hbomb

Yeah, I learned a long time ago that you have to be very specific with some of these sellers when shipping boxed consoles or games. Many are not collectors and do not see the importance. I make sure that they understand that the box can be just as, if nor more, valuable than the game itself. Even then, you still get the occasional idiot that continues to deface what would be a perfect find. I can't complain though, as I found a 1977 Heavy Sixer in almost perfect box with all packing materials and accessories for $40 from Goodwill. And they did a great job at packing it...

I'm 39, and am thankful that I was able to experience the beginning of all of it. One regret that I do have is that I don't have all of the original gear that I had purchased. Now that I look back on it, I'm really not sure what happened to my 1977 Atari 2600 and 1982 Colecovision. I had to have sold them off but don't remember. Never had an Intellivision. I think that I had to make the decision to get one but not both. I do remember being jealous of some of the Intellivision games. I also was one of the first on the block to get a Commodore 64. Either way, great memories that get re-activated every time that I look at the top of my closet. Good to see that there are some younger players that appreciate the start of it all.

One question. When it comes to the Atari Age rarity guide, is the rating based on a boxed game or just the cartridge? Wouldn't the rarity rating go up for a game that's in a well preserved box versus just the cartridge by itself? If this is the case, then how accurate is the rarity guide at Atari Age, or should it just be used as a baseline for rarity?

Noodles with butter was a favorite in the double wide. You could wipe your hands on the paneling wall and never see it. Any left overs ended up in the Star Wars sheets on the single mattress bed. Washing everything down with a Chek Cola from Winn Dixie and brief spanktravision interludes with Thundarr the Barbarian. Wow..those were the days.

I looked at some of these reviews, and although I'm not opposed to retro reviews, it really doesn't seem like the reviewer has any historical experience with any of these games. The reviews are very bland, say almost the same thing, and don't really mention anything about the artwork or designers of the games themselves. In regard to gameplay, it was said a few times basically that the game sucked and not worth anything more than being a part of history. This may be true about the game play of that particular game, but personally, I think that every game had some kind of redeeming feature. Take Jawbreaker for example. I definitely preferred the pac man game play, but I thought that the artwork for many of Tigervision's games to be leaps and bounds over the typical Atari box. Wasn't it the packaging that drew us to a lot of these games in the first place?

I have to agree as well. Although I do like current sports and racing games on my PS3. The graphics are better these days when compared to Atari Realsports, but the game play is there as well. Could really care less about the fantasy or war games due to the factors stated above. As has been said, I also like the Guitar Hero game as well. It combines many elements including high scores each round for the amount of chords you hit correctly. Easily addictive.

I get tired of collecting from time to time. In that event I just close up my closet, where my collectibles reside, and focus on something else for a while. The feeling comes back to acquire more later down the road. Then the cycle starts all over again. If I did sell when I got those kind of feelings, I'm sure that I'd really regret it later down the road when nostalgia hits.

Lone heavy sixers will go for the $30-$50 range, but if you can find one in its original 'chesshead' box with all the trimmings, then you might get past $100 or so. The grand find is if you can find a heavy sixer in its original box, original packaging, and the Atari discs on the original spring loaded joysticks, then you are in business. I've seen those go for $125 to $200, maybe more depending on whose bidding. I have the latter...

You certainly are a collector by every definition of the word. Who has 100 of anything? I see the reasons as to why someone would only collect carts, however, I only collect games in their boxes. For the most part, I usually focus on games where I enjoy the artwork and box variations. I also like looking at the manuals and catalogs that come with the games. Hopefully, when I pass this mess on to my son, the boxed games will either give him a sense of joy to play and keep collecting, or perhaps they will bring a good dollar, as he's only 2. Either way, I'm having fun!

Does anyone find it weird that some of the rare games such as Motorodeo, Off the Wall, Ikari Warriors, etc., seem to be in unlimited supply on ebay. I think that you can find at least one of these games sealed in the box every day from Venezuela. Anyone have an idea why this is?

Catchy...very catchy...but...wtf?

I'm finding a lot of new sealed games that I get these days have been strangled to death by the shrinkwrap. There is a typical death squeeze that the shrinkwrap gives, where the lower back of the box is sucked in and feels terrible when holding the box. I've had to rescue a few boxes that had not completely been ruined yet by the death squeeze by removing the shrinkwrap. So the question is, when collecting, would you rather have a new, sealed, shrinkwrapped game where the box has been squished to death, or would you rather have a new, sealed, non-shrinkwrapped game where the box is perfect in terms of its integrity? What is more valuable to a collector? I'm thinking the latter. Any thoughts?

Are the Atari Age rarity ratings for only the cart or are they for cart and box? Also, does anyone know how often they are updated? Surely, these carts get destroyed or go missing everyday which increases their values.

I've seen people pay $50 for the Parker Brothers Frogger which is absolutely ridiculous. A game is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay, and I've seen some real doosies on Ebay. When someone does buy, its pretty good when you are on the selling end.

$10 sounds like a good deal. You can find wireless joysticks NIB on eBay quite frequently for $15-$25. They must have sold a ton of these things when they first came out as they are in high supply. I think that the actual Atari branded version is more rare. I haven't seen too many of these. I think they are good up to 20 feet which is great.

It still has quite a few days left in auction. I'd guess that it will land somewhere between $45 and $60 just because of the games.

When looking up the rarity rating of a game, does that include games with boxes? It would seem that the boxes would be much more rare than the carts, so how does that factor in to the overall rating? Or is it a seperate issue all together?

Well, I just pulled both discs off really easily, so it was a homemade job. The good news is that I'll be using these on top of my heavy joysticks and also now have a back up set of joysticks. Anyone have any ideas on the best way to glue these back on?

Its possible I suppose. I'm not sure why someone would do that really? One can come by the joysticks fairly easily, but not the discs. The discs are original, and it doesn't seem to be a hack job. I have two CX10's that I'm going to put these on top of to make them complete. I'll just use these joysticks as spares. Any ideas on how to remove the metal discs without damaging them?

I just bought two joysticks that have the Atari metal hexhead on top of the stick. However, these joysticks do not seem to be the spring loaded CX-10's. I've got a pair of those and these are much lighter, so they would have to be the CX40's. They also say "Top" on them as well. My question is: Did Atari place these Atari logo metal discs on both kinds of joysticks...the CX10's and CX40's? I was under the impression that the Atari discs are only found on the original 1977 CX10 joysticks. Am I wrong here? The Atari discs look brand new and factory fresh. I was thinking maybe someone glued these on, but one, why would they do that, and two, they look very original with no tampering. Any ideas?

The same guy bought this boxed heavy sixer for over a grand.... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=300085860416 What's up with this guy? I'll have to write him when I put my boxed system up!!

I've got one of these for sale if anyone is interested. This is the original 1977 heavy sixer joystick with Atari Metal Hex head on top. Well, it fell off, but its easy to put back on. The joystick works great and just about all of the paint is still on it, except around the top area. These are very rare and will boost the value of your collection!

Looked it up on AtariAge. Its a rarity of a 2.

Looks good to me. The guy has a great rating with ebay to boot. I don't think that it has the shrink on it, but definately sealed up. GO FOR IT...before its gone.

The red box certainly looks cool, along with the polished switches, but are not as rare as one would think. I see them all the time on Ebay, and I've seen them go for anywhere between $60 and $125 depending on the day. I've been tempted to pick one up myself but am running out of room with my present collection of stuff.