Famicomblog is...almost back! One more week and I should be back to normal! In the meantime I thought I`d take an hour here to do an homage post to the Hard Off price tag blues which, as the title suggests, I got.It seems every hobby has its common annoyance that enthusiasts enjoy complaining about. For Famicom collectors resident in Japan far and away the biggest of these has to be the Hard Off price tags. You can find some really great deals in those shops, but when you get your stuff home you always have to deal with the Hard Off price tag blues. They use the most ridiculously adhesive price tags in the world. They are a massive pain in the ass to get off. And they always put them directly on the cart!! Heaven forbid that you should find some good CIB stuff at one of those shops because it will have one of these price tags directly on the box and it WILL remove part of the surface of the box when you take it off.
Let me show you what I`m talking about. Take this copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the Mega Drive I got at one a while back at a Hard Off here in town:
105 yen is a good deal, but that price tag? Here is how it goes. Step 1: Start at one of the corners:
That gets about 10% of it off:
Step 2: Have a go at the opposite corner:
Now you`ve got kind of a V shape going there:
And Repeat:
And Repeat:Until you have a cart that is mostly clean:
And a pile of sticky little price tag remnants to dispose of:
2 hours well spent.