AtariAge Collectors Donation.

[Atari Master]

Every once in a while somone comes to the boards as a new collector trying to get started. I was thinking some of you could give away your doubles for free to new collectors. I remember that day when ol Moycon gave me some free carts. I was happy to have 12 carts in my collection... now I have almost 50...

 

So come on super collectors, give some...

[StanJr]

Yeah, but give to whom?

 

You know I'm all about the free giveaways. As a matter of fact, next week will feature a big time Halloween contest from yours truly. Keep yer eyes glued to the 2600 forum.

[Atari Master]

Anyone who asks... Give a Combat or somthing...

 

And you'll see me at that contest... IM me when it's ready...

[church]

I only have donkey kong jr.,pac man, astroids and missile command so I wouldn't mind a combat cart if someone has one to spare. Heck I wouldn't mind paying a bit for common carts especially for games that are considered classic and must haves. Ms. pacman is at the top of my list of to get games so that my girlfriend stops nagging at me that the screen on pacman never changes. I'm much more interested in getting carts for play value rather than the collecting of carts.

[broncoman]

well im still working on my list but i have some dupes who are the carts for ?

[Atari Master]

Anyone who asks... Like church. Can you spare a few to church? Come on.. Give him one or two...

[Snider-man]

You know, I really have a problem with this idea. Here's why:

 

The folks on AA are some of the most giving, generous folks in the collecting community. They are ALWAYS giving stuff away - or for postage only - to beginning collectors. There are frequent contests and giveaways run by THE MEMBERS. I've seen several occassions where someone is looking for a cart, and someone else sends him that cart for free - just for the asking.

 

However, other times, I've seen greedy little panhandlers surface. You know who you are. When there's a giveaway they missed, they'll e-mail or PM the "giver," asking if there's any other carts he can give to you, 'cause you missed out the first time and "it's not fair". They'll post incessantly to Marketplace with "send me carts" or "send me broken stuff" or "send me this-or-that." These people are not in it for the hobby or the comaraderie. They're in it for the free gimmees they can beg off.

 

Now, if someone posts that they're looking for a Pitfall II or a spare text-label Combat, I'm certain someone here will come through and help out that soul. At times, beginning collectors like the one you describe will surface and - yes - he'll have a few commons sent his way to get him started.

 

But to make this a regular event is just asking for a ton of Me-Monkeys who want nothing more than to capitalize on the giving-ness and generousity of the members here.

 

This may sound harsh, but I stand by it. I've seen too many posts recently of a "send me stuff because I'm new/can't find stuff/am poor/am working on an endtable(?), etc."

 

And, if you really feel that strongly, then I suggest you "take the point" yourself and begin dipping into your own collection to fill out the needs of those who ask. There may be others who follow once a demonstration of your OWN generousity has been proven.

 

After all, these generous "donators" are dipping into THEIR OWN COLLECTIONS. Can't you even do the same? After all, you compared it to "church." Well, give until it hurts, man!

[King Atari]

I agree 100% with Snider-Man, people will take advantage of all the cool people on the boards.

[StanJr]

The problem is, somebody like church will come along and just be honestly looking for some common games for fun, and somebody will go "Hey no problem, here ya go pal." And church is happy and gets his free stuff and THEN immediately three other posts will go up 'Give me something free too. Its not church's fault, but when others see the generosity they immediately try to capitalize on it. Its a domino effect.

 

This is why I generally stick to contests and helping out with specific requests. Generally the people who come right out and say "Man, does anybody have a Ms. Pac-man laying around, I really want one and can't find it" are sincere. Its the "please give my any free stuff you can" people you have to look out for.

 

But regardless, I still keep the spirit of giving alive. And church, I think I have an extra Ms. Pac-man around here somewhere, let me look into it and I'll get back to you.

[MegaManFan]

.. I'm always very specific. I say, "I can go to the thrift store and buy you two common carts for $1. I can buy you an envelope and mail them for $1." Two bucks? If you're going to collect Atari games, you should be prepared to spend two bucks any time, any place, anyway. If you don't have the two bucks to spare, why collect Atari at all? It's probably the most affordable system, at least to get started on, that's ever existed. Still if people live in an area where carts are hard to find, I'm happy to help by picking up a few commons and selling them at cost; however if I buy them and give them away for free that's less money in my pocket for my collection. Even free carts are never free anyway, when you factor the costs of finding storage for them.

[Turnspike]

Are Atari carts really that hard to find? Those of us who collect know of a few places to snag commons at any given time. I am all for giveaways. I have a bag full of commons I give to friends who show interest in collecting, but it really dosen't cost anything on my part to do this. Shelling out money from my own pocket to send someone these carts does cost my own money. So I say, "Give a person a fish and they eat for a day, Teach a person to fish and they will eat for a lifetime" (or something like that...)

It's really better to tell newbies where to find those commons, than to send the carts to them. Besides, half the fun of this hobby is hunting for games...right? And the greatest enjoyment is when you buy a stack of commons cheap, only to find out that one or two of the carts are actually RARE.

[church]

The problem is, somebody like church will come along and just be honestly looking for some common games for fun, and somebody will go "Hey no problem, here ya go pal."  And church is happy and gets his free stuff and THEN immediately three other posts will go up 'Give me something free too.  Its not church's fault, but when others see the generosity they immediately try to capitalize on it.  Its a domino effect.

 

This is why I generally stick to contests and helping out with specific requests.  Generally the people who come right out and say "Man, does anybody have a Ms. Pac-man laying around, I really want one and can't find it" are sincere.  Its the "please give my any free stuff you can" people you have to look out for.

 

But regardless, I still keep the spirit of giving alive.  And church, I think I have an extra Ms. Pac-man around here somewhere, let me look into it and I'll get back to you.

 

StanJr: I'd like to thank you for your time and effort in looking around for the cart for me. I really appreciate it.

 

I can honestly understand why people would be very wary about just giving games away from their collection. When I was a kid, about 8, I took my paper route money and bought myself a nintendo. I had an atari but wasn't using it much after getting the nes. Well my father asked me if he could give it to someone who didn't have a lot and he was sure they would have fun with it. I was kind of hesitant about giving it away since I did get it as a christmas gift and had spent a good amount of my own money on carts. Well gave in and gave it to the "needy" kid. They hooked it up and had fun with it when it brought it over. That made me feel better about giving it away. However when we visited the family a few months later they had gotten a nes and the atari was sitting in the box I had brought it over in. Boy was I mad. Maybe I should have asked for my atari back but I didn't. This is one of the few times I have ever felt like i had gotten burnt by being genreous.

 

Now that I'm older it's a lot easier to be more careful as to who to be generous to. Will I ever be burnt again for being generous? I'm sure of it but I'd rather make a few genuine people happy despite a few greedy people. I'm sure that for most people it's pretty easy to spot people who are just trying to take advantage of peoples generosity. Snider-man said it very well in his post above. The people who email you whining that it wasn't fair as to who you gave things to or posting over and over to send them stuff. Personally if someone emailed me and said "Give me stuff." I would just ignore.

 

Now it may sound like I'm trying to defend myself to some extent about asking for a few carts. I'm not, really. If I don't get a single cart from asking it's no loss. Though nothing ventured nothing gained so I don't mind asking. Now if I should get a cart or two I'll be thankful and pretty excited that I have something new to play. That said even if someone said to me that they would sell me some fun to play common carts for reasonably cheap rather than just giving them away I would take them up on the offer. Like I said in my post, I'm much more interested in getting carts that are "classics" for their replay value rather than getting carts for collectings sake.

[LinkoVitch]

church, you could look at that family getting a NES as being due to your generosity. If they had never experienced the fun to be had with a console they would have never got the NES. But you giving them your Atari gave them an insight, and allowed them to dip their feet into the console world, and then get a NES.

 

If you do buy a new console, chances are that you are going to play that like it's going out of fashion for a while, then you are more likley to start playing it in more moderation along with other consoles you may have, so once the newness had worn off they may have used the Atari again.

 

I do agree it would have been nice to say, "Thanks for the Atari it was great, we don't need it anymore now though, do you want it back?"

 

but some people just don't think like that, perhaps they thought you were throwing it away. Anyway, I would look at is as semi positive anyway.

 

RE: giving away common's... NO WAY! I have nearly finished my house extension using these amazing "Combat" bricks.. , send all you can to "LinkoVitch's house extension building materials, Warrington UK"

[Ze_ro]

Most of my doubles end up going to my friends. One of my friends is also a collector, so I usually sell my doubles to him for a buck or so (or trade, though he doesn't have as many games as I do).

 

I also recently set up an Atari in the IEEE student branch at my university. All the electrical engineers around there can appreciate it, and I've already brought up a box full of doubles.

 

Another friend of mine is really into ColecoVision, and I'm trying to convince her to get an Atari... if she does, I'll probably end up giving her whatever didn't make it through the above two donation routes.

 

I'm all for donating games to friends and all, but I'm afraid most of my games go to my real-life friends before I can start mailing them around.

 

... besides, the fun in collecting is in finding stuff yourself!

 

--Zero

[AtariDude]

Anyone have a spare Quadrun?

 

Just kidding by the way. I very much agree that running a contest is much better than having someone merely asking for free cartridges. There is a chance that someone could be sincere in their request as a new collector (we were all there once) and then you have those who are part of generation "give-me" who merely ask just to get free stuff.

 

I wonder if we had a Halloween type contest already? My birthday is coming up on Halloween so I thought we might have a contest with a Halloween theme to it assuming of course that it has not already been done.

[LinkoVitch]

AtariDude, if you do do a halloween contest don't make the questiion "Guess my birthday"

[AtariDude]

Most of my doubles end up going to my friends. One of my friends is also a collector, so I usually sell my doubles to him for a buck or so (or trade, though he doesn't have as many games as I do).

 

I also recently set up an Atari in the IEEE student branch at my university. All the electrical engineers around there can appreciate it, and I've already brought up a box full of doubles.

 

--Zero

 

What Atari system did you set up for them? Does someone keep the cartridges stored away or are they available for anyone to take (maybe even swipe )

[sdstuff64]

I made a post like this over the summer and got shot down by everybody. Oh well....

 

I am up for this idea!It is good to get people off to a good start.I could also use anything anybody has.

I have about 80,maybe 90 games and am always looknig for more.Too bad not too many people around here sell older games.Check my list to see if you have any commons I don't have,I will pay shipping too,just IM me.

[chromizone]

hey church i happen to have about 90 commons lying around my game room and i see your also in canada so shipping would be cheaper

 

im looking to sell but i might throw a few freebies in for a newbie i mean after all weve all been there and know what its like when your starting out any wayz let me know and ill get back to u asap

[Atari Master]

Hmm, these stupid "wanters" may be a problem. But I don't thibk Church is one of them. Mabe we could give to people that have a history on the boards. I don't like asking for free stuff so no worries.

 

And if I did have a few extras I would give them away. But things lately have been hectic. A few weeks ago I could buy as many games as I needed. Now I can't find anything. And the other problem is that I don't buy doubles. But f you guys put down a want list I can keep an eye out for you all.

[Happy_Dude]

And the other problem is that I don't buy doubles.

My god!!!!!

If it has a Fuji then it has my money.

 

My Breakout carts almost rival my combat carts.

 

And Atari Master do you collect lable variations

[StanJr]

I wonder if we had a Halloween type contest already? My birthday is coming up on Halloween so I thought we might have a contest with a Halloween theme to it assuming of course that it has not already been done.

 

Um, gee AtariDude, it seems that in my first post to this thread I just happen to mention something about a contest next week....hmmmm

[sdstuff64]

I wonder if we had a Halloween type contest already? My birthday is coming up on Halloween so I thought we might have a contest with a Halloween theme to it assuming of course that it has not already been done.

 

Um, gee AtariDude, it seems that in my first post to this thread I just happen to mention something about a contest next week....hmmmm

 

 

 

 

Also I am not begging for carts here.I am just saying if anyone has some commons that are cheap,I might want them.And church I might have some stuff for you,I'll PM you later.But I just gave of bunch of stuff to a friend so I'll have to see about this...

[Atari Master]

And the other problem is that I don't buy doubles.

My god!!!!!

If it has a Fuji then it has my money.

 

My Breakout carts almost rival my combat carts.

 

And Atari Master do you collect lable variations

 

Yes, but I consider them different from one another. If I have a game I already have like two NORMAL Asteroids then sure, I'll dis it to somone.

[Inky]

You know what awould be neat, but probably impractical, is a 'Common Cart Bank' where newbies and newcomers could get a Pac-Man, Space Invaders, ET, Asteroids and Berzerk for free. We could pool together a donation of spare common carts and $1.00 to cover shipping for the carts to the newbies.

 

We could then send it for free to any newbies to the hobby that request it...

 

What do ya think?