Is the Venezuala source bigger than the O'Shea's source?

[Serious]

 

Could you post or PM the various sellers? The only seller that was posted in this thread seems to be only selling 2600 joysticks at the moment. I'm curious about the wrestling game; I know I stayed away from it back when it was in the store due to the atrocious cover art and the fact that Absolute and Froggo both had such bad reputations. I expected more from Absolute with its pedigree back then...

These came from liwer2006. He's the best one I have dealt with.

 

[Andre81]

So is the Venezuelan warehouse drying up or have the seller just agreed to make a pause so the prices are going up again?

 

eightiesvault stopped selling in 11/2012

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=eightiesvault&ftab=AllFeedback

 

miferpa01 also stopped selling in 11/2012

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=miferpa01&ftab=AllFeedback

 

A new seller popped up on eBay recently but has disappeared again.

 

liwer2006 is still selling games but at a slow pace and the quantity and quality of what the lists is going down

 

edintv first said to me in 2012 that the warehouse is still full and not much later the warehouse is empty. Not sure if this was true or just a trick.

 

So is the warehouse empty now or are they just waiting for better prices again?

[grownup]

1. Thanks for posting a video, Serious.
2. I had bought one each of every O'Shea game in the 90s. I still have the 7800 titles sealed. I was wondering why they were sold out lately, and Im glad I found this thread. Too bad he didnt sell them to someone in the community.
3. I have a copy of Avalon Hill Space Shuttle, maybe I should sell it before someone in Venezuela finds a big stack!
4. I find it interesting that Activision was distributing Absolute entertainment's games, even when a bunch of the people quit. I guess they left on good terms. I was just reading up on Absolute entertainment the other day.

5. One of these sellers from Veneuela was selling the Spectravideo Compuvison. I was tempted to buy it. Does anyone know if Spectravision computer cassette software runs on it? I have a bunch of those tapes and would like to be able to use them for once, and on the Atari would be a great way to do it

[Devas]

Really?! I live in Maracaibo and I haven't seen Atari stuff here for a while. I need to find new contacts: most of the retro games I've found these days are SNES or N64 sports titles. In Mercado Libre, there are some Atari 2600's and even Atari 5200's, but I don't trust the sellers. I didn't even know the 7800 was released in Venezuela.

Edited January 19, 2014 by Devas

[ianoid]

Yeah, I don't know the logistics, but much of what has been said about musicland makes sense.

 

Realize also that everything need not have a price sticker to be from this source. It's possible that a distribution center ordered games that never made it to shelves as popularity decreased or as store needs changed. For example, the late release red labels could have gotten lost in the mix. It's easy to conceptualize in the context of Gamestop, which is wildly reactive to controlling store stock space, but probably more tightly managed than anything in the 70s, 80s or 90s. They dump stock madly when they need space. I can only imagine how much software went out of style and then ended up back in distribution or never made it out of distribution warehouses.

 

And I dealt with a Venezuelan seller early on who wanted me to take on a huge amount of stock to distribute for him. He intimated that the stock was virtually limitless. That being said, I doubt it is, but that there is probably a good deal of stock out there.

 

Imagine also that this software is probably an economy unto itself, with wholesalers selling to multiple layers of sellers, each raising the price, eventually resulting in hungrier sellers with more to lose.

 

I find the sellers obnoxious for being so secretive, but I'm sure we could find Venezuelan/South American collector forums in Spanish discussing what is happening without a great deal of effort.

 

Spending a lot on released stuff is always a risk because dead stock surplus is constantly being unveiled, reducing the value of crazy rarities way below peak. Still, we do it.

[Lynxpro]

Liwer currently has a bunch of A8 titles for sale... $4.99 with the boxes in good condition.

[Andre81]

Liwer currently has a bunch of A8 titles for sale... $4.99 with the boxes in good condition.

All stuff he sold a ton of sealed copies before. Not sure if this is a tactic or if they just ran out of new supply.

 

[+save2600]

I remember seeing red and silver box Atari, Absolute, Activision and Imagic games being sold at Musicland, Sam Goody, Suncoast Video, Kay*Bee, Toys R Us and Child World well into the early to mid 90's in Chicagoland. They were probably at Venture and Zayre as well.

[Special Teams]

Not sure if this is a tactic or if they just ran out of new supply.

He is a member here, you could PM him and ask about his supply.

[Andre81]

Not all of that stuff came from Musicland. A lot of the games (including most of the stuff from Atari, Mattel, and Avalon Hill) are pulled straight from factory cartons and must've come directly from the manufacturers. Musicland was long out of the video game business by the time the red box Atari releases came out in the late 80s.

 

You're right. The joysticks in Venezuela actually have Kmart price tags!

 

a) All early home computer games have price tags from Musicland.

 

b) Not a single Avalon Hill game has a Musicland price tag, so these must have been from a different source.

 

c) There are no pre-crash Atari 2600 games. There are no Atari Inc. games (1977-1984), except Battlezone and Jouse, were Atari Corp. inherited a huge stock. All Activision games are also post-crash re-releases. All Atari 2600 games are uncirculated.

 

d) I highly doubt Musicland ever distributed/sold the Taiwan Atari 2600 / Colecovision pirate games! Any US store would have been sued if they just touched those games by Atari and Activision.

 

e) There are pre-crash Mattel Inc. Intellivision games, but no early/original releases. All the Mattel Inc. as well as Intellivision Inc. stock is uncirculated.

[Andre81]

He is a member here, you could PM him and ask about his supply.

 

And of course Mr. "This Cosmic Commuter is from my private collection and you'll never see one again" will tell us the truth...

[Andre81]

MORE PROOF!

 

Foreign price tags.

 

Centipede even has a price tag from Musicland and a R$ ??? (Brazilian Real) or Venezuelan Bolivar price tag!

Edited January 19, 2014 by Andre81

[Andre81]

Did anyone here get a copy with such a price sticker?

 

I looks like the Musicland stock actually went into retail in South America before it was burried in the warehouse.

 

[high voltage]

1. Thanks for posting a video, Serious.

2. I had bought one each of every O'Shea game in the 90s. I still have the 7800 titles sealed. I was wondering why they were sold out lately, and Im glad I found this thread. Too bad he didnt sell them to someone in the community.

3. I have a copy of Avalon Hill Space Shuttle, maybe I should sell it before someone in Venezuela finds a big stack!

4. I find it interesting that Activision was distributing Absolute entertainment's games, even when a bunch of the people quit. I guess they left on good terms. I was just reading up on Absolute entertainment the other day.

5. One of these sellers from Veneuela was selling the Spectravideo Compuvison. I was tempted to buy it. Does anyone know if Spectravision computer cassette software runs on it? I have a bunch of those tapes and would like to be able to use them for once, and on the Atari would be a great way to do it

5: No, Spectravisions computer software doesn't run on the CompuMate.

There's only two CompuMate tapes for the VCS, Picturemate and Songmate.

[Andre81]

Ok, let's look at the historical exchange rates of the Venezualan bolivar and US Dollar. Venezuela had a currency reform in 2008.

 

("The government announced on 7 March 2007 that the bolívar would be revalued at a ratio of 1 to 1000 on 1 January 2008 and renamed the bolívar fuerte")

 

Here you can see the exchange rate since 2008: http://www.xe.com/de/currencycharts/?from=VEF&to=USD&view=10Y

 

The price on Centipede says BS 395.00. If the price tag would be from 2008 or later (new currency) that would translate to between USD 80 and USD 160.

 

So fact #1) The price on the tag is the old currency (VEB) before 2008

 

Now let's have a look at historical exchange rates. Venezuela always had a huge inflation.

 

0000 - 1983: BS 1 = USD 0.200 *** 395 * 0.200 = USD 79 for Centipede, doesn't make sense

1984 - 1986: BS 1 = USD 0.150 *** 395 * 0.150 = USD 60 for Centipede, doesn't make sense

1987 - 1988: BS 1 = USD 0.060 *** 395 * 0.060 = USD 24 for Centipede

1989 - 1989: BS 1 = USD 0.030 *** 395 * 0.030 = USD 12 for Centipede

1990 - 1990: BS 1 = USD 0.020 *** 395 * 0.020 = USD 8.00 for Centipede

1991 - 1992: BS 1 = USD 0.015 *** 395 * 0.015 = USD 6.00 for Centipede

1993 - 1993: BS 1 = USD 0.010 *** 395 * 0.010 = USD 4.00 for Centipede

1994 - 1995: BS 1 = USD 0.006 *** 395 * 0.006 = USD 2.40 for Centipede

1996 - 1996: BS 1 = USD 0.002 *** 395 * 0.002 = USD 0.80 for Centipede

 

It's also interesting to see that the prices are 145, 295 and 395. My guess therefore is that the games were sold over several years and adjusted to inflation.

 

0000 - 1983: BS 1 = USD 0.200 *** 145 * 0.200 = USD 29 for Lode Runner

1984 - 1986: BS 1 = USD 0.150 *** 145 * 0.150 = USD 22 for Lode Runner

1987 - 1988: BS 1 = USD 0.060 *** 145 * 0.060 = USD 8.70 for Lode Runner

1989 - 1989: BS 1 = USD 0.030 *** 145 * 0.030 = USD 4.35 for Lode Runner

1990 - 1990: BS 1 = USD 0.020 *** 145 * 0.020 = USD 2.90 for Lode Runner

 

Maybe Devas can tell us when the games were likely sold in Venezuela for such a price.

 

Fact #2) The games were sold in a Venezuelan retail store, more likely a chain.

Each game has a part number on top of the price tag. No one on a flea market does this nor someone who just unloads several trucks full of games in a warehouse.

 

So it is much more likely that the Musicland stock was sold to a Venezuelan store and then together with their own stock unloaded in a warehouse.

Edited January 20, 2014 by Andre81

[Andre81]

Some more stuff from the warehouse:

 

a) Sam Goody

b) Kmart

c) Atari / Intelligent Game de Venezuela

d) IVA = Impuesto al valor agregado (VAT)

e) All Famicom and Turbografix items are from "Nintendo CA de Venezuela"

f) Spanish MPT-03

 

 

So the story that everything in the warehouse is from Musicland is not true.

 

[Andre81]

Puzzle solved!

 

The Musicland stock was sold by Atari Mundial, Caracas.

 

And the Musicland stock was sold before Ikari Warriors was even manufactured (10/1990).

 

The other stuff in the warehouse is from Nintendo, Caracas.

 

Coincidentally the sellers are also in Caracas.

 

So the story that someone bought everything from Musicland and put it into the warehouse is just not true. And with the way things are going on in Venezuela I wouldn't even wonder if our fellow eBay sellers meant something else when they said they found a warehouse.

 

Edited January 20, 2014 by Andre81

[Andre81]

In July 2000, one copyright company finally obtained resolution to a civil copyright infringement case which was originally filed in July 1995.4 The Superior Civil and Mercantile Court of Caracas issued a 46-page decision in favor of Nintendo of America (NOA) against Atari Mundial, a retail outlet store, and a number of its retailers, for distributing counterfeit hardware and software. While the initial court decisions was in Nintendos favor, numerous appeals were filed by Atari Mundial. As a result of this decision, the court upheld Nintendos copyrights in a long list of game titles, ordered the seizure and destruction of infringing games, and issued an injunction against all the defendants on the manufacture or sale of the identified games

 

Nintendo also prevailed in its effort to have additional judicial inspections held, proving that Atari Mundial continue to distribute counterfeit
Nintendo video game products. On February 14, 1997, the Court seized over 2,500 counterfeit Nintendo hardware andsoftware products.

Edited January 20, 2014 by Andre81

[Andre81]

Here is more: http://www.tsj.gov.ve/decisiones/scc/Abril/RH-0016-050401-00993.htm

 

NINTENDO DE VENEZUELA C.A.

ATARI MUNDIAL C.A.

INTELLIGENT GAMES DE VENEZUELA

 

All counterfeit crap seized by the court!

 

In addition, the judge ordered the destruction of each one of the seized goods

 

Coincidentally the eBay sellers popped up right after the seizure!

[jaybird3rd]

This seems to apply only to Nintendo-related merchandise. I haven't bought any of that from the Venezuelan sellers, so I can't speak to its authenticity, but I'm about 100% certain that the Atari and Intellivision merchandise that I've purchased from Venezuela is genuine. I've opened hundreds of sealed Atari 2600 and 7800 master packs (mostly from the O'Shea lot), and the Venezuelan product has been perfectly consistent with the genuine Atari merchandise that I've studied in detail, both inside and out.

[Andre81]

This seems to apply to Nintendo-related merchandise. I haven't bought any of that from the Venezuelan sellers, so I can't speak to its authenticity, but I'm about 100% certain that the Atari and Intellivision merchandise that I've purchased from Venezuela is genuine. I've opened hundreds of sealed Atari 2600 and 7800 master packs (mostly from the O'Shea lot), and the Venezuelan product has been perfectly consistent with the genuine Atari merchandise that I've studied in detail, both inside and out.

 

Yes, the Atari and Intellivision games seem to be genuine and just seized together with the other stuff.

 

The games were seized from:

 

NINTENDO DE VENEZUELA C.A.

ATARI MUNDIAL C.A.

INTELLIGENT GAMES DE VENEZUELA

 

And in the "warehouse" is the following stuff:

 

- Old Musicland stock with Atari Mundial price tags

- Counterfeit Nintendo games with Atari Mundial price tags

- Counterfeit games with Nintendo CA price tags

- And last but not least "Intelligent Games" (Intellivision) games

 

The story that someone in Venezuela bought up liquidation stock from the USA is a big lie!

They are selling exactly what has been seized and they started selling just after the seizure.

[jaybird3rd]

That would seem to explain a great deal. If all of the seized merchandise was ordered destroyed by the court, however, then I'm glad that at least some of the genuine games ended up in collectors' hands first, however it happened. I just didn't want the collectors who bought the Atari and Intellivison games to jump to the conclusion that those were counterfeit also, because that doesn't appear to be the case.

 

Some of the Nintendo stuff did look questionable to me—I noticed that one seller's "genuine" NES controllers had yellow action buttons, for example—so I avoided those along with the obvious bootlegs (the "Taiwan Cooper" carts, etc). I limited myself mostly to first-party Atari and Mattel product, and only after buying a few samples for inspection. My reasoning was that nobody would have bothered to create such convincing fakes of those titles, because the cost and difficulty of doing so would exceed any amount of money they could reasonably expect to get for them. It would be like counterfeiting $1 bills.

 

Maybe this would also explain the "aggressive" attention that some of these Venezuelan shipments have been receiving from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

[Andre81]

 

 

[jaybird3rd]

Amazing. Thanks for doing the necessary legwork and figuring out how all this merchandise ended up in Venezuela.

 

Now I'm mostly curious about that last arrow in the diagram. I'm assuming that this merchandise was being held in a government warehouse after the seizure, so I can't help but speculate about how it ended up on eBay: was it being sold in collusion with someone at the warehouse, or was it stolen, or what? (I wouldn't be surprised by anything, really, given that this is Venezuela we're talking about.)

[atari181]

I too have to say good work. Looks like you found most of the puzzle. I however wonder about the last part.

Were the items orders destroyed(Wink Wink)?

Are they being sold by a company contracted to destroy them?

Is the government structure so fractured that a court order means nothing ?

Who is profiting?