Well this I think deserves it's own post on here, this was in the works like I guess a couple weeks with a long term online friend of mine. Anyway crossposting with elsewhere on this since I don't see this discussed here really.
Detailed story short back in the 1996-2005 era I had a US Duo and a heap of US HuCards and a number or CDs both regions, lost to unemployment just over 20 years ago. Wrote it off for good given how things have been most the time since, dabbled with the JP side for awhile but that went nasty and budget being as it was thought I dipped out permanently other than a PCEMini.
A friend of mine has a bit of an addictive personality, instead of gambling, alcohol, etc it has been collecting, largely games, also a few toys. Been working with him for I'd guess a decade now to knock it down and knock it off. What you see above was all his, the TG+CD+IU in the last five years were recapped, new audio chips, new laser assembly, the usual meaningful cleaning/greasing you'd need to basically reset the clock all done professionally. I had hit a need to scale back my stuff as I work a lot and don't like stuff rotting others could use, so I had sold off my arcade collection(MVS, many carts and a pinball) in the last couple years and parting with others I had a fund enough to where I could tap a majority of it and help out even if it stung. I won't get into the terms too much but a mass majority went to paying things off and I got all this. Amusingly to me, the two Gradius titles were mine years ago.
I won't get into figures, it's not classy, don't ask. It wasn't full ebay, it wasn't a ripoff either, trusted with f&f to dodge any fees and taxes on his end too and cover postage/materials.
Glad to be back into the mix, this will take a long while to play through and I don't mind at all. A lot of lost returns and some first time gains. All of it is complete as you see there, except N2's manual is missing/destroyed but I'm in the process of replacing that (GoT too which comes 2nd.) All but 2 controllers work 100%, the other 2 are fried/parts, may see what I can do later with that. I may try and keep things complete in future buys, US side at least, fine with loose JP HuCards though.
