Prized Collections

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Hello there fellow Escapists! I've been collecting games and game-related schwag for many years now, and have a sizable trove of gaming treasures. From consoles dating back to the original NES to modern systems, I have almost every console made post-Atari. Except for a handful of the more rare failures like the CDI, Jaguar, TurboGrafix 16, Sega CD, 32X, VirtuaBoy.
I have a lot of stuff. Even most handhelds except for an original grey brick Gameboy, the SEGA GameGear, and the more rare handhelds.
A decent collection of the better PS2 games, all black labeled with the original manuals and good condition discs. Also a large library of PS3, PS4, 360, XBone games.
A LOT of game world maps from Ultima Online (original cloth map), Skyrim, GTA maps from every game that came with one, Red Dead Redemption...

Yeah I've got a lot of stuff. My wife and I want to, at some point in the future, have a room dedicated to our collection, set up as a mini-museum to gaming with all the systems hooked up and functional for our friends and family to entertain themselves with.

Anyway my favorite things though are my collection of Square games from the NES era to PS1 in good working condition, especially the Final Fantasy games and Chrono Cross all black-labeled with manuals and pristine discs.
Also my great find from a Goodwill store of Pokemon Crystal for GameBoy color, in good condition and with a working savegame battery, a Legend of Zelda NES cart also with a working save battery and a very rare Nintendo jacket from I believe a promo event at the Consumer Electronics Show (old school) from the late 80s.
The jacket itself is one of those satin 80's style jackets in black with the Nintendo logo, and on the back a giant green stenciled Mario face. Its extremely rare because I've never seen a picture of it anywhere else, but a family friend of ours got it at CES and gave it to me as a kid. I wore it to school a few times until kids tried to steal it from me. Ever since its been put up in a closet, wrapped in drycleaner's plastic and untouched since we moved into the house my parents currently reside at for the last 19 years. I would take a picture of it but I don't live there anymore and its 300 miles from where I currently reside.

So Escapists, do you collect gaming memorabilia and/or older consoles and games? If so what are your favorite things in said collection?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I have a collection of some 20 SNES cartridges, 60 PS2 games and about 50 PS3 games, all physical copies. No "swag" though.

 

[Recusant]

I've still got almost everything I've ever had; I simply saw no reason to throw things away when they still worked. Of course, that's mostly just my old consoles, games, and the manuals I kept my parents from throwing out, but I've also got a couple of maps, tech charts, and the like. Sadly, I've moving in a few weeks, so I'm going to have to unload most of it. I don't think it quite qualifies as a "collection" as such; I certainly don't have it organized like one. But I give pride of place to my Alien Crossfire tech tree, and I hold, as a reminder of what gaming has been and could be again, my quick-reference sheet from Vektor Grafix's Shuttle. It's two feet wide and three feet long, and again, is not a manual, but a quick-reference sheet.

Man, the 90's were great, weren't they?

 

[gigastar]

Used to have a working Sega Master System, but i simply dont know what became of the thing after the last time we moved house.

Hopefully its still mothballed somewhere in the attic, if it still works then i imagine itll be worth alot to the right people.

 

[Mikeybb]

Three things come to mind.

The blueprints for the confederation fighters that were released with the pc edition of wing commander.
The manual, everything, was presented like a welcome kit to a crew member joining the Tiger's Claw.
Even had a Ship magazine with it that ran profiles on new pilots and veteran crew.

A spectrum 48k rubber keyboard, faded.
My first, precious computer.
Even before the Atari.
Somewhere I even have a tape on which my father wrote out and saved a few games.
You see, there used to be a market for magazines which had in them the 'code' (it was actually written in basic) for full games.
He spent a couple of weekends writing them and then saving them after I'd gone to bed.
Problem was, one mistake could take so much sifting through the code to find out what you'd done wrong and if, for any reason, you had to turn off the machine, you lost every bit of work you'd done.
The old Speccy was barebones computing at its finest.

My final treasure is actually a lost treasure.
A cup released as a promotion for Starlancer.
It had a little 'you' printed on one side, and when hot liquid was in the cup, 'enemy' appeared all around it.
On the other side, Starlancer and I think a symbol for the game.
Got it from my local game store as they had a tendency to keep pre order stuff by for me even if I didn't take part in that devils bargain of a deal.
It's lost because the handle eventually fell off and it was thrown out in a decluttering excersize without my permission or knowledge.
I have yet to find a cup that held just the right amount of tea and fit so well into my hand.
It was my gaming chalice and it is lost.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

My memory is off a bit on the jacket. I had to do some intensive searching for it because its been a long time since I've looked at that thing...

Spoiler: Club Mario Nintendo Power Jacket

Apparently the green version is super hard to find, originally was a promo item that was given away in Nintendo Power, my family friend picked it up at CES in the late 80s. Just a bit of background, CES was a non-public expo that precluded E3, so you had to have some connections to get in. The family friend was a PC engineer so he could get in quite easily, and knowing I was a big fan of video games, he acquired the jacket for me from the Nintendo booth. I'd forgotten it had the black/silver scheme because its buried in the closet and I haven't seen it for about 14 years or so. Love that jacket, I don't care how much it might go for these days because I'd never sell it, its pretty much a family heirloom now as I'm going to give it to my daughter when she gets older if she wants it.