#gamemanuals

Usually it’s the month of May which tends to make it’s mark for manuals but this year June is getting it’s just desserts.  Since I am not present to peruse the stock of my favorite online game retailers, when they receive new items, I have to assume that new additions materialize due to some sort of Spring cleaning.  Summer is upon us and perhaps some people are looking to scrape together some cash for summer break.  Whatever the reason of the season one man’s trash is another man’s treasure and checking on sites regularly is the key to being around when new items show up in their catalog.  

I have been a regular customer of Lukie Games for several years now and have bought quite a few games and manuals off of them in the past.  To date in the last 4 years I have ordered more than 20 times off of their website and have, during that time, amassed 30 games and 80 manuals. (This doesn’t include items I have received with my reward points)  I am always extremely impressed with the attention to detail and care that they take in ensuring the items arrive to me in a safe, timely manner. To say that they have helped my collection grow to where it is today would be understating the facts.  As far as online retailers go, with the exception of eBay, I have not seen a site with a more robust selection of games and NES related items.  Every time I visit they have new things to  peruse.  Being Canadian it is sometimes difficult to justify the shipping costs to get items from the US but I have to say that I have never once been disappointed with a purchase from these guys and the package that arrived for me today is no exception... 

In all I received 14 new instruction manuals as well as the Dungeon Companion for Dragon Warrior.  The booklet for Dirty Harry completes that game for me (not that I am really going for CIB anyway).  

At the midway point of the year is a good time to update my collection numbers:

Licensed games:  622/677

Unlicensed games: 62/90

Total games:  684

Manuals:  368

It’s been a little while since I posted about any of my recent pickups but because there haven’t been any major additions lately I decided to wait and do a quick update from the last few weeks. On May 28th I received a game from a seller in Winnipeg who posted on one of the Facebook Retro Gaming groups I belong to.  Firehouse Rescue made its way to my shelves and to my Instagram Game of the Day feed not long after. 

Fast forward a few weeks and yesterday I received a package which was the culmination of 2 auctions of manual lots and a few loose manuals all from the same seller.  Obtaining single manuals can be tricky, but I actually checked a few off of my list by buying in bulk.  My goal will be to post my manual doubles and hopefully recoup some money to put back into the collection later.  The package from yesterday, arriving via Nepean Ontario, contained the instruction booklets for Adventures of Lolo, Batman Returns, Mappy Land, Kabuki Quantum Fighter, Prince of Persia, Swords & Serpents and Final Fantasy. The last two listed are more of dungeon companions than manuals as they are more in-depth and larger than the average game book.

Licensed games:  606/677

Unlicensed games: 62/90

Reproduction carts: 1

Nintendo Power Magazines: 10

Manuals:  278

Boxes: 89

CiB games:  67

A package of manuals that I had all but written off made a late appearance like a celebrity at a black-tie event.  After several emails, one postal redirect and 10 weeks or so of waiting I received an envelope with 9 new manuals.  

The highlight of this batch, besides just receiving it after I had given up all hope, would be the manual for Ninja Gaiden.  Not only did I have this game as a kid but it also completes it in box (CiB) for me.

Manuals:  271

My kids are out of school for Spring Break and so my wife and I decided to take a trip a few cities over to hit up some thrift shops and game stores yesterday.  Being too close to their respective schools to take the bus and too far to walk it falls on us to taxi them to and from each school day.  For this reason, it is quite a challenge to plan a day trip anywhere on my two days off. Spring break afforded the perfect opportunity for us to make such a journey as my oldest was able to stay home and babysit.  The trip to Kamloops is about 2.5 hours by car so we were longer in transit than actually shopping but it was well worth the drive!

The first game store stop for me was The Funny Pages.  The store specializes in comic books, vinyl and of course retro games.  The owner is a very enthusiastic, young at heart, guy named Dave who loves swapping game stories and tidbits.  He’s all too happy to lay out a blanket on his glass display case and move the 4 or so wooden crates of loose NES carts onto it for easy viewing. 

In addition to loose games, he showed me several boxed games as well as one that even had a strategy guide included.  Very seldom did strategy guides come out in the NES era so to find one bundled with a CiB game is a rarity in and of itself.   After spending about 10 or 15 minutes looking over everything I decided on a loose cart and a boxed game:  Solitaire by American Video Entertainment and Silent Assault by Color Dreams (complete). 

These games lean towards the uncommon end of the library due in large part to the fact that they are both unlicensed games with Solitaire being the slightly rarer of the two.  I always laugh at the fact that my collector app lists things on a rarity scale of 12 instead of 10 but Solitaire is listed as a 9/12. 

The second game-related stop we made was at All A-Board Games which specializes more on dice and board games but still has a section of retro games and consoles available.  Here I found the highlight of the trip:  Casino Kid 2 by Sofel.  

Though not listed with as high a rarity as Solitaire it is higher in value and makes the top 12 of my list (edging out Princess Tomato).  The game itself is in mint condition and makes a fine addition to my collection.  This game is also a milestone of sorts as it is the 600th Licensed game in my collection.  For those collectors who are going for a complete Licensed NTSC (North American) set, this is a benchmark.  With the few omissions that myself and others have made in the collection of released games, this means that there are about 77 games remaining for a complete series.  Here is my score to date:

Licensed games:  600/677

Unlicensed games: 62/90

Reproduction carts: 1

Manuals:  201

Boxes: 89

CiB games:  58

Like the old Yellow Pages commercials and adverts used to say: “Let your fingers do the walking”, and that’s just what I did.

I found a seller who was selling several NES manuals from a list in the “Buy it Now” format.  You could buy as many or as few as you wanted and just list the ones you wanted after you placed your bid.  Since the manuals were such a good price I was able to put together 14 of my choosing.  This is such a cool way to pick off several manuals at once.  I had thought about trying to find a lot of manuals to buy but anytime I found an auction that met my criteria there would be one or more manuals that I already had. Upon reflection, I realized it was silly to buy the doubles just to get the others.  This style of auction was a perfect fit.

Highlights from this lot would be the manuals for the two Wisdom Tree games: The King of Kings and Exodus as well as the three black box manuals:  Kung Fu, Baseball, and Pro Wrestling.  

Licensed games:  596/677

Unlicensed games: 59/90

Manuals:  195

Boxes: 88

CiB games:  55

Halloween has just come and gone and even though we didn’t go all out in terms of costumes and decorations we still had a ghoulishly good time.  I worked the early shift today and that had me home by 4:15 in the afternoon.  My wife took my niece and my daughter out trick or treating and I handed out candy.  After that, we settled in and watched Rob Zombie’s Halloween (a little more disturbing than I remembered) and then my son and I played Friday the 13th: The game.  

If all those festivities weren’t enough I also got an envelope in the mail from a seller on Etsy containing 6 NES manuals to add to my collection.

Pictured above are:  Star Soldier, Seicross, Top Gun, Shooting Range, Mag Max and Airwolf.  Of the six I received, 3 completed a game in box for me:  Star Soldier, Seicross and Top Gun.  In addition to these manuals being very carefully shipped they arrived in near mint condition along with some Nintendo related stickers that the seller threw in as a gift.  This was definitely a Halloween to remember!

Manuals:  170

Not much to say about this.  Obviously with the literal lock in/shut down of most non-essential services, game collectors and enthusiasts are relying more and more on online retailers to fulfill their quarantine needs.  If memory serves I think I ordered this package from Lukie Games just before the world, for all intents and purposes, went dark.  

The highlight of this mini-package was the Roadblasters manual which completed that game for me. All told I received 7 manuals all together:  the aforementioned, Roadblasters, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance, Archon, Bo Jackson Baseball, Ferrari Grand Prix Challenge, Might & Magic and Spellunker.

Because local shopping of NES related games at thrift stores, etc. is off the table, I have gotten into the hobby of Arcade1up cabinets in recent months.  I look forward to putting together a post on my collection to date sometime in the near future.  

Manuals:  468