Why you don't buy from Garage Sales - Or at least come prepared.

So Mato's been wanting to go to traders village in DFW for a bit now, it's just a fairly large flea market.  Lately on Reddit I've been seeing a lot of "look what I found at a garage sale!" or "found this at my flea market!" so I was like ok let's go. So I grabbed some money in hopes I'd find some pre-64 bit games while I was there.  The first thing I found (yes I'm aware these aren't pre-64 bit games) was an original XBox (1) they would have sold me for $40.  I don't have one so I considered buying it, but I just didn't know if it would work or not and didn't want to waste my money. I also found a pair of Turtle Beach X41's he would have also sold me for $40. A quick amazon.com search on my phone showed they are $125 new and they were in excellent condition. But again, I didn't want to waste $40 if they didn't work. I thought I might be able to use parts of it for my X4's though, I should have bought them. Anyway so I quit considering systems under the circumstances and I went to looking for games.

We walk by this booth that hasn't set up yet all he has out are games in a case.  I saw Gears of War 3 in there, I have Gears of War 1 on PC and Gears of War 2 on 360 and with Judgement coming out soon I quickly asked "How much for Gears of War 3?" He said $20.  What a bargain! Those go new (close to release) for $60, and with judgement around the corner, I just got a great deal! So after I looked up the x41's I decided to look up the gow3... amazon.com has it new for $15.  Mato pointed out shipping, somehow that didn't make me feel better. I thought I was savvy enough to truly know a good deal, and even with shipping I could have gotten a new copy for the same price I just bought this copy for that was pretty beat up.  Lesson learned.

I did eventually find some 8 bit and 16 bit games, none that really peaked my interest, they were going for around $5 a piece.  I have many consoles (as I'm sure most of you do as well) and someday we plan on building something like this:

So if you have something similar or plan on building something like that as well flea markets appear to be great way to find them!

Lesson I learned today? I have no idea how to bargain shop. :)