Here is my effort for the anniversary competition. Hope you find it amusing!
Boot Sale Tales - By Sean Smith
Unsavoury looking gentlemen selling out of date sweets from a Bedford van. Boxes of crisps made by firms you have never heard of. A Shane Richie-a-like with a twinkle in his eye bellowing down from the back of a van, selling frozen meat. An elderly couple with tables laden with garish ornaments. A wide-boy selling razorblades and deodorant. A sweaty, grotesque charicature peddling "adult" magazines and Black Lace novellas. The smell of fried bacon and blackened onions. Racks of indescribably ugly clothes being picked over by vulture-like ladies. Car stereos that appear to have been ripped straight out of the vehicle (wink wink). Crates of oily, rusty tools and unidentifiable chunks of metal. Beano annuals. And above all else ? the chance of buying some games, and even getting an incredible bargain.
It has been the same since I was six years old. Saturday or Sunday morning, nothing for me captures the rare thrill of going to car boot sales. Maybe it is in my blood, what with my traveller heritage, but to me the whole atmosphere of a boot sale is fascinating. It unites people of all ages, from all walks of life, to haggle and barter for things they would have no intention of actively seeking in the shops; it creates an instant amnesty for stolen goods that would put Cash Converters to shame; it helps the likes of me pay a mere quid for a Megadrive game I would have happily paid ten times for from a like-minded gaming geek on NTSC.
Back in the day, it was the Sunday morning sale down at the car auction near Southampton docks. I would stay with my nan on a Saturday night, and get up early the next day to go down there. She would go to buy stuff from the aforementioned ?meat man?, and to see my cousin who worked down there helping him to bag up the frozen grub for the customers. I would wander around and around and around, and look for toys and books, but mainly for Commodore 64 games. One of my best memories of this time was finding a copy of Ghosts & Goblins for said machine, a game I had spent two straight weeks in the summer playing constantly on a campsite holiday in France. Holding a copy of that game felt like I had died and gone to heaven, and of course the rest of that day was spent playing it. And I loved it, even if it was not the best conversion in the world. There was a smoky indoor section where the car auctions used to take place, and it was in this fantastic hall, which smelled of motor oil, cones of chips and roll-ups, that on a Sunday the ?games bloke? used to have his stall. Rows upon rows of tapes for the Speccy, Amstrad and C64. Text adventure game cartridges. Early NES games which seemed like the Holy Grail. Second hand copies of C+VG, ZZAP and other brilliantly realised magazines of the time, all adorned with incredible artwork. When my love of gaming was in its infancy, most of my precious C64 cassettes were purchased from that magically captivating stall at the now sadly departed car boot sale, with my meagre pocket money. Without this awesome place, that beat the nearby Toys R Us hands down for me, I would never have played the likes of LED Storm, Wizball, IK+ and Buggy Boy.
Now those of you that have got to know me over the few months I have posted on here will notice I still have a love for my car boot sales. Of course now the stakes are much higher. The scene setting I began my article with hasn?t changed ? but these days I can pretty much afford to buy anything I want, so finding a bargain or a fondly remembered piece of retro goodness is where it is at. In recent times I have purchased pretty much all of my Megadrive, SNES, NES and N64 games from various stalls at the Burseldon Car Boot Sale. It is a place where I become a stealthy, eagle eyed games gannet ? ignoring stalls that don?t appear to have any evidence of consoles, and moving on to those that do. It is a place where I became so excited at seeing a copy of Shining Force for two pounds fifty, that my voice went all shrill and effeminate when I was paying for it. It is a place where six of the Queen?s pounds can buy you a boxed Nintendo Entertainment System, with a complete copy of Super Mario Bros 3 thrown in. It was in this wondrous, most dodgy of places that I purchased my first Dreamcast.
Nothing beats the warm feeling when something completely unexpected turns up on the next rickety pasting table, and you just know that you can walk away with it for less than a couple of quid. Rival Schools for ?3? Check. Dreamcast Shenmue 2 included in the ?20 DC bundle I bought? Check. Point Blank 2 boxset with gun for a fiver? Certainly. A Super Gameboy for a pound? Final Fight 2 and Castlevania IV carts for ?2.00 each? I could go on, but won?t, as I already have somewhere on this forum to bore everyone to death most Mondays with the ?bargains? I have found. As my man Tokyochojin said recently: ?You and your car boots?. It is a passion, an obsession, and no amount of gentle ribbing can take that away from me.
In this day and age, anyone with access to a PC and an internet connection will tell you that ebay.co.uk is the modern day equivalent of the car boot sale. And for the first few months I used ebay, it did kind of feel like that. But the fun is removed immediately when you realise that it isn?t difficult to find what you are looking for, and that when you do, there are millions of other people that can conceivably outbid you for it. Ebay feels a little unsavoury to me, and that is saying something when considering some of the traders I see on a weekly basis. Just look at what happened to one of our fellow forum-ites recently, when the fruits of many moons (and many pounds) Neo Geo collecting ended up being sold indiscriminately to unknowing buyers.
I prefer to be able to see the whites of the seller?s eyes; to be able to tell whether or not they actually realise the value of the item they are selling; to be able to decide for myself whether the seller is directly benefiting from criminal activity; and to be able to walk around that muddy field, knowing that there probably isn?t anyone else there looking for the same things as me. And I want to do all of this whilst eating an extremely unhealthy, cholesterol packed snack, washed down by a can of Freeway Cola, surrounded by most of the local Council estate. I may even want to look for a Barbra Streisand CD for the wife.
Admittedly it isn?t all good. The Dreamcast I bought didn?t work, and needed to be repaired. Sometimes, I meet my match in a seller who not only realises that he has something vaguely valuable, but responds by pricing it through the stratosphere. And not all of the games I have bought have been any good. But even my wife has come to understand my frenzied excitement on a Sunday morning, and the usually heaving carrier bag I bring back, full of cartridges, peripherals, and, sometimes, the occasional console. I usually sweeten the deal by buying something for her, but she knows that this is a token gesture ? she knows why I really go.
Charity shops can sometimes offer me a glimmer of the same satisfaction I get from walking around on a freezing cold morning, but it isn?t quite the same. Cash Converters offers me an occasional fix of bargain games action, but I always end up feeling like I have just paid for someone?s next shot of smack. Buying things online is too easy ? with little or no sense of anticipation, excitement or mystique?.. No, siree ? when I sit out in my garage, where I have my retro games neatly arranged on those shelves above my head, the things I have had the most fun buying, the games that give me the greatest feeling of accomplishment when I switch them on and they actually work, are those that I have found in that most eccentric of British traditions, the good old booty.
Boot Sale Tales - By Sean Smith
Unsavoury looking gentlemen selling out of date sweets from a Bedford van. Boxes of crisps made by firms you have never heard of. A Shane Richie-a-like with a twinkle in his eye bellowing down from the back of a van, selling frozen meat. An elderly couple with tables laden with garish ornaments. A wide-boy selling razorblades and deodorant. A sweaty, grotesque charicature peddling "adult" magazines and Black Lace novellas. The smell of fried bacon and blackened onions. Racks of indescribably ugly clothes being picked over by vulture-like ladies. Car stereos that appear to have been ripped straight out of the vehicle (wink wink). Crates of oily, rusty tools and unidentifiable chunks of metal. Beano annuals. And above all else ? the chance of buying some games, and even getting an incredible bargain.
It has been the same since I was six years old. Saturday or Sunday morning, nothing for me captures the rare thrill of going to car boot sales. Maybe it is in my blood, what with my traveller heritage, but to me the whole atmosphere of a boot sale is fascinating. It unites people of all ages, from all walks of life, to haggle and barter for things they would have no intention of actively seeking in the shops; it creates an instant amnesty for stolen goods that would put Cash Converters to shame; it helps the likes of me pay a mere quid for a Megadrive game I would have happily paid ten times for from a like-minded gaming geek on NTSC.
Back in the day, it was the Sunday morning sale down at the car auction near Southampton docks. I would stay with my nan on a Saturday night, and get up early the next day to go down there. She would go to buy stuff from the aforementioned ?meat man?, and to see my cousin who worked down there helping him to bag up the frozen grub for the customers. I would wander around and around and around, and look for toys and books, but mainly for Commodore 64 games. One of my best memories of this time was finding a copy of Ghosts & Goblins for said machine, a game I had spent two straight weeks in the summer playing constantly on a campsite holiday in France. Holding a copy of that game felt like I had died and gone to heaven, and of course the rest of that day was spent playing it. And I loved it, even if it was not the best conversion in the world. There was a smoky indoor section where the car auctions used to take place, and it was in this fantastic hall, which smelled of motor oil, cones of chips and roll-ups, that on a Sunday the ?games bloke? used to have his stall. Rows upon rows of tapes for the Speccy, Amstrad and C64. Text adventure game cartridges. Early NES games which seemed like the Holy Grail. Second hand copies of C+VG, ZZAP and other brilliantly realised magazines of the time, all adorned with incredible artwork. When my love of gaming was in its infancy, most of my precious C64 cassettes were purchased from that magically captivating stall at the now sadly departed car boot sale, with my meagre pocket money. Without this awesome place, that beat the nearby Toys R Us hands down for me, I would never have played the likes of LED Storm, Wizball, IK+ and Buggy Boy.
Now those of you that have got to know me over the few months I have posted on here will notice I still have a love for my car boot sales. Of course now the stakes are much higher. The scene setting I began my article with hasn?t changed ? but these days I can pretty much afford to buy anything I want, so finding a bargain or a fondly remembered piece of retro goodness is where it is at. In recent times I have purchased pretty much all of my Megadrive, SNES, NES and N64 games from various stalls at the Burseldon Car Boot Sale. It is a place where I become a stealthy, eagle eyed games gannet ? ignoring stalls that don?t appear to have any evidence of consoles, and moving on to those that do. It is a place where I became so excited at seeing a copy of Shining Force for two pounds fifty, that my voice went all shrill and effeminate when I was paying for it. It is a place where six of the Queen?s pounds can buy you a boxed Nintendo Entertainment System, with a complete copy of Super Mario Bros 3 thrown in. It was in this wondrous, most dodgy of places that I purchased my first Dreamcast.
Nothing beats the warm feeling when something completely unexpected turns up on the next rickety pasting table, and you just know that you can walk away with it for less than a couple of quid. Rival Schools for ?3? Check. Dreamcast Shenmue 2 included in the ?20 DC bundle I bought? Check. Point Blank 2 boxset with gun for a fiver? Certainly. A Super Gameboy for a pound? Final Fight 2 and Castlevania IV carts for ?2.00 each? I could go on, but won?t, as I already have somewhere on this forum to bore everyone to death most Mondays with the ?bargains? I have found. As my man Tokyochojin said recently: ?You and your car boots?. It is a passion, an obsession, and no amount of gentle ribbing can take that away from me.
In this day and age, anyone with access to a PC and an internet connection will tell you that ebay.co.uk is the modern day equivalent of the car boot sale. And for the first few months I used ebay, it did kind of feel like that. But the fun is removed immediately when you realise that it isn?t difficult to find what you are looking for, and that when you do, there are millions of other people that can conceivably outbid you for it. Ebay feels a little unsavoury to me, and that is saying something when considering some of the traders I see on a weekly basis. Just look at what happened to one of our fellow forum-ites recently, when the fruits of many moons (and many pounds) Neo Geo collecting ended up being sold indiscriminately to unknowing buyers.
I prefer to be able to see the whites of the seller?s eyes; to be able to tell whether or not they actually realise the value of the item they are selling; to be able to decide for myself whether the seller is directly benefiting from criminal activity; and to be able to walk around that muddy field, knowing that there probably isn?t anyone else there looking for the same things as me. And I want to do all of this whilst eating an extremely unhealthy, cholesterol packed snack, washed down by a can of Freeway Cola, surrounded by most of the local Council estate. I may even want to look for a Barbra Streisand CD for the wife.
Admittedly it isn?t all good. The Dreamcast I bought didn?t work, and needed to be repaired. Sometimes, I meet my match in a seller who not only realises that he has something vaguely valuable, but responds by pricing it through the stratosphere. And not all of the games I have bought have been any good. But even my wife has come to understand my frenzied excitement on a Sunday morning, and the usually heaving carrier bag I bring back, full of cartridges, peripherals, and, sometimes, the occasional console. I usually sweeten the deal by buying something for her, but she knows that this is a token gesture ? she knows why I really go.
Charity shops can sometimes offer me a glimmer of the same satisfaction I get from walking around on a freezing cold morning, but it isn?t quite the same. Cash Converters offers me an occasional fix of bargain games action, but I always end up feeling like I have just paid for someone?s next shot of smack. Buying things online is too easy ? with little or no sense of anticipation, excitement or mystique?.. No, siree ? when I sit out in my garage, where I have my retro games neatly arranged on those shelves above my head, the things I have had the most fun buying, the games that give me the greatest feeling of accomplishment when I switch them on and they actually work, are those that I have found in that most eccentric of British traditions, the good old booty.
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