Intellivision overlays variations

[atari5200dude82]

Intellivision overlays variations. I know there's different kinds from Mattel and etc. . There are several different baseball ones and such . But what are the rarest variations of the overlays if Mattel or maybe the Third party ones . Just curious.

[Intymike]

Yessss, overlay variations...just when the collecting starts to get boring!

[atari5200dude82]

Yes lol. But what's the raresest if the overlays . Does anybody know ?

[+intvsteve]

I don't know how possible it is to assess the rarity of the different overlay variations.

 

Those variations (and the pursuit of them) were a big reason that led to creating INTV Funhouse.

 

We should probably keep the custom / modern era overlays in a separate category, e.g. Psycho Stormtrooper's Orphan Overlays and pboland's Sears Overlay Set.

 

So of the 'mass market' ones, the 'no copyright' variations seem to be the toughest to get -- but it depends. Many of these are from the Intellivision, Inc. releases -- but I'd guess only the latest print runs of those. But to confuse matters, a *lot* of the Digiplay releases seemed to use those too -- if they didn't use localized overlays.

 

One I've been casually trying to find -- for so long now I'm beginning to wonder if it's a snipe hunt and I was duped (j/k) -- is the "no copyright" Astrosmash overlay. Someone kindly sent me a great scan of that overlay years and years ago, but I've never been able to track one down, despite buying and opening far too many Intellivision, Inc. copies of Astrosmash.

[JasonlikesINTV]

Steve has a lot of info on his site, but it might not address rarity. I'll try to put a list/overview together this weekend. The rarest/most collectible are usually odd revisions like the GM variant of Auto Racing. There are also slight color variants (which technically aren't variants) like the blue vs purple paper Pinball ones. I probably won't include homebrew/homemade ones since there are a lot.

[7800fan]

The color variation on most overlay are more likely due to printing issue. If one of the color, say magenta, starts getting low unexpectedly the batch would favor blue and yellow. OTOH if the adjustment was off a bit and it outputted more magenta than it should, it would make batch look more purple and red. These should be considered printing error and not true variation. Blue and purple pinball seems to be something else and not printing because there seems to be a lot of blue and a lot of purple versions, maybe changed artwork to improve the appearance?

 

I've seen different copyright date, a few without date, a few with changed ownership. Nothing that would really stand out with an average gamer.