Nintendo 64 Set, Complete Part 1. Do a Barrel Roll

Complete Nintendo 64 Set

I haven't had time to post lately, but  I wanted to give a little update on the Nintendo 64 Set  I have been working on...It's done, all 297  296 games
(checklist here) and then some. I completed this set without much
fanfare or ado.  So without further delay here it is.

(Complete N64 Set, with some variants shown)

I fully intend in part 2 of this post to talk about some of the variants, what is rare and expensive, but for now just a synopsis of how and why I started collecting N64 and the journey I took to complete it.

How long have I been working on this set and why N64? 
I started back in 2008. Not many people were after 64 stuff so I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon early, make myself an authority and carve out a niche. I figured I would be able to figure out what games were rare and maybe pick up a few extras (read that as horde) while they were cheap and use them to trade my way into NES and SNES stuff when they picked up in price. This was at a time when I really wanted to be collecting for NES and SNES but I thought the prices were way to high (If I knew then what I know now...SMH). 

The idea of hording didn't stay with me very long, just wasn't something I felt good about. So I just collected like a normal person who wants to own every game for a system which in an of itself isn't all that normal. I bought some video stores out of old stock, and I picked up some really cool lots on eBay, for individual games it was exclusively eBay. In 2009 I found Nintendo Age and that blew my whole collecting world up. Suddenly I was trying to buy, trade, and sell. I was finding better deals, and I was learning about collecting from guys who had been doing it longer, NA was a little soft on N64 data at that time, but what they new about Nintendo was incredible. Enter 2010 and Sega Age was formed, a sister site to Nintendo Age,  and with that I jumped ship for SA.  I left N64 of the shelf and jump in feet first to collecting Sega ( I already had a pretty good Sega Stash thanks to some amazing garage sales.). Then the Cardboard Genesis Project happened  (my results here). During this time of doing research and meeting awesome people, N64 had become a distant memory.  This is not to say I didn't buy any N64 titles but it became a trickle, less than 5 a year during that time frame. Around this time last year I was finishing up most of my Sega Stuff and decided it was time to revisit Nintendo and finish off the last 100 or so games I needed for the set.

What a difference a few years makes. Nintendo Age now was flush with people who were N64 enthusiasts, and knew pretty much all there was to know about collecting for the often lamented system. The 64 was also seeing rapid price spikes, as collecting for the system had really picked up steam. Gone were the days of bargain bin discounts, by 2013  the N64 had become a legitimate collectors system, with several of its titles tilting over the $100 mark.  I  have learned a good deal since last July on Nintendo Age, as several members shared info that would have taken me on my own much longer to discover. Over the course of a year I finished my set, and I became very knowledgeable on the subject of N64. In my next installment I will share some of what I learned.

Do a Barrel Roll
~Johnny~