gamerMac

Elementary Electronics November-December 1977 Issue. "At the time this article is being prepared three cartridges are available: Space War, Fun with Numbers, and TV Schoolhouse."

Bought a giant estate sale lot of magazines from 1950's to 1980's for all types of electronics. Tons of vintage video game advertisements. These sale ads from Radio Shack were found among them and I wasn't sure if they would help with the RCA timeline or not. One is for Oct. 1978 and the other is Christmas 1978. "Realistic game sounds, too" Hahahaha

School_girl...didn't win a single auction The sales should be a really good basis for a S2 price guide checklist, some went under what I thought they would and some over. I am also going to be auctioning off a new Fairchild Channel F and a new Bally Astrocade. Both have a couple of new games too. Hope everyone enjoyed the show.

I owe you the thanks. Thank you for giving it a new good home. Makes me feel like I just gave away one of my pets. Haha

I thought it was pretty cool too. It's unfortunate that he is downsizing his collection, it's such a beautiful one.

Over the years, I have only ever seen one brand new game other than the 4 that I have up for sale right now and they have almost no interest so far. I have seen multiple GF/MB's, SW/T's, and Biorhythm games over the years as well as 2 Bingo games and 3 Demo carts. Kinda funny I guess. The one of kind flyer has shown just a small amount of interest. I got my multicart sold and shipped off to an A.A. member. It'll have a good new home.

I don't need to mark up the price, but I really don't remember what 'cost' was. $40 and shipping there and back and a spare boxed cart. The game was also bought with love, so I intend on getting it to another that will feel the same way. Was removed from ebay. Shortly after I got a pm on here and made the sale for Friday. Even though, right after I removed it from ebay, school_girl...offered $500. You're welcome.

Yes, from Dewitt, Arkansas.

No one showed interest on here after my post. So, will blocking schoolgirlinashortdress on ebay suffice? If anyone is interested in the Multicart, please pm me.

My wife informed me yesterday that she is pregnant with our first child. Neither of us have ever had a kid and we are going to need everything. So I am going to sell off whats left of my S2 collection and that includes my Demo Cart. I am going to try to get it all broken down and listed this Sunday. If I don't make that deadline, then I'll keep everyone updated. I will be auctioning everything starting at $0.99, with no BIN's and no offers. I want everyone to have a chance to purchase the few rare S2 items I have. Also, I remember when the Multicarts were made and we were asked to not sell them on ebay. I don't want to upset anyone, so please contact me on how to go about getting it where it needs to go or if I need to auction it off as well.

I went back through the thread and did some reading. I am guessing fauxscot or his boss maybe was your source of the shrink wrapped games discussion. I was hoping you might ask them directly about the games without tape on them. Maybe some of the difficulties of dealing with them or why they didn't use any tape? Were the retailers suppose to shrink wrap them when they received them? How was a customer suppose to know the game was brand new if it was already open? Now I kinda want to open the ones I have haha That information also tells me that the Swannanoa factory guys are NOT the ones that slit the games down the center with a razor. Had to have been whomever they sent the games to after they were constructed.

Look at Baseball, only game to not have RCA Studio II logo on cartridge. And Fun With Numbers has TV Arcade II on the box and manual but says TV Arcade series on all cartridges.

That makes sense as to why I have seen a yellowish Space Wars game that didn't appear to be faded. But it also doesn't make sense for the games without tape on them. Think about being the employee packaging the boxes to be shipped out and constantly having a bottom portion of the box drop on the floor and the manual fall out and land where ever it does. And then shipping games that could fall apart just as soon as they were taken out of the box. I am not calling anyone a liar, just seems like a very unpleasant way of doing business on RCA's part. Could also explain why so many manuals from games are missing:) Is it possible the guys you spoke with were not employed the entire run of the system and games? Or possible that their memories of 20 or 30 plus years(I am not sure when you spoke with them) ago might not be correct? If not shrink wrapped, how were the games without tape on them transferred from place to place?

Sorry, nothing new, just the variant red RCA logo Blackjack game. One is black RCA and one is red RCA. I apologize for the confusion. I am in Oklahoma. Chicago is a bit of a drive:)

Now I understand the difference. Thank you for explaining that to me. Although both appear to have sticker paper with graphics wrapped over them. The copies of Biorhythm that I have are 2nd style. You probably already knew this from me posting the pics previously, but my demo cart is 1st style. The three games with razor cuts are both styles. The copy of Gunfighter/msb is 2nd style, the other two, BJ black label and Space War are 1st style. My shrink wrapped sealed games are all 1st style. The copies are School House I, Baseball and Space War. My sealed but not shrink wrapped game is Blackjack red label and it is 2nd style.

That is what I believe also. That the cuts came from the retailers or warehouse workers. I was mostly curious because I have 4 brand new games. 3 shrink wrapped and 1 not. I was trying to determine if the game not shrink wrapped but still sealed was ever shrink wrapped at all. And I do not believe it was because it has the skinny tape on bottom and the only razor cut games I've seen recently had tape as well. I didn't put together my hypothesis until after I had sold off some of the others I had seen with the razor cuts. The three games I have that are shrink wrapped have no tape at all. I also remember someone telling 8_is_enough, when he was selling his Bingo game, that his School House I that was sealed might have been sealed after the fact. I believe that was the 2nd time I had heard that too. I am going to have to keep an eye open for any razor cut games without tape. If I see one, then I'll come up with a new assumption.

So the boxes without tape are the early style boxes and were shrink wrapped? The 2nd style boxes had thick or thin tape and were never shrink wrapped? I believe this to be correct because I only have three razor slit boxes that I haven't sold off; A Gunfighter(skinny tape), A Space War(skinny tape), and A black label Blackjack(thick tape).

Correction: the razor marks are on bottom sometimes also. Some pics to show what I am talking about.

Did RCA S2 games come sealed with shrink wrap when brand new? I ask this question for multiple reasons... I have now seen a razor mark down the middle of the box on at least 6 different S2 games. Each game had the razor cut mark in the exact same spot. Games were purchased from different states and different sellers across the country. So I am guessing that they came that way brand new. Either cut by RCA warehouse workers or dealers. If they did originally have a shrink wrap on them, I'd think the razor cuts would have helped to remove it. But I have also seen S2 bottom game boxes with skinny tape, thick tape, and no tape. So, if some games have no tape on the boxes, then how did they stay together without shrink wrap? Has anyone else seen the razor cuts on the box facings, right down the middle, towards the top, about an inch or so long?

Ebay sale on July 29. So far we know the switch happened between 29324 and before 52464

I asked the seller (8_is_enuff) for the serial #, it is #29324. And it does match console #. My earliest box serial #81278, it has the newer art work.(TV facing foward) If anyone has box serial #'s between these two, post them and which art work they have and we can get a good idea of when the box art switch was made.

Bingo Cart, Demo Cart, and Sealed School House II and more. WOW! https://www.ebay.com/itm/RCA-Studio-II-Video-Game-Collection/113076563521?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

Made a small mistake on the manuals... Console #119841 didn't have a manual with it. The manual came with console #177109. So, in theory, consoles from #81278 to #177109 should all have the same manual with the games listed on the back.

I have a RCA Studio II console that powers up correctly and the screen looks good as well. Clear button works and the console beeps when powered on. The issue is that the numerical pad A is not responding. I have plugged the numerical pad into a different console and the pad worked just fine. Anyone know the cause or how to fix this issue?