TI99 games on Ebay = Big Money!

[Smitty]

I started collecting again....and noticed a huge jump in TI99 carts....

 

Examples of completed auctions:

 

Munch Man II - $705

Spot Shot - $675

Typoman - $670

Star Runner - $356

Super Sketch - $345

 

Etc.... these items are not that rare.

 

What's going on, you couldn't give these carts away a few years ago?

 

If you want to make some quick cash, here's your chance.

[+save2600]

I'm rich!

 

Finally! <sigh>

 

Really? Stuff is actually selling for that much or people just asking stupid money for things? Had a mint boxed Super Sketch I nearly gave away years ago. Have a Star Runner right now w/ manual and several other rare TI carts.

 

Time to get in, while getting out?

[Dripfree]

Hmmm I looked some of these up and they are bidding prices not buy it now prices. It doesn't seem right though. I got munch man II and super sketch in a lot of 16 games for $12 about 6 months ago. Granted no boxes or manuals but these prices seem way too high to be real. Could someone be bidding on their own stuff to drive up prices or something? In my experience 99/4a stuff doesn't even seem to move on ebay and when it does its almost given away...... With the exception of PEB's of course.

[+save2600]

You mean to say that I'm not rich? Drats!

[Smitty]

Legit bids and wins from what I can tell. I believe it's a bidding war between maybe three or four people, I bet when they get what they are looking for....prices will fall back to normal. What's annoying is some items I bid on gets delisted (because of side deals).....I probably wouldn't win them anyway, I'm not willing to pay more than $40 per TI99 cart, even if they are rare.

 

I have 125 unique TI99 "game" carts / missing about 38....if my list is correct.

I also have over 80 unique utility cartridges.

 

I guess I will eventually complete the collection, it's not a top priority right now.....especially with wackos on EBay right now....LOL

 

If you have some rarer carts that I don't have and are willing to sell them at reasonable prices let me know.

[JamesD]

I might actually have a Munch Man II, if it's going for that much.... SOLD!

[JamesD]

<duplicate post>

 

Whatever happened to the ability to delete a post?

Edited June 20, 2013 by JamesD

[schuwalker]

Legit bids and wins from what I can tell. I believe it's a bidding war between maybe three or four people, I bet when they get what they are looking for....prices will fall back to normal. What's annoying is some items I bid on gets delisted (because of side deals).....I probably wouldn't win them anyway, I'm not willing to pay more than $40 per TI99 cart, even if they are rare.

 

I have 125 unique TI99 "game" carts / missing about 38....if my list is correct.

I also have over 80 unique utility cartridges.

 

I guess I will eventually complete the collection, it's not a top priority right now.....especially with wackos on EBay right now....LOL

 

If you have some rarer carts that I don't have and are willing to sell them at reasonable prices let me know.

 

Do you have any of the Gamevision titles?

[Smitty]

I have Connect Four, Hangman, and Zero Zap.

 

I'm missing Yahtzee.

[+Ksarul]

Good luck finding a copy of the Gamevision version of Yahtzee. MB recalled them shortly after they were released due to a bug in the GROM that caused Yahtzee to show up for the computer player a lot more often than it should have. A very small number weren't returned, and MB never released it again under the Gamevision label. I've only seen/heard of about 5-10 survivors, one of which is in my collection. On the high prices for recent eBay auctions, there are really only 2-3 folks really bidding things off the charts--and as already noted, once they get an item, the prices for that cartridge drop back into the normal $20-$50 range for HTF cartridges (although the really rare ones will still pop into the $200 plus range, because most of the collectors out there still need one to complete their collection). Most of the really rare stuff only makes it to eBay once every 10 years or so, as there are so few of them out there--and they don't generally change hands. Just try to find one of the Scott, Foresman school management modules in the original binder with the manuals. I only know of three people with any of them--and none of them have a complete set. I have 7 of them, and know of physical examples of two others in the hands of the other two collectors with partial sets. There should be about five others, but no one has them. Lost TI software indeed. I just recently acquired an original TI prototype of Crossfire using the final GROMs (these were rumored to exist, but this was the first one I'd ever seen in over 30 years of collecting things TI). Ultra rare, but acquired on eBay for less than $30 earlier this year. Sometimes, luck and deep knowledge of what you are looking at are necessary to find a good deal. Odd variants show up sometimes as well. Navarone packaged their cartridges in ROMOX ECPC cases at the beginning, and TI cases at the end, but there was a time in between these end points that they used the same cases Personal Peripherals did for their Super Sketch. I've found three different cartridges in these cases over the years, but the ROM labels indicate that there were at least six Navarone cartridges in production at that time, so there could be at least three more that I've never seen. The hunt is what makes the hobby fun.

[schuwalker]

I have Connect Four, Hangman, and Zero Zap.

 

I'm missing Yahtzee.

 

Boxed or loose?

[schuwalker]

Good luck finding a copy of the Gamevision version of Yahtzee. MB recalled them shortly after they were released due to a bug in the GROM that caused Yahtzee to show up for the computer player a lot more often than it should have. A very small number weren't returned, and MB never released it again under the Gamevision label. I've only seen/heard of about 5-10 survivors, one of which is in my collection. On the high prices for recent eBay auctions, there are really only 2-3 folks really bidding things off the charts--and as already noted, once they get an item, the prices for that cartridge drop back into the normal $20-$50 range for HTF cartridges (although the really rare ones will still pop into the $200 plus range, because most of the collectors out there still need one to complete their collection). Most of the really rare stuff only makes it to eBay once every 10 years or so, as there are so few of them out there--and they don't generally change hands. Just try to find one of the Scott, Foresman school management modules in the original binder with the manuals. I only know of three people with any of them--and none of them have a complete set. I have 7 of them, and know of physical examples of two others in the hands of the other two collectors with partial sets. There should be about five others, but no one has them. Lost TI software indeed. I just recently acquired an original TI prototype of Crossfire using the final GROMs (these were rumored to exist, but this was the first one I'd ever seen in over 30 years of collecting things TI). Ultra rare, but acquired on eBay for less than $30 earlier this year. Sometimes, luck and deep knowledge of what you are looking at are necessary to find a good deal. Odd variants show up sometimes as well. Navarone packaged their cartridges in ROMOX ECPC cases at the beginning, and TI cases at the end, but there was a time in between these end points that they used the same cases Personal Peripherals did for their Super Sketch. I've found three different cartridges in these cases over the years, but the ROM labels indicate that there were at least six Navarone cartridges in production at that time, so there could be at least three more that I've never seen. The hunt is what makes the hobby fun.

 

I've given up on Yahtzee - finding it for cheap that is! I would really like to acquire Hangman and Zero Zap form the Gamevision lot. of the two,is one rarer than the other or equal?

 

I began to concentrate on the Funware boxed titles. I really shouldn't have passed some of these up on Ebay when they showed up!:/

[+Ksarul]

Gamevision boxes are really difficult to find, but they do come up now and again. All of the Gamevision titles except for Yahtzee are about equally difficult to find, with each of them coming up for sale at least once or twice a year. Most of those are without the box though. I usually don't see more than one Gamevision box a year, and for some reason the Hangman box is the most common survivor.

 

The hardest Funware box to find is the one for Video Vegas, with St. Nick and Rabbit Trail being the next hardest. Note one other Funware box may exist that is really difficult: Schnoz-Ola. The cart and box were about ready for release when Funware pulled the plug on their TI line. A few may have been made, but not many.

Edited June 22, 2013 by Ksarul

[Charlie_]

Was MunchMan II ever put on disk? I'd love to play it.

[Tempest]

Was MunchMan II ever put on disk? I'd love to play it.

Yes it was, I have it on my CF7. I think someone posted the rom in the thread. Search for CF7 and Munchman II.

[schuwalker]

Gamevision boxes are really difficult to find, but they do come up now and again. All of the Gamevision titles except for Yahtzee are about equally difficult to find, with each of them coming up for sale at least once or twice a year. Most of those are without the box though. I usually don't see more than one Gamevision box a year, and for some reason the Hangman box is the most common survivor.

 

The hardest Funware box to find is the one for Video Vegas, with St. Nick and Rabbit Trail being the next hardest. Note one other Funware box may exist that is really difficult: Schnoz-Ola. The cart and box were about ready for release when Funware pulled the plug on their TI line. A few may have been made, but not many.

 

Another boxed Hangman did make an appearance on Ebay recently w/ some other carts....

 

Funware: Gah, I *think* I've seen most of those on Ebay within the past year!

[+Ksarul]

I got a boxed Gamevision Connect Four last month, although the box wasn't in the best of shape (and it was missing the insert). It was part of a larger lot of stuff I bought (mostly to get some interesting multilingual manuals, although getting the Connect Four cart was nice too).

 

If you ever DO see a boxed Funware Schnoz-Ola cart, I suspect it will go for $400 plus, easily. . .and have at least half a dozen folks bidding on it (note, there are Schnoz-Ola carts produced by Competition Computer--they use the same code and even Funware cases, but they are an aftermarket product). I do have the Competition Computers version. It is well-done and I'm glad I have it, although an original Funware copy would be reaaaaaaallllllllly nice.

[Smitty]

Most of my stuff is loose (I don't have the space to store over 10,000 games), TI99 has always been the last system I think about collecting for.

 

I saw that boxed hangman on eBay.... I believe it sold really cheap.

[toptenmaterial]

Holy crap! I should start saving now! Or I should visit my local Goodwill and pick them up for ten cents!

[ianoid]

A friend of mine sold a few TI 3rd party games and I learned the usernames. They are familiar people, not totally random. Not that I could connect them to people here... Does make me suspicious about a price fixing scam.

 

This price jump is unsustainable though.

 

I've been doing the same- grabbing titles I need for some time at reasonable prices.

 

I agree Video Vegas is pretty tough. Isn't Schnozola only a reproduction cart made by TI Kyle, among a few others?

[+Ksarul]

Competition Computers=TI Kyle, so we're both right. He's sold repros of these for at least 15 years or so (I bought a couple from him before I went to Turkey in 1996), though he hasn't sold a lot of them. The point I was making on the possiblity of an original box and cartridge is that at least one person I know has an original box for Schnoz-Ola--so there may be more of them, and there may actually be original cartridges too, although I have yet to see or hear of one (other than Kyle's repros).

 

I actually know the bidder who was winning a lot of the expensive auctions. He's a long-term collector who has been around the TI for a long time, but he's just been a lot more active than usual lately. I was one of those bidding against him on some of those auctions--although in most cases I dropped out well below the peak, as I needed some of the same items he needed, and they don't come up all that often. I have one of the most extensive TI 99/4A collections on the planet--and have spent over 30 years assembling it--but there are still interesting items coming up for sale that I don't have (and in some cases, that I've never seen before). I won a Scott Foresman cartridge today in a red case--I've seen one or two of that particular case color for the module in question before, but I didn't have one, so I bought it. I was lucky that there weren't any other folks trying hard to complete their collection of strange variants of known cartridges. Finding some of the ones made in Europe can be a real pain (some were made in Almelo, Holland and others were made at Rimini, Italy). Others were made in Buenos Aires, Argentina (I have just one from there, TI Logo II in Spanish, although I know they also produced a Spanish TI Logo module there and may have produced others too). Items for the TI in languages other than English are often HTF, but it is a fun hunt too. I have a huge amount of material (books, magazines, manuals, and cartridges) in German, French, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch.

[+Ksarul]

I just realized no one may recognize the significance of a red-cased module. Very early in the production of modules for Scott-Foresman, the modules were shipped in very nice library cases--and these were only sold to schools, so they were pretty robust. The cartridges in them were often Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, or Light Gray plastic. The Light Gray ones were only used for the School Management modules (and the color is not the same as the cream ones used for general release when TI changed their color scheme, although at first glance they are similar). Any cartridge using these case colors is HTF. I have about half a dozen of them outside the Light Gray Management modules (and I have 8 of those--one of which is a duplicate).

 

The other thing that makes these case colors interesting was their use by TI internally. A goodly number of the surviving prototype cartridges were in cases like these--although often, the top and bottom parts were of different colors. I have a red case Parsec prototype (I found it in a thrift store for fifty cents), and a number of others that combine yellow, blue and green parts. Nice trivia for the hard-core collector.

[schuwalker]

I see a lot of Funware items have shown up recently on Ebay. (I need to find St. Nick w/ the box that doesn't look like it's been run over by a truck!)

 

I was looking through the completed listings, can anybody explain this enigma to me?

 

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2FTI-99-4a-Cart-St-Nick-by-Funware-Extremely-Rare-%2F130951706274%3Fpt%3DUS_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes%26hash%3Ditem1e7d5476a2

[+save2600]

I see a lot of Funware items have shown up recently on Ebay. (I need to find St. Nick w/ the box that doesn't look like it's been run over by a truck!)

 

I was looking through the completed listings, can anybody explain this enigma to me?

 

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2FTI-99-4a-Cart-St-Nick-by-Funware-Extremely-Rare-%2F130951706274%3Fpt%3DUS_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes%26hash%3Ditem1e7d5476a2

 

“Teated and working”...

[+Ksarul]

That's an anomaly all right--especially since the going price for that cart is under $50, best case! He sold one a few days later for a more reasonable price, as seen in this auction:

 

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2FTI-99-4a-Cart-St-Nick-by-Funware-Extremely-Rare-%2F130952370033%3Fpt%3DUS_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes%26hash%3Ditem1e7d5e9771

 

It may even be the same item, depending on what really happened with the first auction. . .he often makes interesting spelling errors, so that part is no surprise either. He is usually pretty quick on shipping--and there are generally no rude surprises from his auctions either. I've bought from him several times in the past.