Monday 3 June 2013

Car Booting 2 – Dunton

Since my first venture offered a mixed bag of treats, I decided to go again to another car boot sale to see if there were any more treasures yet to be discovered elsewhere. My next destination comes in the form of Dunton in Basildon.

I managed to arrive about half an hour after the car boot sale started and as soon as I parked the car, I noticed someone taking a boxed NES with two games back to his car. At first I thought great, there will be some games here for sure, my next thought was DAM, I missed out on finding that boxed NES!!! Oh well, with this first spot and judging by how big the field was I knew I was going to find some treasures for myself.

My first stop was checking the stalls which just opened. My logic was that if these new vendors had some gems, I would be one of the first to find them. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I did find a few decent PS2 games at this one seller. Usually when you find PS2 games at car boot sales, they are picked through and all you would find are sports games or some crappy quiz games.  Here, I managed to pick up 4 titles that you don’t find that often which were Galerian:Ash, Legend Of Kay, Crimson Tears and I-Ninja, none of which I know much about but seemed cool. The seller wanted 2 pound a game but managed to get a couple quid off. Here’s my top tip for this post, whenever you are buying more than one item at a car boot sale, always ask for a discount. Nine times out of ten, the seller will give you a discount.

Going through the most of the other sellers at car boot sale can get a bit depressing at times. Seeing the same rubbish games over and over again after first getting a bit excited at the possibility of finding something rare, valuable and most importantly, fun. This car boot sale was no exception and adding the zigzag layout to the mix, it became somewhat a dizzy affair. Nonetheless, there were other finds in the day. For instance, I found an original Gameboy with a bunch of games on the cheap. So I snatched that with a boxed Crash Bandicoot XS for the GBA, four Gameboy games (Jurassic Park, Soloman’s Club, Radar Club and Super Mario World 2) and a storage case for only £8. Considering Super Mario World 2 goes for around that on eBay, I was pretty happy.
I got a few quick buys at the car boot sale because all the sellers were just selling whatever they had in their attics. I picked myself up Rachet & Clank 3 and Time Crisis 3 on the PS2 for £3, Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 for £3, Turok 2 on the N64 (loose cart) for £2, F1 World Grand Prix for the N64 (loose cart) for £1.50 and a PS3 drum set for Guitar Hero for £2 (needed to replace the one I had already).

Even though I got a few common games, that doesn’t mean I didn’t get any rare and interesting items at the sale. One which stands out is a DSi with a New Mario Bros included. I managed to get this for £23. Pretty solid deal considering how much retailers sell it for, £55 in some places. Next I found a Sega Reactor boxed up, a wireless Sega Megadrive console for only £7 and then I got a Wii Fit board with a game for £20. Though looking back this price seemed high, at the time I thought it was a good deal and a deal is only as good as what you make it… Perhaps I should have got another 5 pounds off though…

Throughout my time in Dunton, I only found one proper game seller where he was selling Sega, Nintendo and Atari games. The selection was bare when I got there but I put that down to being later in the day and me not getting there in time. I did find a few games that caught my eye, for the Megadrive, Virtua Fighter 2, Paperboy and Second Samurai all boxed and one for the Atari 2600 called Pick N Pile. Those four games came to £18 in total. Bargain in my eyes especially since Second Samurai was a game being constantly played when I was a child.


In the end, I was pretty happy with my day out to Dunton. I was planning to go to another car boot sale down the road in Billericay but because there were so many people selling here, it was too late to do anything else.  I would probably go to this car boot sale again to see if any new sellers come with some more surprises. But after I visit some of the neighbouring car boot sales in Essex. You never know what could be out there and hopefully there are some retro games for me to find.

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