The shop that moved online
About We Sell Retro - From The Retro Centre to Online
We Sell Retro is a UK online store selling retro games, consoles, vintage toys, action figures and pop-culture collectibles. It carries on the work of a former physical shop called The Retro Centre.
From The Retro Centre to We Sell Retro
The Retro Centre was a physical shop. It sold a varied mix of retro video games, consoles, action figures, vintage toys, arcade-related items and pop-culture collectibles — the sort of place where somebody would come in for a controller lead and leave with a boxed toy they had not thought about since school.
Running a shop like that teaches you things you cannot learn from a price guide. You learn which boxes always have crushed corners, which plastics go brittle, which accessories are almost never still in the box, and which questions a collector will ask before they part with their money.
We Sell Retro takes all of that and puts it online. Same enthusiasm, same eye for detail, a much bigger shop window.
What we sell
The stock changes constantly, because most of it arrives in ones and twos rather than by the pallet. Broadly, you will find:
- Retro video games on cartridge and disc, boxed and loose
- Home consoles, handhelds, controllers, leads and accessories
- Vintage and retro toys, including space toys, wind-ups and playsets
- Action figures, carded, boxed or loose, and their missing accessories
- Film and television collectibles and general pop-culture memorabilia
- Arcade-related pieces and vintage electronic games
- Odds and ends from the 1970s to the 2000s that defy neat categories
We would rather describe a fault honestly and sell an item once than gloss over it and deal with a disappointed collector twice.
What We Buy
We Sell Retro buys selected retro games, consoles, toys, action figures, collectibles, music, electronics and pop-culture items from sellers across the UK.
- Retro Games & Consoles – Nintendo, Sega, PlayStation, Xbox, Atari, Commodore, Amiga, ZX Spectrum and other classic systems, games, handhelds and accessories.
- Vintage Toys & Action Figures – figures, vehicles, playsets and toy lines from the 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond.
- Collectibles & Memorabilia – pop-culture collectibles, statues, figures, replicas, trading cards and unusual memorabilia.
- Music & Media – vinyl, CDs, cassettes and selected music memorabilia.
- Retro Electronics – personal stereos, electronic games, vintage gadgets and handheld electronics.
- Complete & Mixed Collections – collections can contain games, toys, music, electronics and memorabilia.
Why condition and accurate descriptions matter
With vintage items, condition is most of the story. Two copies of the same thing can be worlds apart: one still shrink-wrapped, the other missing its manual with a price sticker fused to the box since 1991.
So each listing sets out what we can see and what we know. That means the condition grade, what is included, whether the item has been powered up or tested, and the cosmetic details — scuffs, fading, tape residue, shelf wear, sun damage. Where something has not been tested, or where we cannot be certain, we say so rather than implying otherwise.
Photographs do the rest. They show the actual item from the angles that matter, including the parts nobody wants to photograph.
Our approach to unusual and one-off items
A lot of what passes through here is genuinely one of a kind: a shop display piece, a promotional item, a regional variant, a toy that never sold well enough to be common. These take longer to list, because they take longer to research.
When we are confident about what something is, we will tell you. When there is doubt — an unmarked variant, a possible reissue, a repaired joint — we will say that too, and let you make up your own mind. If you know more about a piece than we do, we are always glad to hear it.
Rediscovering the good stuff
The best part of this job has never changed. Somebody finds the exact toy they had as a child, or the game they rented every weekend and never finished, and it goes straight back to being 1988 for a moment. That is the whole point of the shop.