I think I played NES the first time around '89 or '90 on display at a Hertie department store.
I did not own one in that time, since I was pretty busy with the GameBoy and later the SNES. Good times reading through the Club Nintendo magazine back then for game hints and secrets, I think it was pretty similar to the Nintendo Power magazine.
In 2003, my brother gave me a NES including a 3-in-1 cart (SMB 1, Tetris, Nintendo World Cup) that he received from a friend for free. The friend told that it was broken. It turned out there was nothing broken at all (aside from some slight cosmetic flaws on the case), I think the previous owner had just a hard time getting the console connected to his TV.