Atari Corp. Re-Releases

[Red 5]

Having finally picked up a silver label 'asteroids' and a picture label 'game of concentration' I realized

how naive I was about the real rarity of these games.

 

I believe the picture label of Blackjack and Flag Capture (which I already realize may be impossible to get...) are the only ones I am missing, but does anyone have a complete list?

 

And can someone tell me just how rare these really are?

 

Word.

Edited January 2, 2008 by therealred5

[crunchysuperman]

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=72550

[+Omegamatrix]

Black Jack is tough to get, but Flag Capture is not to bad. You'll get one soon. Did you find a grey Hangman for yourself yet?

[Red 5]

Black Jack is tough to get, but Flag Capture is not to bad. You'll get one soon. Did you find a grey Hangman for yourself yet?

 

Everytime I think I see a light at the end of the tunnel, I find a whole new batch of crap I don't have.

 

That thread (that I missed for two years!) is insane.

 

What are the top 5 (or 10) hardest to find (if anyone knows) re-releases?

 

Black Jack and Flag Capture top the list?

Is my white label Sky Diver super sexy now?

 

All those ugly grey boxes I've ignored and passed up on!

 

(i'm losing it)

[+Omegamatrix]

It depends on what you are collecting. I really only go for major label variations so if something is '85, '86, '87 controller omitted, corrected, etc... I don't pay much mind. Crunchy can give you a better idea as he is really into the label variations and probably has them all. Of the major label variations I'd say pic label Black Jack and grey label Hangman are tough, but Flag Capture (even though you don't have it yet) is one of the easiest. I like the '86 Skydiver too. I have one as well and I like the white lettering. There's some Atari Corps that don't come in grey boxes too. If Atari Corps was good at one thing it was being inconsistent. Anyhow label variations are fun.

 

 

I think a rare cart is a picture label '78 Flag Capture. Until it was found it was thought that Atari Corps was the first release of the picture verison. The cart is still a bit of a mystery.

[Red 5]

I am confused then.

I must have the 86 Flag Capture because I have every picture label.

There is no way I would be lucky enough to own the rarer one. (Especially that rare.)

 

I only collect major label variations myself.

The 'Game of Concentration' pic label was the last Atari black pic. label I needed.

 

But then I see the white labels (like skydiver) and some others, and I get the 'I WANT THAT!' bug.

 

I swear it's never ending.

(but I think that might be a good thing.)

 

Such a fun hobby. After years, there are still little dark corners that I haven't looked in that offer a world of more stuff when you dare

take a peak.

 

(I still only peak and then hide my eyes and pretend I didn't notice anything when I look at Brazilian and PAL stuff.)

[Christophero Sly]

And can someone tell me just how rare these really are?

With the possible exception of Blackjack, I wouldn't classify any of the Atari, Corp. labels as "rare". I randomly sampled about 8 weeks worth of ebay auctions in the fall of 2006 through early 2007 and tracked every black label Atari, Corp. variant that I could spot (NTSC). I then extrapolated this information to get an idea of how many times a particular title might be expected to appear on ebay in an average year. Obviously, I wasn't able to view every Atari auction in those 8 weeks, but I think I was able to track at least 80% of the auctions in that period. However, in only about 1/4 of the auctions I reviewed was the auction photo of sufficient quality to allow me to determine whether a given label was an Atari, Corp. or an Atari, Inc. variant. Additionally, there are some titles where the Atari, Corp. variant is very hard to distinguish from it's Atari, Inc. counterpart because they are almost identical. For example, Missile Command. Consequently, I expected to see fewer of these variants in my samples, and that seems to have been the case. Another confounding factor was the patchy nature of the appearance of these variants. For example, I might not see any representative of a given title for 6 weeks and then suddenly 4 would appear in one week.

 

Given the extent of the confounding factors I identified above, I'm not comfortable make any sweeping hypothesis about the rarity of a particular Atari, Corp. black label variant. However, I think my results were robust enough to preclude the general notion that these variants are particularly "rare". In fact, many of them appear to be quite common.

 

Although I'm not willing to say that the Atari, Corp. variants are rare, I will, however, say that the Atari, Corp. variants do take time and patience to acquire and this does contribute, substantially, to the perception that these variants are rare.

 

The titles that appeared in my samples most often were Air-Sea Battle, Basketball, Canyon Bomber, Circus Atari, Homerun, Pele's Soccer, Pac-Man, Sky Diver, Super Breakout and Video Checkers.

 

Among the titles that appeared least often were Blackjack, Casino, Combat, Demons to Diamonds, Hangman, Maze Craze, Outlaw, Star Raiders, Surround and Warlords.

Edited January 2, 2008 by Christophero Sly

[Red 5]

And can someone tell me just how rare these really are?

With the possible exception of Blackjack...

 

Wow. That's impressive work right there.

 

Concentration and Silver Asteroids must be an exception to that rule though?

I have been actively searching for those title for a while now and have just got both of them.

 

I have seen a couple along the way but thought I could get them for cheaper (believing what the rarity guide told me).

When I finally gave in to the higher prices, they still were not easy to find by any means.

Edited January 2, 2008 by therealred5

[Christophero Sly]

Wow. That's impressive work right there.

Thanks.

 

Concentration and Silver Asteroids must be an exception to that rule though?

I have been actively searching for those title for a while now and have just got both of them.

I only tracked the black label variants, so Asteroids wasn't something I looked at because its Atari, Corp. form is a gray label. However, speaking as a collector, anecdotally, Asteroids is indeed a difficult gray label to track down. In fact, it and Swordquest: Earthworld are really the only gray labels that are difficult to track down. I still don't have it. Most of the rest of the gray labels I would consider dead common. Some appear to be more common than their Atari, Inc. counterparts even.

 

Concentration was somewhere in the middle of my sampling. If I had to rank the picture label exclusive Atari, Corp. titles, I'd rank them in this order from hardest to find to easiest.

 

Blackjack

Fun With Numbers

Concentration

Flag Capture

Edited January 2, 2008 by Christophero Sly

[crunchysuperman]

Crunchy can give you a better idea as he is really into the label variations and probably has them all.

 

I wish!

 

The biggest problem is just knowing whether or not a particular re-release label even exists. We'd speculated for a while that many titles were indeed re-released, but using NOS Atari Inc. labels. This was confirmed when we found later open-style Combat cartridges with old labels. Some, like Warlords & Star Raiders take a really keen eye to find, as they're virtually identical to the Atari Inc. labels.

 

A few I'm still hunting:

 

3-D Tic Tac Toe '86 picture (controller text tape)

Bowling '86 picture (controller text omitted)

Indy 500 picture '86 (controller text tape)

Maze Craze picture (any re-release)

Outlaw picture (any re-release)

 

. . .and, of course anything I don't already have that I didn't know existed.

[+Omegamatrix]

Does anyone own the Black Jack box? I'm curious as to whether it's grey or normal.

[Christophero Sly]

It's gray, in the same style as this Canyon Bomber box.

 

http://www.atarimania.com/zoom_frame.php?T...amp;NUM_IMAGE=1

Edited January 2, 2008 by Christophero Sly