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Tag Sale Dreams Can Still Come True


Red 5

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Being in New England, the Tag Sale season is relatively short compared to other places in this fine country, but I can tell you that every Saturday there is a tag sale, I am there (unless am managing an unfortunately early little league baseball game). For over a decade I have been at it.

 

Back in the old days, when my collection was just starting, every Saturday was like Christmas. Always something new to add to the collection. The years go by, I hit the 600 Atari 2600 cart club quite a while ago, and the tag sales are still fun, but it's not Christmas anymore.

 

The dream of that rare cart just sitting in a box somewhere keeps me hopping out of bed. Maybe there is a CIB musc machine in someone's garage just waiting for me. Of course, more than likely it is going to be a couple of LP's, a gameboy game or two, and maybe a couple of lego's for my son. And when it is something good, it is usually an NES system with Zelda and Supre Mario. If it is an Atari, it is a mess and comes with Combat, Asteroids and Missile Command. The joysticks are missing the handles, and the cable is shredded or cut for some bizarre reason.

 

This year though... this year my friends... there has been magic. A killer brand new drum kit for my daughter who is learning the drums. $25. Two new guitars for me. Beautiful shape, better than my old acoustics with hard carrying cases. $15 for both. An NES system with 50 games, nothing to rare, but for $15? How about a giant Star Wars Star Destroyer Lego set (already built though) for $7. Yup... it's been an awesome year and we are only half way through.

 

The winner though was what brings me here. I want to keep the dream alive for all of you Saturday morning tag sale warriors. Here my AA friends is your inspiration. For on this early Saturday, the last tag sale of the day I found a great Atari game (THAT I DON'T HAVE) in the wild. I walk around, see nothing of interest and then ask the magic question that I ALWAYS ask. (75% of all tag sale video games I have purchased have come from this question... people never put them out for some reason...) "You don't happen to have any old video game stuff do you? You know Atari, Colecovision, Nintendo?"

 

"You know what, I have an old box full of Atari stuff in the basement. Want to hold on a minute?"

 

Why yes... yes I do want to hold of for a minute.

 

When he returns he hands me a huge box... a heavy box... and says, "It's all yours. I was going to throw it away! You're doing me a favor." I just about begged him to take money, but he would not hear of it. I could see a wood grain in the box and all the games were in a bag. I thanked him profusely and hopped in the car and raced home.

 

Like the Atari dork I am, I reached in the bag of games over and over again without looking. Just under 50 games in total. The prize being Halloween. The other item I did not have however was a rapid fire unit, which is pretty cool.

 

Throw in the light sixer, the atari jr. system and a giant pile of games and this was my biggest atari 2600 score in my long tag sale history. I was able to upgrade many of the games in my collection to better labels / condition too. Crackpots by Activision, Atari Video Cube, and a few other rares!

 

Anyway, keep searching my lads. There are still games to be found!

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Holy moly. Nice score! I actually have two of those rapid fire units. I've racked up many points in Empire Strikes Back with 'em. This is probably the first time I've seen a picture of one online (not that I've looked very hard).

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Holy moly. Nice score! I actually have two of those rapid fire units. I've racked up many points in Empire Strikes Back with 'em. This is probably the first time I've seen a picture of one online (not that I've looked very hard).

do the same thing as a quickshot joystick on auto fire?? Or better somehow?

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Holy moly. Nice score! I actually have two of those rapid fire units. I've racked up many points in Empire Strikes Back with 'em. This is probably the first time I've seen a picture of one online (not that I've looked very hard).

do the same thing as a quickshot joystick on auto fire?? Or better somehow?

 

Better, the thing is adjustable.

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Holy moly. Nice score! I actually have two of those rapid fire units. I've racked up many points in Empire Strikes Back with 'em. This is probably the first time I've seen a picture of one online (not that I've looked very hard).

do the same thing as a quickshot joystick on auto fire?? Or better somehow?

 

Better, the thing is adjustable.

 

Yeah! I never used anything like it before and it is really cool. For those who have one, do you know if the toggle switch stops at some point? The one I got in this lot does adjust, and works great, but there is no stop. For instance, you would think when it got to the maximum, the toggle would stop and you would only be able to turn it back down towards the off position. This one spins around as much as you want in either direction.

 

I tested it out with asteroids and it was really fun, especially at the start of levels when there is so much to shoot.

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Holy moly. Nice score! I actually have two of those rapid fire units. I've racked up many points in Empire Strikes Back with 'em. This is probably the first time I've seen a picture of one online (not that I've looked very hard).

do the same thing as a quickshot joystick on auto fire?? Or better somehow?

 

Better, the thing is adjustable.

 

Yeah! I never used anything like it before and it is really cool. For those who have one, do you know if the toggle switch stops at some point? The one I got in this lot does adjust, and works great, but there is no stop. For instance, you would think when it got to the maximum, the toggle would stop and you would only be able to turn it back down towards the off position. This one spins around as much as you want in either direction.

 

I tested it out with asteroids and it was really fun, especially at the start of levels when there is so much to shoot.

 

Mine don't stop at the 'off' or 'max' positions either. I always thought that was odd and wondered if they were designed like that or if something inside was broken. I got mine secondhand in the late 80s.

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What's a tag sale... is that like a yard sale, or estate sale?

 

I was going to ask the same thing, too. I was thinking thrift stores because some have prices on colored tags and, on certain days, a certain colored tag will be on sale.

 

Awesome score! Congratulations! :thumbsup:

 

Some of the best things I've gotten from yard sales and antique shops were free. For some reason, the people saw no value in them. I got a KISS lunch box with thermos free. Not in the best of shape, but good enough. The best score was at a yard sale way out in the middle of nowhere. I was a big Monkees fan at the time. I got a vintage Monkees shirt (never seen another since) and stacks of old teen magazines full of Monkees articles and pin-ups. All free! I was a kid at the time, so people didn't automatically see dollar signs back then.

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That is an awesome score, would love to find a Halloween in the wild like that.

 

You know what though, I never ask unless I see something else game related. I've thought about buying an Atari shirt to wear, hoping they might ask me! I really should start asking though, as this years has been crap. I haven't had time to go out at all, and when I do, I don't find much of anything.

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My work place has an intranet for general BSing. 5200 went for sale on there.

 

Someone was selling a 5200 + 8 games or so + 4 controllers. 2 port model. I was floored on how low it sold for. 15 bucks. The games and 2 of the controllers were CIB! It could have easily sold for 70-80 on craigslist. I could have bought it, or put in a bidding war(first buyer flaked), but I already had one. Wonder if he'd sell me the Vanguard.

 

They will forever sit as conversation pieces in his cubicle sadly. He was nice enough to give me 1 controller for free. It didn't work, so I did a swap. Still nope. Darn. I now have 1 controller + 2 non-working ones. Heh.

Edited by S1500
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A little off-topic, but my brother paid $500 CDN for that gian lego star destroyer when it first came out.

 

It was the largest lego set ever released at the time, not sure if it still is or not.

 

He said putting it together was like another full time job!

 

When we ran out of space to keep it out I had the job of dissasebling it. Took about 2 hours! It's now in storage.

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  • 2 weeks later...

With Ebay, Antiques Roadshow, and all these storage tv shows, you'd think you wouldn't be able to find things in the wild anymore. This is just one example where that is not true. Though vintage video games do not get much spotlight, so chances of finding them for reasonable prices still exist.

 

Last weekend my friend went to a yard sale and the lady had a box full of comic books. Sadly, she said she had sold half of them 30 minutes before. But when my friend took a look, he saw 10 and 12 cent cover prices and negotiated $15 for all. He doesn't know too much about comics, being the toy guy when I was the comic guy working at his store 12 years ago. He sold/closed his businesses as I had mine. So now we work on Ebay.

 

Anyway, he calls me up and tells me the titles and to my surprise there are many 1940s and 1950s books in there. Though not in the best of shape, and the fact he thought a good half were coverless (covers were folded over so you couldn't see them), he probably has a good $800-1000 retail value of those books. Again, since he's not the comic guy, he's going to send them to me to sell for him.

 

About 4 years ago, I found a few 1940s comic books that I paid $10 each for and were worth about $40-50. A few months ago I found some 1940s westerns for 2/$5 which again, not the best, but I sold most of them between $10-25.

 

So there is stuff still out there. It's just a matter of being the first one there, asking like the op did (I ask all the time too), and having a little faith and a little luck.

 

BTW Jason, the board games are still desirable and collecting board games has picked up over the years. I have most if not all video game related board games. Haven't looked at the list of what I may possible be missing.

 

Phil

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great story Red... not sure how I missed your post until now. There have been few if any of those moments since I moved out here to the country.

 

I know what a sheer rush something like that is. I'm still kicking myself for selling off a find like that from about 4 years ago when I decided to only collect CIB (lots of rares with manuals) from a widow and son that were selling off a fathers collection. I eventually got boxes for many of them that sit empty to this day waiting for a cart and manual. The last one like that was about 2 years ago right after the flood in Nashville 2010 I got a CIB Xeye for $20, and it is still one of my best / favorite Sega items in the collection. Getting it for a great price makes it even better.

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