My Boot Fair and Collecting Diary

I updated my Trades list this week. There's not much on it yet but at least what's there is actually available for trade or sale.

At long last the missing package from the U.S.A. arrived, don't know where it's been hiding but it's a great relief to have it now - it's not the monetary value (which wasn't a lot) but the fact that some of the games are hard to find, even on eBay. Shandy is still under "house arrest" but he appears to be improving quite quickly now so with a bit of luck our next vet visit will bring good news.

Week Ending 14/15 October 2006

Another single Neo Geo Pocket game received this week but there are a few other items appearing on eBay that I'm interested in so here's hoping I'll have something different to report in a couple of weeks time.

Week Ending 7/8 October 2006

We had to come back early from our break - Shandy started to limp quite badly and yelped with some of his movements. A visit to the vets diagnosed a probable misplaced disk in his spine so no walkies or stairs for a while. We managed a quick visit to Monkey World the ape rescue centre to see our adopted Orangutan's and the various new babies that have arrived over the last 6 months. Shandy rested in the car during our visit, however Betty and I decided that it would be wise to return home so that he could recover in familiar surroundings. Still no sign of the outstanding package but at least I received a single Neo Geo Pocket game this week - slowly but surely the collection is building up again.

Week Ending 30 September/1 October 2006

Quite simply a Neo Geo Pocket week this week with three seperate packages arriving with one game in each. There's only one package outstanding now, it's from the U.S.A. and is running a bit late......we are off to the West Country for a few days today so hopefully the postman will remember to hang on to it should it arrive before we return.

Week Ending 23/24 September 2006

This week saw the arrival of a package containing a Pocket Linker for the Neo Geo. Complete with a 32mb flash cartridge this unit allows you to load any or all of the 'homebrew' Neo Geo games onto the cartridge which then enables them to be played on the Neo Geo Pocket. I haven't had time to play with this yet......next week perhaps :-) Another package contained one of the boxed Atari 7800 games that I'm missing from my PAL only collection - some of you may remember that I had quite a large collection of 7800 games but some of them were NTSC format which does not always work properly on a PAL 7800 console so they had to go! The final package this week had more games for the Neo Geo Pocket, this time from Italy came 2 monochrome Japanese games.

Week Ending 16/17 September 2006

Carrying on with the replacement of cardboard cases with plastic ones for my Videopac collection, I received two packages this week containing a total of 5 G7000 games. I still need another 9 games replacing as the boxes, and in some cases the instructions too, are in a bad state. I didn't get the boxed C7010 Chess module, the price went far higher than I was prepared to go. Another one appeared a few days later but as this one wasn't boxed I decided to leave it alone. The other package that arrived this week was a box of Japanese Neo Geo Pocket games from the U.S. Six boxed and complete games to add to the collection.....there are times, though, when I wish I could read Japanese.

Week Ending 9/10 September 2006

I have updated my personal list of G7000 games - it's not on this site yet - and I'm now trying to replace the cardboard boxes with plastic ones. It is a sad state of affairs that the cardboard boxes are in a bad way so upgrading them is my way of having a more resilient collection.....and I'm not that fussed about having the cardboard originals so I'll probably offer them on eBay once I've completed the replacement. One G7000 game received this week with several bids outstanding for a few more. I'm also after the C7010 Chess module but it looks like I may be outbid on this one - I wont worry too much as the manual is not the english version.

Week Ending 2/3 September 2006

Two more Neo Geo Pocket games arrived this week plus a boxed 32-in-1 cartridge for the Atari 2600, now I'm feeling really good. I've also started updating my website to reflect the current state of my collection - there's a long way to go before it is up to date, but it will give me something to do on the upcoming winter evenings.

Week Ending 26/27 August 2006

I didn't win the Voltmace auction :-( but the thrill of the chase had spurred me on to look for other items that I might want to aquire and this week I received a couple of Neo Geo Pocket games that I had previously owned, sold and later missed being able to play. The plus side is that I paid a fraction of the amount that I had sold the games for a couple of years ago. There are some more auctions coming up so it looks like I'm back on the collecting scene.

Week Ending 19/20 August 2006

Time to start writing a bit more frequently I think. I had an eMail from Michael Davidson in New Zealand to say that he had been contacted by someone who had bought, on eBay, a previously unknown game for the Voltmace Database console. The game was called 'Crazy Crab' and had a release number of 29 - one higher than we had heard about. Now I frequently scan eBay for games released for the Voltmace, Acetronic and Teleng systems (and their clones) and I had not seen the auction referred to, so I was a bit sceptical. However, surprise - surprise, on 17 August I spotted a UK auction for a Voltmace console with 'Crazy Crab' as one of the supplied games. Time to get bidding methinks!!

1 June 2006

My plans for retirement have now been totally screwed up (polite version!!). Having been 'outsourced' from Lloyd's to Unisys for 2 years with the ongoing plan to retire on my 60th birthday at the end of November this year, the IT staff - myself included - have now been 'insourced' back to Lloyd's. Not bad you might think but Lloyd's have taken the opportunity to pre-empt forthcoming UK government ageism legislation and have changed our contracted retirement dates to age 65! I guess the plus side is that I will have 5 more years of paid employment but I was sort of looking forward to winding down to a less stressful life.

1 January 2006

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL GAME ON GUYS AND GALS! My very best wishes go with you all as we enter into another exciting year of gaming. Everything changes, there are now 4 major gaming systems - Sony PS2, Microsoft XboX, Nintendo DS and the PC. The PC is the only one which has endured all the changes and upgrades over the past few years and looks favourite to continue as a gaming platform capable of supporting the changes which will occur over the coming year. Obviously PC users will need to be willing to upgrade their equipment to cater for the ever increasing demands on their machines but this is the only platform which is capable of supporting these upgrades without a complete re-investment in the total hardware solution. Of course "Kiddie Power" will continue to ensure support of dedicated gaming systems and peer pressure will, as always, dictate which comes out as "top dog" for the time being! Am I being cynical......probably, but then I've seen the transition from simple Pong machines in the 1970's through to the relatively high powered consoles of today and the same formula repeats itself over and over again (smiles to himself and disappears quietly to have a New Year's drink).

25 December 2005

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

March 2005

There's been quite a lot going on over the past couple of years. For a start I have cut down drastically on the systems that I collect. I am now concentrating solely on the early video games systems such as Acetronic, Voltmace, Interton, G7000 and their variants. Secondly, I have sold off a lot of the more modern systems...not completely as there are many games that I still enjoy playing BUT my original intention to collect anything and everything for every system has been moderated due to 1) lack of funds, 2) lack of space and 3) my potential retirement from full time employment which will eventually result in moving from my large house into more modest accomodation with even less space. I have been very active in the now named "retro" scene ever since my first involvement in console gaming in 1978. Obviously I am not able to leave it completely - I have far too many attachments with the memories of the early years, and also far too many games that I bought when they first appeared. Some of you will have seen my auctions on eBay which have reduced my collection to its current state - still far too big to fit into a small house, so there will be more auctions over the next year, once I have determined which items I am going to keep. I still have many duplicated systems and games which I need to 'whittle' down to a retainable number, so, as I've said before "WATCH THIS SPACE". My best wishes to all collectors and, to those of you who keep visiting my website, a very big "THANKYOU".

1 January 2005

A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL GAME ON!

25 December 2004

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL

1 January 2002

A HAPPY & PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL GAME ON!

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