SRGilbert

I gotta say omeganu, you beat me to the punch. I've been in digital printing for 15 years, and had yet to see a viable solution to recreating Vectrex overlays without the cost of screen printing. That is, until the company I work for bought a new wide format flatbed printer that can print on anything (including plexi) AND with white ink, which was pretty unheard of until recently. The machine is designed to print backlit pieces, so it would probably be perfect. We also have a companion flatbed cnc cutter that can cut the pieces out to perfect precision. My plan was to do exactly what you did, but I hadn't gotten past the initial price estimates. Frankly, I wasn't sure what the market would bear, and as you stated, there is no cheap way to produce them and still make much profit if any. So, now I feel like I've missed the boat here, unless you get tired of making them! Of course, there might not be a market left by that point. Oh well, I might still try making them for myself and see how they turn out.

My general rule is to never pay more than I think I could get back if I needed to sell it. Plus, as I'm out looking for stuff to add to the collection, I'm also trying to score stuff I can sell for a nice profit. I'm primarily a flea market, yard sale guy though. I honestly haven't gotten into the homebrew scene becuase of the prices.

Decent find yesterday - a complete in box Galaxian 2 handheld for $30 at a flea market. The value on these seems to be all over the place, but I feel I got a good deal. Plus, strangely enough, it's an Australian release of it. In the US they were sold under the Entex brand, but in Australia, they were Futuretronics. I love these old handhelds and can't pass them up for a decent price. Oh, and it works great too!

On the upside, as a seller, it makes it a little easier to get a fair price if people think they are getting a good deal!

Not too shabby.

Well the first store had all the "Atari" type games just tossed in a cardboard box sitting on the floor, I was amazed there was anything interesting. The second store, I had to ask if they had anything, they had to bring them out from the back room. I'm just glad they had them priced. Usually when a store doesn't price them, they make you wait while they look it up.

Some decent (especially the CV games) finds this weekend at some backwater game stores: All loose, cart only Atari 2600 Dark Chambers $1 Squeeze Box (to go with the manual I found recently) $4.40 Colecovision The Dam Busters (with overlay) $7.40 Chuck Norris Superkicks (Xonox single ender) $4.40 Motocross Racer (Xonox single ender) $4.40 Sammy Lightfoot $9.40 The one store had Smurfs for Colecovision for $1 too, but I thought for sure I had just gotten recently, but nooooo, hopefully I can still get it.

Man, it's been a LONG time since I've posted in here. Not that I haven't been buying stuff, just not much that would qualify as "thrifty." Yesterday was a rare exception. We were at an antique/collectors mall and I found this in a case that had a bunch of sports cards and stuff in it. It was a plastic bag marked as "Rare Atari Manuals" and it was $18 after a 20% discount. It was a fat pack about 2-3 inches thick so I took a chance. I figured if nothing else, they could get bundled in with systems and games I need to sell. Boy am I glad I did. It turned out to be over 200 manuals and catalogs, no duplicates, and a number of them are pretty rare. Before this, out of the 300+ 2600 carts I had, I had about 150 manuals to go with them. With this lot, I was able to add an astounding 55 new manuals to my collection! Plus, there were a number of them for games I don't even have yet! I took a pic of just some of the more interesteing ones. Let the 2012 season begin!

When I was 16 and a Junior in High School in 1987, a group of us friends put a band together and played our schools talent show. Guess what song we did? That's right, Seperate Ways. Considering most of us had only been playing a few months at that point (I was the bass player) we did pretty good! We came in second to another band that played Talk Dirty to Me, if you can believe that. That was the first show I ever did, and played pretty regular for a number of years, but I'll always remember that.

I might be interested in some of the non-computer stuff, but I think it's going to be a tough sell to find a collector who will buy the whole lot. If you'd consider selling it to a re-seller, I'd recommend Josh at Epic Electronics in GR. He's a good guy and could get it local. He's got a store, so he'd have to get a good price to make money obviously, but I think he would be fair.

Where in Michigan are you?

Roger that, never been a sports fan and have never understood the seeming arbitrary way sports fans decide who to root for. I mean, come on, geographical proximity? It's not like the players are ever FROM the city the team is based in. You don't get to decide who is on the team, and you don't get to play on the team either. Still, I don't go out of my way to make fun of sports fans either.

Well, this is frustrating. I'm able to sync the iCade fine with my iPhone, but the Atari collection doesn't seem to work with it.

Well, I wouldn't swear to it, but I'd think so as long as you had bluetooth on the PC. I haven't had a chance to even unbox it yet. I suppose if nothing else, it should be possible to hack it into a usb controller!

I had a feeling these would be on clearance after the holidays so I stopped into my local Bed, Bath & Beyond and sure enough they were. Originally marked at $99.99, they were marked down to $49.99, and I used one of the very common 20% off coupons to bring it down to $39.99! I know that the iCade was designed with the iPad in mind, but from what I understand, it will work with pretty much anything that allows bluetooth keyboard input. For now, I'll just use it with my iPhone 4s, but at some point I'd like to pick up a tablet of some sort and hopefully get it working with Mame. At that price, I might even try to pick up another one and see what sort of mods are possible!

Was this place in the Mid-Michigan area by chance?

Very good point, I should have mentioned that myself.

Zooey Deschanel - yea I like her too. She has that ability to be both cute and hot at the same time. I think the first time I saw her was in the "Hitchhikers" movie a few years back. Her sister's not bad either...

Short answer, yes he's probably broken, most of them are. However, in the event that he's NOT broken, you should know a couple of things. First, you don't mention it, but you need a ROB game for him to do anything. Gyromite is the most common, and if I remember right, even has a menu for testing ROB. Second, his eyes don't light up, they are more like cameras that see the flashes on the screen. The flashes are code that tell him to do something.

How are the controls on these guys? I predict they will go on clearance at Khols at the end of the year, and wonder if they would worth buying just for the parts? Maybe mod it into a little mame cab or something?

Well they won't care right away, but if you've ever had to take care of a relatives estate, it can be a big concern eventually. I know it makes me a little sad to think of my wife trying to deal with that at some point. On one hand, she would be sentimental about it, and would be heartbroken to see it all go. She's been right along side of me the whole way so she knows how I feel about my collections and while she understands my enthusiasm, she doesn't share it 100%. I'm just afraid she will get ripped off trying to liquidate it just to move on. I've got some valuable pieces (not just games, but guitars, vintage toys, ect.) but most people in that state of mind just don't think about it at the time. Now that I think about it, I'd think that an estate sale company might be a pretty good way to go.

If you really think about it, the vast majority of 2600 games are pretty weird and require a LOT of imagination. That's what makes them great though!

If you want Atari Trak-ball action, then look no further than the 5200 baby! You simply won't find better trak-ball gameplay than that.

So, what exactly does the lifetime membership entitile you to?