Starting a Retro Console Collection

[Schizo]

Let me start off with a little background:

This is something I've wanted to do for years..but I promised myself I would not start collecting until I bought a house so I would have enough room to do this. Well, I finally bought a house a few months ago, and I have converted one room in it into my "game room" so to speak.

I bought one of the last good analog televisions for $30 off of Craigslist (a flat-screen 24" Sony KV24-FS120 if you really want to know) with which to hook up all my old gaming systems up to. As many of you are aware, the new digital televisions just aren't as good at recreating the pixels of older games properly, so this seemed like one of the best televisions to get (it was also one of the biggest sets that would fit in my entertainment center).

I dug all of my old game systems out of storage that I had (the remainder still sit in my old bedroom of my parents' house - I really need to pick those up sometime soon!) and hooked them all up. Where possible, I'm trying to hook them up to S-Video for the best possible picture. I have a switchbox that can handle 4 composite/s-video connections, but I will surely need more.

Right now I have the following hooked up: Dreamcast, Xbox, PS1, N64, and NES. I have room for many more. I'd really like to pick up some consoles and games I never had as a kid, mostly due to how expensive they were. One in particular I'm really lusting after is a Neo Geo. Anyone have any experiences with these and could offer me some advice? Does anyone here know of a really good console collector site/message board? Know of any good places to find older games and consoles (besides ebay and my local used game store)? Are there enough TOGgers interested in console gaming collecting that I'd be better off asking my questions in here? Do you have a really awesome setup or collection you'd like to show? I think this is the thread for it.

I'll post up some pictures of my retro setup once I get home from work.

[Dipski]

PAL Gaming Network is the only decent forum I know of, has a trading section too which is good http://palgn.com.au

Unfortunately there aren't a lot of places to go to get retro gaming stuff - Ebay, Gametraders, Cash Converters and your odd garage sale. You have to be very careful what you pay for things - my local Gametraders had an Atari woody 6 switch on display for $200, if you didn't know better you'd pay the $200 instead of the $50 it's actually worth. Same goes for Cash Converters, generally they are a total stitch up and you'd be insane to pay their prices, at least in my local area anyway.

I'm building a small collection, so far it has gone in the Atari 2600, NES, SNES, 64, Master System, Mega Drive direction - I find it hard to focus on any one or two systems as reasonably priced bits and pieces are few and far between. Ebay is good - but postage and handling would kill you if you collected them one game at a time, so it seems to be a bit of a slow process.

[Schizo]

I really need to get off my butt and get pictures of the setup posted...

[Talera]

I have older consoles. My main retro one is the Sega Mega Drive system, including controllers, the gun, a box of games and so on. All in perfect working order.

I'd let you get them from me but I think you are in the US given Craigs List comment.