Mirage

Homer, This is the sentiment of a large number of collectors of all walks of life. This explains the discrepancies you raise and is also the reason why, contrary to your beliefs, this hobby will most likely dwindle in future decades to come. Younger gamers just won't have the same attraction to Atari 2600 games as those that grew up in the 70s and 80s and so they will not place as much value on these items. you would therefore expect these to fall in value over the long run. Exactly,i was going to say the same thing,its just how life goes.Things are born,grow old, die,and become forgotten eventually. Yeah, that's how life goes. Eventually, people will care less, or at least care differently than we do. They will become a museum curiosity more than anything (and then, it will be Combat and Pac-Man, the rest will be obscured to footnotes of history).

Homer, This is the sentiment of a large number of collectors of all walks of life. This explains the discrepancies you raise and is also the reason why, contrary to your beliefs, this hobby will most likely dwindle in future decades to come. Younger gamers just won't have the same attraction to Atari 2600 games as those that grew up in the 70s and 80s and so they will not place as much value on these items. you would therefore expect these to fall in value over the long run. Right, but don't get me wrong... it's not that I don't want the carts, it's just that I only have so many resources (time, space, MONEY), and therefore will go for the ones I really care about first. I do think early games will still have value after all of us who actually remember them are dead and gone, because they're part of history. Just like I like some toys and antiques from before I was born, both because they're cool, and because they're a part of history. Early video games will be a HUGE part of history for future generations. However, fewer people will care as much as we do -- care to actually own and play the games, so actual monetary value is unpredictable, and spotty... even harder to judge why certain things are valuable than it is now.

I don't really disagree with what you're saying, I just don't find different values very surprising. If I could get some of those CommaVid or other rare carts cheap, I'd pick them up, but otherwise have no real desire to own them. I'd rather have a complete Atari & Activision (and Parker Bros, CBS, Imagic) collection because those are the companies I'm nostalgic most about... I don't think I even knew about CommaVid in the '80s, so I don't care that much. I think you'll find what you're saying to be true in most any field of collecting, or most sorts of antiques. Sometimes kinda plain semi-common stuff sells for more than the really rare unique items, mostly because more people remember them and therefore there's more buyers wanting them, driving up demand. I'm sure there's more to this than simply that, but you can't underestimate human fickleness.

No, I get why a Sears Heavy Sixer is cheaper than an Atari 2600 Heavy Sixer. What I was saying is the Sears Heavy Sixer is actually cheaper than a common run of the mill Atari 4 switcher Vader or Woodgrain. Okay, gotcha... well, if I could only have one VCS period, I'd rather have an Atari light sixer than a Sears heavy sixer, so my point still stands.

I think it's not just about rarity, but nostalgia as well. I collect some Sears (casually), but they have little nostalgic value for me, whereas the Atari-brand games do, especially the artwork. I do think you have a point, but I think that rarity is only one factor. I have a Sears heavy sixer, but I'd rather have an Atari heavy sixer, for example, even though the Sears may be more rare. Also, I don't want anything to become more valuable, at least not for awhile, because there's still a lot I'd like to add to my collection.

You said you tried the TV on channels 2 and 3... did you try switching the Atari itself to the different channels and try again? Also, you didn't mention it, but on the off chance that you're not going directly into the TV, but through a VCR or similar, then out with RCA's into the TV/monitor (like I do), then make sure that the VCR is on (sometimes they need to be for a signal to go through). Yesterday I thought my light sixer was dead until I realized that I hadn't turned on the VCR. Phew!

As much as I would like to say I'd like to re-live the '80s, I don't think I would. Knowing what I know now, I think the magic would be gone. And as cool as it would be to have all those rares, it wouldn't be a challenge. I don't think it would be any fun now. I'll keep my memories the way they are, thanks I lived it all when it happened... been there, done that!

#9 please. It will be a very cool Christmas 2008!!!!

*I* would say just front and back. But, if there's anyone else interested in this (maybe there's not? How could there not be?), I think it would be nice to get some kind of vote or input. Maybe there's a demand for hires scans of the whole box so people could make replica boxes if they want to? Either way, I wouldn't flatten anything. Easy enough to get a scan of the side of the box without flattening. Well, in theory it shouldn't be hard, but I haven't tried it yet either. See what you can come up with, that would be great! If I get time, I'll try to do the same if I can get my old scanner working on a computer I have now.

That's great! I hadn't heard of that! I only downloaded one so far (Super Breakout), and that one is at 300dpi (at 100% of the Universal Game Case, so that ends up being between 200-300dpi -- unacceptable). It's a decent enough scan for 300dpi though. I can use those for some things, though, but not the main projects (now, at 600 dpi, maybe). They only have 7 Atari-brand NTSC color covers so far. Thanks for the tip! EDIT: The universal game case size is significantly smaller than an original 2600 box, thereby making these scans less than 300dpi... so... not usable for what I have in mind. They end up being more like medium-res, rather than high-res.

Update... at my count, there are only 58 Atari-brand color boxes (not counting variations and stuff like Action Pack/32-in-1 etc). Just focusing on those to start with, it seems like this is an achievable project, if there's interest. We could make them available (somehow) to anyone who wants them, and we could do some neat things with them, maybe like the Atari-box wallpaper that was mentioned in a different thread! I have 16 Atari-brand color boxes myself, so we'd just need around 42 more of those. I have probably the majority of the color manuals, too, so I'd have a good chunk of those I could scan myself. I'll volunteer to do all the clean-up and image editing, as that's what I do for a living anyway, so noodling around with that for awhile would be no big deal.

Well, granted, based on everything we know, it seems impossible -- it just simply makes no sense to someone who knows about the consoles. But still, upon having it pointed out for the first time, I sure took notice. I mean, even though it seems improbable (impossible), new things do turn up all the time in this hobby. But yeah, anyone knowing their consoles should know, you're right.

Maybe you could host a smaller (like medium-res) version of anything that is scanned, unless you mean an offline database, because the size of the scans I'm talking about you wouldn't be able to host online!

That would be fantastic if it's something you feel like doing! I'm mostly interested in the Atari-brand color boxes/manuals (as opposed to silver/red...), but we should all sort of vote on what's worth doing at this time probably, if there's enough interest. Remember, these files are going to be large, so that needs to be kept in mind when deciding on dpi. I would like to have 1200dpi scans, but that's not going to be practical to host online, or even to distribute online except as a torrent, maybe. Ideally, I'd like to get them as TIF files for my purposes (but they're going to be really really big), and any hi-res scans that are saved as jpg for smaller file size should be saved at MAX quality (Photoshop quality 12), otherwise they're not going to be suitable for the purposes I have in mind (high quality prints for various projects). For more casual online distribution, they could be saved with a little more jpg compression to get the file size down a little. The more I think about it, the more I think 900-1200dpi scans would be best, if it's something we could do... so the box text and other linework would reproduce well... I'd hate to have to re-create all that! So, any other ideas, thoughts, suggestions? How can we do this? Is there demand? If there's just no interest, I'll just start scanning as I get them over time. Thanks guys. I think we could do some really neat things with some hi-res scans! BTW, I've been an imaging/print professional for over 10 years, so I can clean up/modify/color correct a large amount of images quickly and to good result.

Does anyone know if there's high-res scans available anywhere of either the manual art or the box art of all Atari-brand 2600 games? I've been trying to collect every color manual with the intent of making high-res scans of the cover art for projects like wallpaper (and other things). If someone's already done this, it would save me the trouble (and move this project on a lot faster). By high-res, I mean at least 300dpi high-quality scans at 100% of original size. At least... preferably twice that, or more. Having these high-res scans of the box art would be great, since the boxes look so nice as a whole, but the box printing quality tends to be of lower quality (due to being printed on cardboard rather than a thinner, higher-quality paper), so ideally, I'd like to get scans of the box art, and the manual art so I could merge from one to the other as necessary, or re-create certain elements with Illustrator, etc. If anyone has any information on sources of scans like this, please let me know. Thanks.

!!!!!! Good eye !!!!!! I don't see how this could be, but how bizarre!

EDIT: nevermind, I'll start a new thread, it's a new enough thought.

bfstats has you beat by about 20 years (and several hundred games). Looks cool though. I just wet myself.

Nice! I've recently wanted to collect all the color boxes, but planning a 1000+ mile move in a few months, it's bad timing. Maybe after that! Just be careful that no sunlight is shining directly on those boxes, cuz if it is, they'll be faded before you know it. That's the only problem displaying stuff like this. Well, that, and the pretty colors are attractive to children...

If you can find an old "Jam!! Box", it does this. You can get them pretty cheap now. I got mine on Craigslist for about $5. EDIT: This was supposed to be a reply to "Longhorn Engineer's" "You would need a S-Video to VGA converter to do so." comment.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=99755 Dang, I missed out on a lot of good non-bin 2600 games during my Atari-hiatus Thanks for the link.

I know it's not funny since you were just trying to get the overlays, but I still find it humorous that Atari screwed you over, but it's like 10 or 15 years too late to call them up and demand your overlays. If it's any consolation, you'd probably only "play" the thing for a couple minutes anyway before realizing what a waste of time it is. It was one of the first game I really really wanted for the Atari and I got it for my birthday in February right after getting the VCS for Christmas. I had wanted to try programming for a long time after reading about the 800, TRS-80s, playing with the PETs at school etc... what a craptastic disappointment finally getting that cart and seeing how utterly useless it was.

Holy cow, you have a lot of hacks/homebrews. Some I've never heard of or seen. What is "Wizard"? And the Dr. Who one? I don't even have ROMs for those, much less heard of a cart. I'd love to get the Wizard box/cart, that's great. But I'd at least like to know what it is. With that one, my imagination is going like it was when I was 10, seeing a new Atari game, wondering what it plays like.

There's no excuse whatsoever for a seller to pack a fragile item (especially a crushable box) in anything other than a box (unless it's in a box, then a bubble mailer like someone above said, that's fine). If they know enough to sell it on ebay, then they should know that the buyer wants the item to be protected. And as for "making a profit on shipping", well, that's inexcusable in itself. If a buyer pays for a certain kind of shipping, that's what they should get. And the seller should be calculating shipping with the correct type of packaging and charging appropriately for the weight, supplies if necessary, etc. What I've always done is not charge anything for packing supplies, I charge exact shipping cost only, BUT, that's not the only way to go. That's only because I've always had a pretty good source of free, good packing material and I use it as a selling point. Still, no one should be skimping to make a profit. Calculate and charge shipping appropriately, then follow through on that. I've never had boxed games shipped badly, but I always specify to the seller how to do it. I did however once have a boxed system shipped with shipping labels all over the original box. I can kind of see the confusion here, as a non-collector may not realize that this is not a good thing, but it's still sort of a lack of common sense I think. Since then I've always specified to please not do that. ebay in general, while having a lot of good sellers (and buyers) too, is certainly full of morons. I tend to think of ebay as a place where a lot of sellers go to "oops" leave out important condition information about an item that they can't otherwise sell. I bought a console once that was busted up badly (pic was obviously not of this unit, and damage didn't happen in shipping b/c there were pieces missing) and I once got an electric guitar that was junk and clearly not as the seller described (and they had cleverly taken photos which hid this discrepancy). That one took over a month of fighting before I think the guy finally just gave up and gave me my money back, but it cost me over $50 in shipping to get it back to the scumbag. Anyway, yeah, it ticks me off too, but the world is full of scumbags, idiots, and ignorant people, so just be careful and hope for the best. Personally, I just avoid ebay anymore for buying.

You know, I really think they're the perfect solution for collectors with a large number of loose carts. I can see someone with a smaller collection wanting to keep them on a shelf, but that's just impractical for me, now anyway. I have 7 of these things filled with loose carts (egad, that's almost 700 carts!) and my Intellivision carts aren't even in drawers yet! And someone mentioned the holes on the front letting dust in. I thought about it, and no, that's really not the case, because once you put the carts in there, they're blocking the holes. So no more dust gets in than with any other drawer solution.