Justin Mangue.
Collecting since the cartridge era.
PLACEHOLDER
It started in 1989. Mom brought home an NES from a department store — the Action Set, with Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt bundled in — along with a copy of Castlevania II. I'd been pleading for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Turtle-mania ran deep), but she stuck with Simon's Quest. That swap accidentally planted the seeds of my lifelong love of metroidvanias.
My early collections didn't survive. The childhood NES and every cartridge for it got mailed off to a distant cousin. The SNES and its library got traded in at Funcoland for a PlayStation and a copy of Tomb Raider II — a deal I would walk back in a heartbeat. The N64 was lost in a house fire. By the time I cared enough to keep it all, none of it was left.
These days I don't have much time to actually play, so the passion has shifted to the chase. Self-imposed rule: no mail order — the whole point is the in-person hunt, through retro stores, Facebook Marketplace, garage sales, thrift shops, and conventions.
What I collect
The headline goal is the full licensed North American NES library. For SNES, N64, GameCube, Wii, and the handhelds, I'm after smaller curated sets — games that are either genuinely great or personally meaningful. Alongside the cartridges I also keep a growing shelf of retro gaming books and magazines, including Nintendo Power back issues and the Worlds of Power series.
Rules of the collection
- In-person only. No mail order, no online auctions.
- Cart-only is fine. Cart should be in good shape, especially the label art. Box and manual welcome, never required.
- Authentic only. No repros, no pirates.
- The licensed NES North American library is the goal. Everything else is opportunistic.
FAQ
- Why the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)?
- It was the first console I loved. NES is synonymous with my childhood — sharing tips on the playground, renting games from the video store. I read Nintendo Power and tip books cover-to-cover and dreamed about what it would be like to own every game. Collecting the full licensed North American library is an achievable but very difficult long-term goal, the kind I can enjoy chipping away at for years. SNES, N64, GameCube, the handhelds — all welcome on the shelf. But NES is the headline.
- Do you actually play these?
- Less than I'd like. With a young daughter, a wife, and a full-time job, the hours aren't easy to come by. I play when I can — mostly things I never finished as a kid — but collecting has become the main goal. Someday I'll retire and play through all of these…
- What's the budget like? Where's the line?
- I know it when I see it. This is a hobby, not an investment vehicle, so I'll pay above market for a real hole in the library when the condition's there and the moment feels right. The bigger goal is to spread the budget out over time — the longer the hunt lasts, the longer I get to enjoy it.
- Where do you actually find these?
- Retro game stores whenever I'm traveling — any time I explore a new area I'll check the friendly local shops and pick up a few titles. Beats a standard tourist gift shop. Facebook Marketplace for local deals, conventions like Too Many Games and the Portland Retro Gaming Expo when the timing works. Garage sales and thrift shops once in a while — they almost never have anything good anymore, but the once-in-a-blue-moon find is what keeps me looking. The fun is the hunt; the algorithm doesn't get to play.
- What about complete-in-box and collector grades?
- Cart-only is the baseline. If it boots and the label's readable, it counts. Boxes and manuals are welcome, but I won't double-buy a loose cart I already own just to chase the box. Graded slabs are not for me. Cartridges are meant to be loaded into a console.
- What's the long-term plan?
- For now: hunt the rest of what I'm looking for, play them, and write about it. Long term, I want the full North American NES library on display in my office. Beyond that, the plan is just to keep enjoying collecting.