabia

the trashier the better...as long as there are a lot of people there should be a lot of games ... those really nice flea markets never have anything good

jaredkk

I don't want to give away my secret NES spots

antofarabia

Then at least tell us where not to go

Parpunk

hmmm this post might not be too helpful considering 90 percent of us live no where near each other. most of us are scattered all over. So most of us prolly only hit local areas. at least i do :-/

mb7241

East Ridge Flea Market (Chattanooga area, TN) and Sweetwater Flea Market (Sweetwater, TN; about 40 miles SW of Knoxville) are two places definitely *NOT* to go. Both flea markets basically have a local game trading monopoly by the name of Packard's. Common Atari 2600 games there sell for no less than $5 each, some as high as $15 (keep in mind, this is your run-of-the-mill Pac-Man type stuff at these prices). PlayStation games, forget it...Suikoden 1 (not 2, which is far rarer and actually worth triple digits) commands $100, as does Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Warrior VII. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, last time I was there, had a $120 price tag on it. NES games? How does $8 for SMB/DH strike you? Worse, how does $40 for The Legend of Zelda sound? Like crap? Glad you agree with me .

NationalGameDepot

Packards's are worthless for sure. They have them in several other flea markets as well. They actually have a stand alone store out in Oak Ridge, TN as well. The guy who owns it is a young little prick too, I meet him years ago and was planning on buying about 40 games and he wouldn't budge on any of the prices.

~~NGD

mb7241

NGD: Would that young little prick's name happen to be John, perchance? I've met him before...he's indeed as you said, a pain to deal with.

wrldstrman

Flea markets are unpredicitable. Ive gone and found nothing at all. then went back the next week and ran out of money from buying stuff. Its all a matter of timing. The sellers you want to look for are the ones that this is their first time. The ones that just loaded up everything and said lets get rid of this stuff. If you go on a day where the professional flea market sellers are the only ones there you probally wont get anything. Plus you got to go early and be standing by cars as they unload thats where the resellers get the games. Most of the time they will ask how much and the resellers will always want to talk them down thats when you say ill take them.....



good story about what im talking about. I was at a guys table going thru playstation games this was after I walked the flea market over several times and didnt see anything. while I was buying the playstation games a guy walked up carrying a bag with a snes and 20 games. he said look what i just got for 6.00 dollars. i about crapped myself. just in the few minutes i stopped walking around someone pulled in and i missed a great deal on the snes with games.

KoopaTroopa

We must all live close together if you guys are talking about Sweetwater flea market, it's like 10 minutes from me.

NationalGameDepot

I live in Knoxville, so it is about an hour from me.



MB I am pretty sure his name is John. I don't know how he is in business still, I have never seen them sale one thing in all my trips to all the flea markets. I have always wanted to go to his actually store and see what it was like. But I don't really want to drive for 45 mins just to get pissed off.

~~NGD

NewUser123456789

Well, since there have been so many comments on TN.
I thought I would say I have yet to find a good flea market in or around Nashville.
I driver as far as Crossville, and Bowling Green without any luck.
There is one place in Clarksville TN, near Ft Campbell that has some okay games from time to time. But nothing really exciting.
There is a flea market in Lebanon TN about 20 miles east of Nashville that is decent, DreamTR actually setup there a few weeks ago.  I've had decent finds there but it isn't worth driving to, especially if you live more than 15 or 20 minutes away.

NGD  Do you know the hours for the flea market in Alcoa?  I am planning a trip to Cosby with my wife in October and I would love to stop by the Alcoa flea market, but I can't find anything about its' hours on the net.

NationalGameDepot

It is open on Sat & Sun every weekend all year long. I don't know the exact hours, but I think it is like 7-3 or something. I usually go around 10ish most the time.

~~NGD

NewUser123456789

NGD..  Thanks.. 

EarlyWorm

well.... maybe i should send someone to set up in East Ridge and/or sweetwater. I'll fix them up! If games can go anywhere near those prices....half....I could clean up.