ABOUT NOSTOS

Hey y'all. My name is Will, and I opened NOSTOS because I wanted a store like this to exist here in Gwinnett. A third place that feels nothing like the corporate, broken systems you find everywhere else. A place where a parent feels welcome and comfortable, where a kid can actually explore and touch things, where a serious collector gets the respect they deserve, where you talk directly to the owner and get a fair deal.

I live just down the road in Peachtree Corners with my wife and our two boys, and my in-laws are near Downtown Duluth, so we are up here all the time, at the library, the coffee shops, the playground. I have always thought of Buford Highway, from Atlanta on up through Duluth, as the perfect multi-stop mini road trip, the kind of spots I already send people to when they visit. I wanted to add one more worth the drive, right alongside a James Beard semifinalist at Masterpiece and the card shop next door.

I built the entire operation around one principle: be efficient enough that I can focus on the store and the people in it, not on expanding or overhead. That means I'm here, not managing a second location or chasing content. Profits stay local, reinvested in better inventory and better deals.

We carry video games. Curated, graded, priced transparently. We carry vintage finds, nostalgic media, and hardware we repair ourselves. Things you won't find on Etsy or in algorithm feeds. Something for the collectors, something for the parents, something for a kid to explore and discover. We stock for people who grew up on Super Famicom, PC Engine, Mega Drive, systems from Japan, Brazil, Europe, everywhere. Most stores wouldn't bother properly labeling and pricing imports, so they sit unsold. We built a process so they get found and played.

The trade-in desk is simple. Check the sell page online to see what we'll offer before you come in. No awkward negotiations, no surprises. Or bring something in and we pull our buy prices in front of you. You see what we'll offer. You take cash or store credit.

None of this asks you to take my word for it. The guides library holds more than 170 working documents written from this bench, covering repair procedures, authentication tells, and what collections are actually worth. That is the proof of the expertise, and all of it is free.

That's the store I wanted to walk into. Now it exists. And it stays this way. NOSTOS will never be sold to or owned by private equity.

Want to reach out. Shoot me an email or find me on YouTube.

Come Home.

Business Information

Affiliations & Trademarks

NOSTOS is an independent, secondhand retailer. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Sega, SNK, NEC, Atari, or any other game publisher, console manufacturer, or apparel brand. All trademarks and brand names referenced on this site (game titles, console names, publisher logos) are the property of their respective owners and are used only to identify the secondhand items we sell. Items are sold in their original used condition; we do not produce, license, or manufacture new versions of any branded product.

Who Runs It

NOSTOS is owned and operated by Will, a lifelong collector with hands-on expertise in the areas NOSTOS specializes in.

Will has expertise in retro game authentication, domestic and Japanese imports, including cartridge board inspection, label dating, and reproduction detection. On the repair side he fixes and mods controllers and handhelds in-house, including stick-drift repairs, with a steady hand on the soldering iron. Console recapping is on the near-term roadmap, and he plans to bring on dedicated repair help to grow that side of the bench.

On the apparel side, Will grades vintage clothing using tag forensics, screen print aging, and construction analysis - including single-stitch dating methodology, Champion tag evolution, and deadstock identification.

All buy/sell/trade pricing is run against current market data and eBay completed sales - not intuition, not guesswork, not lowball offers dressed up as market rates.

The Inventory Philosophy

NOSTOS carries items that are worth carrying. That means verified authentic hardware and software, condition-graded and priced honestly. Japanese imports - Famicom, Super Famicom, PC Engine, Neo Geo AES and MVS, WonderSwan - alongside domestic classics. Vintage apparel selected for era accuracy, construction quality, and cultural relevance.

What NOSTOS does not carry: Funko Pops. Pokemon slabs as financial instruments. Modern remakes misrepresented as originals. Fast fashion pretending to be vintage. Mass-market collector bait.

Why Gwinnett

Gwinnett County - and Duluth specifically - has one of the most diverse, culturally rich populations in Georgia. A large part of this community grew up with Japanese and Korean gaming hardware, the consoles and software that most American stores have never bothered to stock. The demand for authentic import hardware, Japanese-market software, and culturally specific vintage apparel is real and under-served by the current local retail landscape.

NOSTOS is built for the Northside. Not imported from elsewhere, not optimized for a national audience. Built here, for here.

Technical Expertise

• 01 Retro game authentication: domestic and Japanese imports (NES, SNES, Famicom, Super Famicom, PC Engine, Neo Geo)
• 02 Controller and handheld repair and modding, including stick-drift fixes (console recapping on the near-term roadmap)
• 03 Vintage apparel authentication: single-stitch dating, tag forensics, screen print aging
• 04 Market valuation: multi-source market data methodology, loose vs. CIB grading, regional pricing variance
• 05 Japanese gaming culture and market context: regional pricing, regional exclusives, hardware revisions

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