mpowr

I'm imagine I might generate some flames from this post, but as a person who is fairly serious about their Atari 2600 collection I have to observe: On the Internet in general, I see a particular emphasis on Atari Age's Rarity Guide. I have accolade for the people who have created this guide. It is very interesting, and I have fun comparing titles in my collection with the Rarity Guide. I have noted however, especially when searching Ebay, that the Rarity Guide sometimes seems to be the "Be All, End All" reference point. Ebay sellers often don't even mention Atari Age when they list a particular item's "rarity" rating. This troubles me. I could be wrong, but the Atari Age Rarity Guide seems to rely on the number of carts manufactured per title. And that is it. The guide does incorporate label variety into its system, so I give credit where credit is due. But what about condition, boxed or not boxed, correct manual/catalog included, and so on? Let me give an example of how I think of my collection: One of the items I usually pull out and show interested individuals is my Combat 01 gate-fold package. I have the cart, box, manual, and catalog. It almost always gets a "wow" from the person I show it to. But if I compare it with the Atari Age Rarity Guide, it is hardly valuable. It appears to me that a scratched, beat-up Waterworld cart with a peeling label and no box or manual is worth ten times the value of a Combat 01 gate-fold with correct box, manual, and catalog in pristine condition. How is this possible? Am I really such a naive collector? It seems to me that a beat-up, cart-only Waterworld and a pristine Combat 01 with box/manual/catalog are both difficult to find. Am I wrong? Do thousands of 2600 collectors have gate-fold packages in perfect original condition while only 50 or 60 of them have Waterworld as a cart only? Am I alone in thinking that a well-preserved Street Racer 12 gate-fold with the original box, manual, and catalog all placed in the correct order in the box is a more valuable find than a cart-only Waterworld? I guess I don't have to tell you which one I would buy first. Ok, flame me. I have my Hazmat suit on.

see.. we call that squeezing mr. Lincoln 'till he screams. for our International friends, this is a refrence to Abraham lincoln being on the U.S penny the smallest coin in the denomination.. "a penny pincher" is someone who's very cheap and seeks to "squeeze" every last cent out of something. hence.. a bloated penny pincher would be as such refrenced in the previous epthit 878544[/snapback] BeerGnome, I would add to your reply by saying that if Atari memorabilia rises in value enough in years to come, then a practice such as the one I mentioned may become real. Collectors in the future may need to have a much more critical eye than we do now. It all depends on the market. If there was a demand for original price tags, forgeries would then be expected. I find this topic intesting because I have actually received a couple of re-wrapped games. It indicates to me that bigger and better versions of this "squeezing" may possibly become a major consideration of serious collectors in the future.

I once borrowed the cartridge with no instructions (before the days of the net). I thought the graphics were neat, but couldn't really figure out what the "game" was supposed to be. So far as I could tell, one person selected someplace to hide and the other player had to search arbitrarily until he tried the place the first person chose, with no particular clues to go by. Was I missing anything? 877990[/snapback] You were not missing anything. The only advice the game manual offers is: "With practice, you will be able to find and remember all of the hiding places, and be able to find your opponent in less time than he takes to find you when it is your turn to hide." I think that the manual should be updated to include: *NOTE* If you make your friends sit through this game they will hide from you in real life too!

How do you know whether a boxed game has been rewrapped? Care to share the secret so we won't be fooled ? 877937[/snapback] Not much of a secret in my case. The first time I realized it, was because I wanted to inspect the original shipping configuration of Star Master. I sliced the shrink-wrap and there was the well-worn game and manual. Perfectly used. So I noted that the shrink wrap was thinner than others I had which were still unopened. It remined me of meat wrapper style from a supermarket, though more carefully done. It also lacked an original retail price tag, which many of my shrink-wrapped do have. I also noted the lack of a department-store hang tab, which most others do seem to have. Finally, the wrap itself fit just a bit looser than the others. If I saw a game first-hand before buying it, I think I could tell by these signs. But since I usually buy them online, there's no real way to tell till it shows up on my doorstep. It seems to me that shrink-wrapped games don't get *that* much more money, so I think it is unlikely someone would go to the trouble to forge a retail price tag from a now-extinct department chain and then "age" it 20+ years. Not sure if any of this is useful to anyone, but it is my thought process on the matter.

I have one centerpiece, a heavy sixer s/n 37132M, and a later non-Sunnyvale sixer. The Sunnyvale is the one I use for all game playing. I think it's very cool that the Sunnyvale can play all of the games considering the span of years that the games were produced. Some of the later games do fit a bit tight, though.

In my collection, I've always tried to keep the correct catalog with the game/box it shipped with. It helps me keep track of when the particular product was shipped. I also try to preserve the order of catalog/manual placement in the box. Imagic games, for example, shipped with the slightly smaller catalog on top of the manual. With my collection, I've tried to preserve this. These days, trying to place the correct catalog with a newly found boxed game/manual can be a daunting task. Finding still shrink-wrapped games is the only benchmark I know of. I've been burned a couple of times with re-wrapped games. Scoundrels!

Cosmic Ark In my opinion the greatest Atari 2600 game of all time. After all these years (I got it when it first came out), it's still the greatest stress-reliever video game ever. Totally immersive.

I've been playing/collecting Atari 2600 games for 25 years. Only one title almost made me lose faith: Sneak'n Peek This game is deplorable.