From: eBay
Cost: FREE
When: January 2019

This was given to me by an eBay seller when I collected an Xbox 360 console from them. We spoke for about an hour about retro gaming and collecting. Nice to have a chat with someone else with an interest in it.

I only have a PAL SNES, so can’t play this at the moment. I will keep it in the collection though and keep a look out for either a good priced Super Famicom or some kind of converted to allow me to play Japanese games on my current system.

From: CeX (Peterborough)
Cost: £10
When: January 2019

I have been considering getting an original Game Boy for a while… the one I owned as a kid was accidentally given away by my Mum, at a time when I still played it regularly… but haven’t pulled the trigger yet.

I saw this in my local CeX and grabbed it. I’m not even sure that I was ever aware of it’s existence, and certainly haven’t seen one before, so it’s a nice addition for me and will allow me to play some Game Boy games until I decide to buy one!

From: CeX (Peterborough)
Cost: £5
When: January 2019

Another classic that I played a lot as a kid, hadn’t played it in probably 20 years. Saw it in my local CeX and had to nab it.

From: Cex (York)
Cost: £4
When: August 2018

Saw this in CeX while visiting York. Always loved a bit of Street Fighter back in the day so had to pick this up.

From: eBay
Cost: £9.99
When: July 2018

This one came up on conversation with my brothers, and we remembered it being pretty difficult when we were kids. Well, turns out it’s still pretty difficult now .

From: eBay
Cost: £0.48 (£10.48 – £10 eBay voucher)
When: July 2018

Being a huge Mario fan, this one was high on my list after Mario World.

When eBay sent me a £10 voucher I knew exactly what I’d use it on – and so this only cost me 48p.

From: Cex (online)
Cost: £10
When: June 2018

I bought this from the CeX website at the same time as the SNES console, and is the first game I bought after being bitten by the collecting bug.

This game is easily one of my all time favourites and I played it through so many times over the years. Really felt good to get my hands on an actual cartridge again rather than playing via emulators.

From: CeX (online)
Cost: £60
When: June 2018

This was my first retro purchase since deciding that I wanted to collect some of the old games and consoles that I had growing up. The SNES was one of my favourite consoles when I was a kid, and Mario World my favourite game for a long time. Thinking about owning one again is what sparked this whole thing!

This was the first time I’d come across CeX and I realise that it can be a bit of a gamble buying from their website, not being able to see the condition etc., but at the time the price seemed cheaper, or at least comparable, to ebay listings, and luckily it’s actually in pretty decent shape with only slight yellowing on the front of the console.