In the Netherlands, there’s a tradition that, for me, used to be the way to get cheap new video games. It used to be on Queen’s Day, but now on King’s Day, I would go with my parents and the rest of the family to a flea market. A giant field where everyone from the neighborhood and surrounding areas was selling their stuff. For me, it was the way to celebrate King’s Day!

The King’s Day Flea Market Experience: A Kid’s Dream

The market was probably no bigger than one or two football fields, but for me, as an eight-year-old or just slightly older, it felt enormous. In my mind, I divided the market into four quarters and took my time wandering around the stalls. And whenever I came across video games, in my case, games for the Nintendo Gameboy, I usually bought them.

Scoring Retro Game Gems at the King’s Day Flea Market

Now, it might be familiar to you readers that a lot of mediocre games were released on the Nintendo Gameboy, but on these days, I almost always managed to score some classics. One year, I picked up Catrap, another year I scored Bubble Bobble, I also got the second installment of the Turtles series, and bought the classic Solomon’s Club. All of these are games that are still considered very good today and have since significantly increased in value.

The Mystery of the Flea Market Finds

So, it remains a bit of a mystery to me why I ended up with such classic games. Ok, to be fair, I also once picked up the terrible Oddworld’s Adventures for the Gameboy at the market. What a dreadful game that is! In hindsight, this has added a lot of extra value to the King’s Day flea market experience from the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Why Retro Game Hunting Is More Challenging Today

Nowadays, it’s pretty much impossible to find gems at these markets. It seems like people have beaten me to it. Or that fewer (valuable) retro games are sold at flea markets now. I guess we’ll never really know.