Saturday the Southern California Classic Collectors (SC3) group descended on Steve H’s home and it was one of the best to date. It was a private event for members of the group and was so well attended that they had to cap the number of people before the event. I really have to give Steve and the other SC3 volunteers that help transform his backyard into a video gamers dream is a huge feat and between setting it up and taking it down is a huge task. They cram so much into his backyard it’s a truly amazing get together. There was pizza, snacks and sodas for everyone and while the donation is only $5.00 per person and I think that most people give more than that to help cover the cost of the event. This years event the set up was a little different and it made for some great improvements.
Moving the selling area to the back area of the yard freed up a lot of space in the front gaming area. This was also where I spent most of my night because it was the first time that I brought stuff to sell at the event. The tent area was pretty busy most of the night and everyone seemed to be buying a lot of things. There was a good mix of things to buy from a JVC X’eye, Nintendo Virtual Boy, NEC TurboGrafx 16, ColecoVision, and an Import Sega Mega Drive. There were lots of games that covered nearly every system that has been made to buy or trade.
With the sale area in the back made the outdoor theater area a bit smaller but it worked out for the better. The theater showed the new Pixels movie and vintage video game shows and commercials. They also set up a Sega Saturn 10 player Saturn Bomberman on the big screen that you rarely get to see and play with that many people. It was a huge hit with everyone and I hope that it will make a return at the next event.
Steve always tries to change-up the selection of games and there were both new and returning games this time. The really impressive thing was the Pac-Man collection that was put together for the event. There was Ms. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Professor Pac-Man, Pac-Land, and Pac-Mania. Seeing Professor Pac-Man was a real treat because the machine is very rare with only 400 units made of the game because the game flopped.
There were a couple of other rarely seen arcade game that were new this time. Bally’s Journey game based on the band that was the first video game to use digitized photos of the band members, Cinematronics zzyzzyxx that is a frogger type game, and a very rare Interstllar Laser Fantasy game by Funai that used a laser disc to provide the background video footage and then the game was a basic shooter game on top of the visuals.
Mike Kennedy of Retro Gaming Magazine had tons of great stuff for the raffle at the event. Mike always finds some of the wildest things to put in the raffle. The one that everyone wanted and was the first to be chosen was the Super Mario RPG The Legend of the Seven Stars was the super hot item of the night. There was also a complete Commodore VIC-20 with games that went very fast. There is always a lot of great things to choose from and most everyone walks away with something.
There was also a separate raffle for a complete Apple II computer with monitor, floppy drives and games that was neat to see. It was set up so that people could play during the event so people could experience the system.
One of the best things about these events is the set up of home game consoles that is one of the big things at these events. Nearly every major video game console was set up to play with many games to choose from. There were also a nice collection of handhelds that are pretty rare to see today and it was great to get to play some of them. The other great thing was that it’s a great family event and there were lots of kids that was great to see them playing the classic systems and arcade games. Steve made sure that there were step stools so they could reach the controls on the arcade games.
It was a great time and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun playing video games all night. You get to meet other video game collector and get to talk about the thing that we all love Video Games. A real tip of the hat to the people who make this event so great and for the generosity of Steve and his family who opens his home to all of the craziness of the event. It was a great time and greatly appreciated of all that helped the event.
Here are some more photos of the event.
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