Mike's 2015 Boxed NES Collection

Based on all my purchases over the last three years, I've decided to update my pictures of my retro gaming collection.  My collection is boxed, so save for a few exceptions, I have all the boxes and manuals to go with my games and systems.

Like before, I'll start with the NES and move forward from there.  The handhelds will be covered after the home consoles.

I got my NES around 1988, but I was too young to remember when I first played it.  I have no memories of opening the box or hooking up the system.  I just recall playing Super Mario Bros. 1 and 2 with my mother as a very young child, perhaps when I was still in preschool.  A few years ago I asked my mother why she bought the NES (I don't remember my brother or me ever asking for one), and she simply said it looked like something fun for the family, so she got it.

We got the NES Action Set with the gray Zapper (this was the first version of the Action Set.  The red Zapper came later, around 1989).  The console, controllers and Zapper are all the originals from my childhood, and they work just fine.  The pins inside the system have never been replaced.  I don't think that most systems need their pins replaced.  It's typically the dirty connectors on the cartridges that cause problems.



The system is kept in a "system house" that was sold in the Super Power Supplies Catalog from Nintendo Power magazine.  I got the system organizer sometime in the mid '90s after I had picked up system houses for my SNES and Nintendo 64.  I had to mail in the order form with a check from my parents and then wait 4-6 weeks for delivery with no tracking numbers or anything.  It's too bad I didn't keep the boxes for the system houses.  Those things are hard to find.

There were two different versions of the system house.  One version had the drawer divided into two sections.  This was the Nintendo 64 version.  The other had the drawer divided into three sections.  This was the SNES version.  Both versions could hold the NES and its game, but the N64 version worked better for storing accessories, so I went with that one for the NES.

Although my brother and I had the NES Max and NES Advantage when we were growing up, I replaced them a couple years ago with better-condition ones (I bought a sealed NES Max and an opened, but in-box NES Advantage off eBay).  I picked up the Power Glove a few years ago.  There's a post here on the blog about when and how I got it.


I picked up the cartridge storage cases off eBay a few years ago.  Some of the cartridges are my originals from my childhood, such as Super Mario Bros. 2, Kung Fu, Zelda II, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Double Dragon, Donkey Kong Classics, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Yoshi, Yoshi's Cookie and Tetris 2.  I don't recall if IronSword is the original cartridge that my brother owned.  I don't have the original Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge that came with my system.  I think my mother sent it to a cousin or someone else living in the south.


I only managed to keep a few boxes from my childhood.  Back in the day most people didn't keep them.  No one considered them collectable.  Unlike today, most people simply didn't have a collecting mentality.  They simply wanted to play the games.  Boxes were irrelevant.  It was really no different than throwing out the box that your TV or camcorder came in.  So I lost a ton of NES boxes and had to replace them.  Others I simply acquired complete in box since I never owned the cartridges before.

Ironically, the NES Action Set box is my original from my childhood.  My mother stuffed it in one of the closets shortly after it was opened and so it went unnoticed until around the time the Nintendo 64 came out.  By that time I started keeping video game boxes (I thought they were really cool), so I when I discovered it in the closet, I made sure to save it.

I got the NES Four Score much later on, around the late '90s.  However, it was just the adapter by itself, so I replaced it with a sealed unit a few years ago off eBay.  I had an NES Cleaning Kit back in the day, but it was the one with Mario on the cover.  I probably lost it, so I got the original version without Mario this year.

Only a few of the game boxes are my originals: Yoshi, Yoshi's Cookie and Tetris 2.  These games were released late in the NES's life span, and so I think by then I either decided to keep them or my mother simply stuffed them in the closet as well.  I can't quite remember.

I have most of the inserts for these games, even the plastic bags in some cases.  Some of these games were picked up sealed fairly recently, such as Shatterhand, Super Glove Ball, and To The Earth.

There are some games I used to own as a kid but somehow lost such as RC Pro Am, Rocket Ranger (terrible game), and I think T & C Surf Designs.  However, I have no interest in owning those games again.  There are also plenty of other games that I played at other people's houses.

The NES is my favorite Nintendo system, hands down.  There's just something magical about the games, and I love all the different controllers that I can use.  For me, NES games just beat SNES games head-to-head, such as Mario, Zelda, Metroid, and Punch-Out!!  In the instances where it's a close call, the NES simply has more games from the same series (Mario, Zelda, Contra, Castlevania, Double Dragon, Ninja Turtles), so it wins in my book.