Item #59: Nintendo World Championships Los Angeles Champion [18&Over] Name Plaque

Where as I have the Trophy from the Los Angles 18 & Over Champion I have a few other fun items from that winner, just as I did for the Philadelphia Champion (refer to previous posts).

Enjoy!

Item #60: Nintendo World Championships Los Angeles Champion [18&Over] Name Plates (different than plaque)

A quick post to keep things fresh

Item(s) #60 & 61: 2 different (one of a kind) photos from the Los Angeles NWC event

NOTE: These are not me, but are of Colleen Cardas (see items previously listed) and her ex-husband. At the bottom of the first photo is a notation of their respective scores.

Don't you wish you were best friends with Mario?

Item #62: One of a kind Los Angeles Winner VHS (Family Recording) of NWC

Sadly! I have not been able to watch this because, well...I don't have a VHS player. I should head over to the rents and see what is on this bad boy, right?!?

Item #63: My Grail

Well the time has come to come clean...I am a stalker...or at least for a bit I was.

I have been teasing you guys for months with my collection; most recently Nintendo World Championship (NWC) items. Not because I like to show off, but I have these items and I think they should be out there for all to see; know they exist.

For the purposes of full disclosure I was slowly displaying my NWC items here for several reasons 1. the slow build up 2. giving myself time to get all pieces of the puzzle in order 3. wasn't certain I wanted to actually show my hand

In the end here is the tale...

I (as many) have always wanted the NWC cart since I started collecting, but (honestly) never thought I would get it; so I abandoned hope of getting one, only momentarily imaging I would stumble across one at a thrift, flea market, or yard sale. Then nearly a year ago I said to myself 'why not me?!' So I pulled up the list of NWC winners from Wikipedia and got to work...well that venture ended as quickly as it started.

3 months ago, however, I started up the same way; determined this time. After some minimal research online I found out a winner lived 10 minutes down the road from me; so I emailed him, called him (left a message), even tried to facebook him. Sadly (to this day) no response. So I moved on down the list, I figured those with common names (ie Joe Smith) would be impossible to track down, so I focused on more unusual names. I mostly utilized social media like Facebook and LinkedIn to find people, though a touch of Googling was used for confirmatory purposes.

I put out a wide net (perhaps attempting to contact ~12 people. I got about 7 responses; 3 simple "yeah, contest was fun. Don't have anything left," 2 I had good conversations with but had nothing to sell, 1 full out curse out (that was fun), and one...well...success.

For all initial contact I just was looking for information; stories about their experience and what memorabilia they had. I then advanced the conversation from there.

The conversation that would eventually net me my 'grail' was quite odd. I contacted the winner, they took ~1 week to get back to me with a simple 'yep that was me,' then another week to elaborate, then a day later we struck a deal (within hours), I paid, and a week after that I had the 'grail lot' in my hands.

So here is the best find of my life...












I honestly never though I would own one. I also never thought my methods were crazy with no chance of working; especially based on the fact that others (YEARS AGO) implemented the same methods I did (though a tad more primitive) and scooped up many of the games already.

I did all of this at the end of February 2013 into March (haven't been hiding this for years or anything); I was going to reveal last week, but didn't want to show up Mark & Matt; so I gave them their time to shine.

I hope this gives others hope! Yes, you can find these! Though by no means easy.

ENJOY!

EDIT: I should note for the price I paid I got:
The Cart, Trophy, Plaque, 2 signs, 2 photos, 2 vhs tapes, & Newspaper Article

Awesome! I'd love to know how much you paid but I imagine you don't want to disclose that. I'm also dying to know the full story behind the curse-out, haha.

post the whole curse out conversation here so we can laugh, just censor his name

Great collection - i love all the variety & history you've shared w/the site!!!

awesome!

Amazing no one tracked this down yet. Congrats on the find!

Congrats Icarwngs55 on joining the NWC ownership party,your cart is beautiful .Someone here please burn this man an icon of NWC ownership! BTW:That story is as amazing as that cart!Once again Congrats bro!

Very nice, the cart looks super clean too!

It makes it so much better that you did the work and it paid off. Congrats on gretting it

Wow amazing find! You would think by now that all past winners willing to sell would have been contacted years ago.

^ I definitely thought (with the list of winners being very public) they would have all been gone as well... But I guess it was meant to be! Definitely the height of collecting to date

Thanks to all for kind words and encouragement!

Cool story. Very nice looking cart too! And I love all the extra items.

You should get that VHS converted to digital to preserve it.

That's a great looking cart and an equally cool story! I was never able to find out who the original winner of the NWC cart that I owned was and it seemed that not knowing anything about its history made it lose some of the luster. Congratulations!!

Item #64: Gauntlet Legends (N64); variant box with Warrior figure (yes another finally found)

So just picked this up. Complete with warrior figure! Paid $70 which might seem high, but as I never see these I was willing to pay up for this rarity

Enjoy!

Did they release others with different characters' figures too?

^ It is a heated debate here. The General consensus is that the ONLY character you could get for this special edition N64 release was The Warrior. At the same time the only way to get The Warrior pewter figure was to purchase the N64 release.

There were a total of twelve (12) pewter figurines released by the company Reaper for the Gauntlet legends release. They were never sold, only given away; at comic stores and mail away. Whereas the mail away listed only the 5 characters you could/would be sent; it was later discovered you could get any combination of 11. Again The Warrior supposedly ONLY came with N64 release and was not a mail away option.

Hope that helped.

I may be totally out of the loop here but is $70 honestly high for this, as insanely rare as it is? I was thinking they were valued at multiple hundreds.

Item(s) #65: 5/12/13 Flea Market Find Guides, guides and more guides (not easy to find one btw)

Well the story goes as such. The Flea Market today was weak. It had rained yesterday and even though today was slated to be beautiful not many showed (sellers that is). As the morning progressed however sellers trickled in; I'm assuming they saw the weather was wonderful.

Even with the influx of sellers I found NADA. About to leave I see a guy set up with his elderly mother; spotting a ROCK BAND set from a distance. I find Rock Band/Guitar Hero sets to be the one Video Game thing you can always find at a Flea Market if nothing else. Anyhow...

As I approach, I spot a giant bin of guides AND ANOTHER OOOOOOOO! My eyes immediatley spotting a BREATH OF FIRE Guide. I snatch it up, hold it in the air...

Me: How Much?!?
Guy: Ummm, $0.50
Me: *DROOOOOL* (Must keep composure) Ummmmm, how much for all of them? (makes wide hand motion) NOTE: I only did a quick glance at ONE the bin
Guy: All of them?! Well, you know there are two more bins on the other side of the car right?
Me: *Blank Stare* Ok, All of them too? (blind buy go, go, go!)
Guy: Oh, well...$50? Is that too much?
Me: *Spotted weakness* How about $20? *holds breath*
Guy: How about $25?
Me: Deal! (commence the lifting of very heavy bins to car)

This is what I got...







Keep going I promise it gets better...




Blah, blah, blah...




Ok, now that was a tad interesting...








Hey, there were a couple cool Pokemon ones there...




Wait, Golden Eye? Star Fox? Nice. Guess he's done...








So in the end I got 146 Guides for $25 or $0.17 each. Woot!

daaaaamn that's an amazing find man
I'm a huge fan of strategy guides so I have to clean my table now because I spilled some milk...
These guides are of good quality which is even more amazing. Snatch your award nao

Not a bad guide haul for 25$ at all.

You could probably piece out the newer less valuable guides and still make a nice profit if you didn't wanna hold onto them all.

Nice profit is right. Even selling half of these on eBay would guarantee a few hundred bucks. Man I'm still in shock over this find. Gotta be one of the best non-game finds of the year.