homerwannabee Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 (edited) About 8 years ago when games started to pop up from Venezuala I don't think any of us had an idea exactly how big this storage place was. At the time the O'Shea's over 1 million sealed video games from 30 feet under in salt mines was thought of as the largest source of sealed Atari 2600 games on the planet. Even when O'Sea's finally went up, and sold almost all their games to a gold smelter many thought this was a great loss, but come to find out that Venezuala's video game find might be much larger than all us expected. I still see 8 years later sealed game after sealed game after sealed game coming from this country. Could it be possible that there is actually more than 1 million sealed Atari 2600 games in this storage place? It seems to be a never ending supply of sealed games that keeps on streaming out there. Edited April 8, 2013 by homerwannabee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 Where'd you come from!? Haven't seen you post much around here since I came back... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted April 9, 2013 Share Posted April 9, 2013 O'shea s carts are really destroyed?, that's barbaric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
video game addict Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 It would of been a great loss if any of the Osheas titles were remotely rare at all. It should of been noted by now that the selection of games coming from Venezuela are quite diverse and previously nearly unheard of to find in NIB conditions. It could of been a great loss if not for the guards in Venezuelan customs keeping the rarity levels in check. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazing Lazers Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 wait, what is this whole O'Shea's story about? This is new to me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 wait, what is this whole O'Shea's story about? This is new to me... O'Shea's was a company that had purchased many, many pallets of certain 2600 and 7800 games back when they were being liquidated for pennies. They stored all these NIB games in a salt mine in MO. The games were offered for sale for many years for $2 to $5 apiece. Recently, they decided that it wasn't worth storing and selling them any more, so they sold them for scrap (mostly for the gold content, apparently). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serious Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 Interview with O'Shea's from 2009. I didn't know about their games being destroyed, but their web site shows they are out of Atari games. I haven't bought from them since around '99. Regarding Venezuela, I asked one of the sellers why there was so much Atari stuff in Venezuela, and he said that it was still popular there after the crash in the U.S., so lots of the inventory got shipped down there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari181 Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 wait, what is this whole O'Shea's story about? This is new to me... O'shea's is the source of most of the common silver label games and a few others. They purchased 5 million games(according to their website) from Atari. They sold them for starting at .80 each up to around $5 each before liquidating them all to a scrapper. Titles included, Dig Dug, Ms Pac Man, Joust, Pole Pisition, Galaxian, and more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 It would of been a great loss if any of the Osheas titles were remotely rare at all. Yeah, but it would've been nice to have the shells at the very least. Those could've been quite useful. It should of been noted by now that the selection of games coming from Venezuela are quite diverse and previously nearly unheard of to find in NIB conditions. It could of been a great loss if not for the guards in Venezuelan customs keeping the rarity levels in check. Indeed. Despite the various shipping problems with the Venezuelan sellers in general, the sheer volume and variety of games being sold by these guys is amazing. There's tons of NOS games (from not just Atari, but Avalon Hill, Coleco, and Mattel as well) all pulled straight from factory cartons. And that's just the beginning. The most impressive stuff has been all of the unsold store stock from Musicland, which includes tons of uncommon and rare computer titles for the Atari and Commodore machines, Apple II, etc. You name it, they have it. I've seen some rare NES and TG-16 titles being offered from time to time as well. O'Shea's was a company that had purchased many, many pallets of certain 2600 and 7800 games back when they were being liquidated for pennies. O'shea's is the source of most of the common silver label games and a few others. They purchased 5 million games(according to their website) from Atari. The best part of the O'Shea story is that they supposedly never paid for any of those games. That guy took those games from the Tramiels on consignment and never gave them a nickel. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted April 10, 2013 Share Posted April 10, 2013 The best part of the O'Shea story is that they supposedly never paid for any of those games. That guy took those games from the Tramiels on consignment and never gave them a nickel. Wow. That takes the cake! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaybird3rd Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Yeah, but it would've been nice to have the shells at the very least. Those could've been quite useful. Indeed. The shells were probably more valuable than the boards, which according to the scrap dealers I've talked to would be considered low-grade scrap; the gold flash used on most of those boards was very sparse and very thin. The problem is that recycling so many shells for homebrew use would have been very laborious and time-consuming, and in person-hours, probably more expensive in the long run than tooling and molding new shells. I got the impression that O'Shea was just looking to quickly rid themselves of their remaining inventory. They'd been selling those games for years, and the market had already absorbed about as many of their relatively common titles as it could. Since they (reportedly) didn't pay anything for the games to begin with, they had already made plenty of money on them, so from their point of view, they weren't really losing anything by getting whatever they could by scrapping them. I'm just glad I was able to pick up a few cases of their games before they were destroyed; in retrospect, I wish I'd bought more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 The problem is that recycling so many shells for homebrew use would have been very laborious and time-consuming, and in person-hours, probably more expensive in the long run than tooling and molding new shells. Probably, and the fact that many of the games were red label cartridges (which aren't the best for homebrew use anyway) doesn't help. Even still, it is kind of a shame they went to waste. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennybingo Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Probably, and the fact that many of the games were red label cartridges (which aren't the best for homebrew use anyway) doesn't help. Even still, it is kind of a shame they went to waste. Additionally, who the heck has the space to store millions of empty 2600 shells??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted April 11, 2013 Share Posted April 11, 2013 Additionally, who the heck has the space to store millions of empty 2600 shells??? O'Shea had 20,000 games left as of the last time they updated their website (whenever that was). But regardless of how many were left, I wasn't suggesting that anyone should've obtained all of them, just enough to last a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted April 17, 2013 Share Posted April 17, 2013 Is Xenophobe still a R7 and Road Runner still a R6? The Venezuala source seems to have a bunch of those games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted April 17, 2013 Share Posted April 17, 2013 Is Xenophobe still a R7 and Road Runner still a R6? The Venezuala source seems to have a bunch of those games. No way...they've dropped considerably, but to exactly what is open to debate. The Digital Press guide currently lists them at R5 and R3, respectively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted April 17, 2013 Share Posted April 17, 2013 No way...they've dropped considerably, but to exactly what is open to debate. The Digital Press guide currently lists them at R5 and R3, respectively. Atariage still has them listed at a R7 and R6, they should be dropped to at least a R6 and R5 respectively. How about it Al? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted April 17, 2013 Share Posted April 17, 2013 Atariage still has them listed at a R7 and R6, they should be dropped to at least a R6 and R5 respectively. How about it Al? The whole database is going to be overhauled at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Is Al outsourcing the job? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted April 18, 2013 Share Posted April 18, 2013 Is Al outsourcing the job? Not exactly, but a new system is going to be set up where pretty much anyone can submit info or edits to the database which will then have to be approved. Sort of like MobyGames, I guess. In terms of adjusting game rarity, I don't know exactly what process he's planning to use to get a consensus on new ratings. I guess time will tell... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mountain King Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 What is the Venezuala source? Do they have a site? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ApolloBoy Posted May 3, 2013 Share Posted May 3, 2013 What is the Venezuala source? Do they have a site? There's several of them, all of which are on eBay to my knowledge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serious Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 Is the Venezuela supply drying up? I haven't seen nearly as many of these listings lately. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 Is the Venezuela supply drying up? I doubt it, although it may have reached the point where they've flooded the market with so many copies of certain titles that it's not nearly as profitable for them as it once was. Even so, I'm sure there's still plenty of stuff left to sell. If they were running out of things, you'd see more of a slow trickle as they gradually started to sell out of certain games, rather than the sudden halt that seems to have occurred. There has to be some other reason why most of the sales have stopped. I haven't seen nearly as many of these listings lately. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right place? I haven't seen many lately either, although I have seen a few sellers pop up in the U.S. that are selling stuff that was definitely sourced from Venezuela. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ntavio Posted November 24, 2013 Share Posted November 24, 2013 I doubt it, although it may have reached the point where they've flooded the market with so many copies of certain titles that it's not nearly as profitable for them as it once was. Even so, I'm sure there's still plenty of stuff left to sell. If they were running out of things, you'd see more of a slow trickle as they gradually started to sell out of certain games, rather than the sudden halt that seems to have occurred. There has to be some other reason why most of the sales have stopped. I haven't seen many lately either, although I have seen a few sellers pop up in the U.S. that are selling stuff that was definitely sourced from Venezuela. Venezuela's economy is in the toilet with 30-40% inflation. Also, I don't think that they can exchange U.S. dollars legally at the present. It is probably not worth selling anything at the moment for cash. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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