Activision blue label games pricing?

[HatefulGravey]

Up to this point I haven't really payed attention to the blue label games. I wanted the games and I got good copies regardless of the label. Recently I have started looking to knock of the blue label collection and I'm finding the prices are all over the place. The rarity chart shows they are all pretty close to the standard labels, but that says nothing for the pricing. Are these blue label games really worth a bit more than the standard labels?

[graywest]

This is just my own anecdotal evidence, so take it for what it's worth, but I haven't found the blue label carts to be worth any more than their standard counterparts. I think they're only slightly more rare, and they're not as interesting visually, so people don't care about them much from a collecting standpoint.

[Philflound]

The blue text labels are actually much rarer. I would say at least a 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 ratio. Also, Skiing is next to impossible to find and commands a large premium if you can find it. I wouldn't doubt it selling for $25 or more. I think that may be the only blue text label I don't own. Though I haven't been actively following them. But just looking at what I've acquired over the years, I don't come across too many blue text labels in general.

 

It's possible that Gray may be correct in that the aesthetic appeal of the labels themselves is what is keeping them from going higher. Also, you may want to check into the white and black text labels as other additions to your collection. The giant label variation site should be pretty accurate when it comes to all the labels for Activision as I tried to keep it as up to date as possible. If not, check out atarimania.com who should have anything that I don't.

 

Phil

[HatefulGravey]

@graywest

There are two trains of thought on that. The first is in line with yours exactly. The other being that collectors love the different stuff. That is largely why I'm looking into picking these up.

 

The thing is if you search for pricing information so much of what you get is about the standard label so the averages are off, and eBay is a terrible way to try to gage the value of anything really. The prices I'm seeing aren't what I would call high, but at the same time I don't want to get ripped off when the answers I need are more than likely here somwhere. Someone on this forum knows I'm sure, there is just too much information in the heads of the members here not to take advantage of it.

[Philflound]

The different stuff is the reason why I took over the label variation list years ago. I always kept my own list from the master list, as there was an effort into creating the list, but a lack of it to follow up over the years. The list was all over the place and additions were being made based on word, not proof. I can't tell you how many items I added to the original list. All my items were genuine since I had them in my hands, but how did John know on the other end? He was basing it off my word. So I decided to create the list with proof. Photos were the best way and my design is rather simple. I tried to keep all the variations on one page, so they are easy to look at and easy to compare. Atarimania goes into a lot more depth, but you have to do advance searches to get the specific companies and then each year variation, along with PAL, SECAM, International, etc are on different pages. He's more accurate with knowing which variation came with which box though. I help him out as often as I can. The one thing is he doesn't like watermarks on the images, so he actually doesn't have certain variations on his site that Atariguide does because there is an Atariguide watermark on the image. Me on the other hand, I'll take anything at least in the beginning to show the proof. If I can find images or scan ones myself and eliminate the watermark so it looks better, then I will. But I'm not picky. I'd rather the collectors see something than nothing.

 

I also decided to add the manuals to the site. This will take a long time. I don't have Adobe Pro, so the manual scans that User42 has are currently useless to me until I can either find a program to convert the pdf files to jpg, or somehow come up with money to purchase Pro. That doesn't seem likely since I haven't had a full time job in over 3 years now. So I'll work on acquiring what scans I can from here on Atariage and Atarimania if he has them, and scanning them myself. I probably own a good 800-1000 extra manuals, so I have a decent supply to go through.

 

Phil

Edited August 10, 2012 by Philflound

[HatefulGravey]

The blue text labels are actually much rarer. I would say at least a 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 ratio. Also, Skiing is next to impossible to find and commands a large premium if you can find it. I wouldn't doubt it selling for $25 or more. I think that may be the only blue text label I don't own. Though I haven't been actively following them. But just looking at what I've acquired over the years, I don't come across too many blue text labels in general.

 

It's possible that Gray may be correct in that the aesthetic appeal of the labels themselves is what is keeping them from going higher. Also, you may want to check into the white and black text labels as other additions to your collection. The giant label variation site should be pretty accurate when it comes to all the labels for Activision as I tried to keep it as up to date as possible. If not, check out atarimania.com who should have anything that I don't.

 

Phil

 

You posted while I was posting and I just noticed your post in this thread. I have never looked at the site you are talking about until now. There are tons of other labels out there. Is there any information as to why the labels vary so much? What was the reasoning behind the standard and blue labels? Now you can add the black and while labels to that question as well. I have seen a few black and white labels in the part but didn't know that many games had one.

 

EDIT: LOL, you did it again. I saw it this time so I go ahead and read that.

[Philflound]

The Activision white labels always end in "i" with the product number, so I'm assuming they are specifically international releases. Not sure what the black label signifies, but I think that also was exclusive international release. You will also see the regular labels with "International" written on them, though they are NTSC carts I think for the most part. Then there are the multi-language versions, which may be PAL. I think it was more of what type of market these were being released in, i.e. which countries. If you look at Atarimania, he boasts over 8000 listings, though I think that includes other items besides Atari 2600. But if you were to go through all variations that exist, you'd definitely be in the 5000+ range. I don't usually do variations unless they are rare or unusual.

 

Phil

[Rom Hunter]

If you look at Atarimania, he boasts over 8000 listings, though I think that includes other items besides Atari 2600.

 

Nope.

 

Everything VCS games related.

 

But if you were to go through all variations that exist, you'd definitely be in the 5000+ range.

 

10.000+ to be exact.

 

[Philflound]

According to your title page, you have 8061 games listed. You also cover 5200, 7800, computer, etc, so it's not just 2600.

 

Phil

[Omegamatrix]

Where do you see that, Phil? Atarimania has the game category in bold, and then the games for that category right beneath it. It looks pretty clear to me.

 

 

[HatefulGravey]

10.000+ to be exact.

 

You define "exact" in a different way than I.

[Philflound]

Well, we can all agree there are a lot.

 

Phil

[SoulBlazer]

10.000+ to be exact.

 

You define "exact" in a different way than I.

 

Are you talking about games that are original games (non pirated) or ALL the games ever made for the Atari 2600, including all the pirates and rip off's?

 

It sounds like you're talking about the fomer and Rom the latter.

[Philflound]

No, Rom has every single game variation listed on his site, which includes pirates, multicarts, and re-releases. I don't believe there is anywhere near 1000 original games for the 2600.

 

Phil

[Schizophretard]

10.000+ to be exact.

 

You define "exact" in a different way than I.

 

Are you talking about games that are original games (non pirated) or ALL the games ever made for the Atari 2600, including all the pirates and rip off's?

 

It sounds like you're talking about the fomer and Rom the latter.

 

I think he was just saying that 10,000+ isn't an exact number.

[Rom Hunter]

I'm talking about every single, different cart ever made for the VCS, including pirates, major label variations and minor label variations.

 

Atarimania has a little more than 8000 VCS entries listed now (and a lot of these entries include extra scans of minor label variations and different offset label printings).

 

Also, I studied all the Brazilian VCS games companies and wrote down their maximum serial number to get an idea of how many different games each company produced.

 

Then there are the obscure carts from Thailand, Saudi-Arabia, Turkey and what have you not.

 

You'll get over 10.000 different carts ever released for the VCS.

 

You won't find a more "exact" score than that at this moment.

 

 

Now, about original releases:

 

Now counting 614 (including prototypes):

http://www.atarimani...inal=1&step=200

 

And counting 474 (excluding prototypes).

 

And yes, (still) a few vaporware Home Vision titles as well, because of my personal fetish.

 

Edited August 12, 2012 by Rom Hunter