68 replies to this topic

[Yurkie]

Looking for 18 or more investors that want to put up $100 for 10 sets shipped. Please me an email at yurkie@live.com if your serious.

I appreciate the support. I need people to EMAIL me at Yurkie@live.com if you are serious about investing. I set this email address up for this project only.

11/12/09 Even in light of finding a screw on source I still think for $10 a set these balls are a great idea. I am still looking for investors. Would love to get these made.


This will be a really nice item that you can install yourself. Simply take the metal disc off the top of the controller, remove the screw,take the disc knob off, put the ball top on and replace screw to hold the ball top in place.

Turn your ColecoVision Controller into a the Arcade stick it should have been in the first place.

Edited by Yurkie, Wed Nov 11, 2009 11:05 PM.

[the.golden.ax]

I'll take a set.

AX

[ianoid]

Likewise, I'd buy a set.

[Yurkie]

ianoid, on Tue Oct 20, 2009 6:28 PM, said:

Likewise, I'd buy a set.

Thank You Gentlemen. Only 148 more to go

I should mention deposit will be $10 if I meet my goal of 150 or close and total will be $14.95 plus $4.95 shipping per set. The $10 would come off of this and leave a balance of $9.90 due when I am ready to ship your set(s) to you.

Edited by Yurkie, Tue Oct 20, 2009 7:46 PM.

[Yurkie]

Here is an example photo collage. My ball will be very similar to this.

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[Yurkie]

Let me throw a little twist in here. How about 10 bucks shipped. I have been working with several manufactures to get my cost down. If I offered them for $10 a set it would have to be cash. No paypal. No delivery confirmation. In padded envelope shipped first class US mail.

If you are a classic game store you could buy 50 sets and sell them in your store for $20 a set and double your money. If you bought 10 or more sets I would ship them in a flat-rate priority box with delivery confirmation.

Just so everyone knows this is a slightly modified version of the ball top G.A.M.E.S sold by mail order in the 80's for 10 bucks a set. And I will be having these made right here in the USA. Not overseas. So you can feel good about supporting American Manufacturing.

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Edited by Yurkie, Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:13 AM.

[Foster]

I'm in for two sets.  Great idea!

[jeffgamer]

Yurkie, on Sat Oct 24, 2009 8:06 AM, said:

Let me throw a little twist in here. How about 10 bucks shipped. I have been working with several manufactures to get my cost down. If I offered them for $10 a set it would have to be cash. No paypal. No delivery confirmation. In padded envelope shipped first class US mail.

If you are a classic game store you could buy 50 sets and sell them in your store for $20 a set and double your money. If you bought 10 or more sets I would ship them in a flat-rate priority box with delivery confirmation.

Just so everyone knows this is a slightly modified version of the ball top G.A.M.E.S sold by mail order in the 80's for 10 bucks a set. And I will be having these made right here in the USA. Not overseas. So you can feel good about supporting American Manufacturing.

I'd pick up a set!

[Yurkie]

I am a machinist and based the dimensioning and tolerance off the E-Z ball. I talked to numerous machine shops over the last couple weeks and submitted an AutoCad drawing to them for quotes.

This part will be very nice and the only real difference is that it will be turned on a lathe instead of injection molded, I have worked in manufacturing my whole life and have a very good understanding.

I am not willing to put up the money to have these made on my own.

I believe that there are 18 or more people out there that would be willing to do this:

Send me $100 via Paypal, once I have my list of 18 or more investors. For this money up front you get 10 sets shipped via USPS Priority Mail with shipping and Insurance as soon as they are made and received by me. I have a written quote from a multi-million dollar corporation here in Ohio. I will take your money and get the 180 sets made plus a handful for myself. I will collect all the money via paypal at the same time from interested parties and will have product in hand no more than 3 weeks later. I will pack and ship the sets out to all parties same day or next day. Investors can do whatever they want with them. I personally would keep 3 sets and put the other 7 on the bay for $20 BIN.

I personally don't understand the lack of interest. I have a set of the E-Z balls and can't image playing ColecoVision without them. I gave $20 for 1 ball so I would have a set.

If I can't get 18 or more people willing to put $100 up front for 10 sets shipped I am going to drop the whole thing until a some point down the road when I can just put up a couple grand of own money and have them made.

I very much appreciate the people that want to buy a set, but I feel this is the only viable way to do this.

If are serious and wish to invest $100 for 10 sets $200 for 20 ect. shipped send me an email to yurkie@live.com

I am going to wait until this coming Friday October 30th, if I don't have 18 or more people that are interested I am dropping the idea for the time being.

Edited by Yurkie, Sat Oct 24, 2009 10:00 PM.

[Yurkie]

Here is a picture of a part machined from the exact same material these will be made of. I was adamant about the outside finish being cosmetically appealing. This is what the outside finish on the joystick balls will look like, however the rub mark on the far right is not acceptable and balls will have no such blemishes of any kind.

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[cubelindo]

I would like a set if you send them overseas. Tell me how much the extra shipping would be  

[ianoid]

This is a tough sell, and I'll tell you a few obvious reasons why. There will be 18 other guys just like me trying to sell 7 or 8 sets to recoup ASAP. I would commit to a set, but payment up front is also tough. I don't know you and I'm hesitant to be scammed out of $100 as well. I'm not suspicious, but I'm just commenting. Limited run stuff is tough because it does cost a lot to make a quality product, I appreciate that. I will follow along with the project, but I certainly won't be the first to pay. I would probably just prefer to pay $20 for a set and have no inventory issues.

Bear in mind that AA is not the most popular place for CV enthusiasts, but there are a lot of old game collectors here in general. Consider cross posting on digitpress.com .

[Yurkie]

ianoid, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 8:15 AM, said:

This is a tough sell, and I'll tell you a few obvious reasons why. There will be 18 other guys just like me trying to sell 7 or 8 sets to recoup ASAP. I would commit to a set, but payment up front is also tough. I don't know you and I'm hesitant to be scammed out of $100 as well. I'm not suspicious, but I'm just commenting. Limited run stuff is tough because it does cost a lot to make a quality product, I appreciate that. I will follow along with the project, but I certainly won't be the first to pay. I would probably just prefer to pay $20 for a set and have no inventory issues.

Bear in mind that AA is not the most popular place for CV enthusiasts, but there are a lot of old game collectors here in general. Consider cross posting on digitpress.com .

I appreciate what your saying. I feel that this is the only way to get something like this going. People that are thinking of scrambling to sell 8 or 9 of the sets are not the people that are going to be willing to do this. I figure $100 although not chump change is not all that much in the big picture.

I had one of the E-Z balls and my GF and I both loved it. I REALLY want a second one so I would have a set. I gave $20 for 1 ball top. That ball top makes the ColecoVision Controller SO much better, that in my opinion makes it is hard to put a value on it. The gaming experience difference is like night and day.

I was talking a hardcore ColecoVision fan about this a month or so ago, and he was telling me that he had only ever seen the E-Z ball up for auction on Ebay a couple times in all the years he had been watching listing and only recently got his hands on a set for the first time.

I personally bid $150 on a listing just to get an extra set of these, not even caring if the system worked. I didn't win that auction, but that's how awesome I think these are. If from a classic game player perspective you take the $20 I gave for one ball and multiply it by 2 that's $40 for a set. I know I really want to have another set and that was my passion for having an engineer make an AutoCad drawing for me to present to manufactures for quotes.

Going along with my willingness to give $40 for another set that would be $80 right there, that I would be willing to fork out for 2 sets. I would then have 8 extra sets that I could sell, or just keep in my collection.

Time will tell, if others care about this as much as I do.  

I appreciate your advice about digitpress. I emailed a bunch of classic game websites and sent them a link to this thread.

[Foster]

I hope this project pans out.  I have a single E-Z ball stick replacement and it makes a WORLD of difference over the stock coleco controller.  The extra precision makes gaming on the Colecovision much more fun.  I paid over $20 for mine and it has been worth every penny.  It would be great to have an extra set or two.

[ianoid]

Well, I'd probably do it if you can get the other folks in line.

[evg2000]

I agree with Ian.  Once you request payment how long will it be until you ship?

ianoid, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:43 PM, said:

Well, I'd probably do it if you can get the other folks in line.

[Yurkie]

evg2000, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:48 PM, said:

I agree with Ian.  Once you request payment how long will it be until you ship?

ianoid, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:43 PM, said:

Well, I'd probably do it if you can get the other folks in line.

I thank you 2 Gentlemen. I will not collect a penny from anyone unless I get 18 plus people that want to invest. Or if someone wants to do 20 sets for $200 ect. I need a total of 180 sets $1800 total.

I Also want people to understand. I WANT people to sell these for a profit. Once you get your sets please feel free to sell them in an manner and for any amount you see fit.

I was told 2 or 3 weeks for delivery from the time the order is placed. I however requested to pick them up in person, and was told I can this. I am going to inspect every single piece at the time of pick-up. I am going to make sure that every single ball will work perfect.

If you gentlemen are serious please make sure you will have the funds available when needed. All it would take to mess things up is for a couple of people to say "I don't have the money right now"

Thank You again for your support.

[Yurkie]

I added a poll to help me better understand the lack of interest. Please feel free to add a comment that elaborates on your poll question answer. It looks like I am going to have to wait till I have the money to get these made and then sell them individually 1 set at a time. The poll will help me understand if it is even worth doing this.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

[tjb]

You can put me down for 10 sets. The only reason I haven't responded before now is that I simply didn't notice your post. I've been pretty busy with work but things are beginning to return to normal.

tjb

[mimo]

I would be interested in buying one pair of these if you will ship to the UK (and accept pay pal)

[the.golden.ax]

Okay you have three investors. If this plan gets off the ground put me down for 50 (25 pair), IF they can either be naked or PINK colored.

AX

Edited by the.golden.ax, Mon Nov 2, 2009 7:37 PM.

[JEFF31]

OK - looks like you have 6-8 'investors'.  I'd like a pair or 2 or 3 (and would go for 10 (investor level!) if necessary - if your like at 17 and need the 18th person...).  Don't give up hope... this might take a few more weeks-months to develop.  As some posters have said 'they just ran across this thread'... how many people don't even know that you want to accomplish this good thing?!

[Yurkie]

JEFF31, on Wed Nov 4, 2009 4:56 PM, said:

OK - looks like you have 6-8 'investors'.  I'd like a pair or 2 or 3 (and would go for 10 (investor level!) if necessary - if your like at 17 and need the 18th person...).  Don't give up hope... this might take a few more weeks-months to develop.  As some posters have said 'they just ran across this thread'... how many people don't even know that you want to accomplish this good thing?!

Thank you so much for your support, and positive comments.

[coleconut]

PM sent
I'd go in for 10 if it helps you realize the numbers you need.

[Yurkie]

coleconut, on Wed Nov 4, 2009 7:01 PM, said:

PM sent
I'd go in for 10 if it helps you realize the numbers you need.

It defiantly helps.

I only have about 5 people on board right now.

I am requesting everyone that is serious and WILL have the money, to send me an email to yurkie@live.com

It is very important that Everyone EMAIL me if they are serious about being an investor. So far I have coleconut , tgb and one other person, that have sent emails. Please include your atariage username in your email.

Edited by Yurkie, Fri Nov 6, 2009 7:40 AM.