Keeping Homebrews Nice...

[mingus]

Be gentle...i'm new here!

 

Getting back into ColecoVision after several years and have been overextending myself buying homebrews when I can afford them.  I'll continue to do so where I find them for good prices.  One thing I've been thinking about is preserving these items physically going forward.  Some of them have been released in ROM format by Pixelboy at Christmas, some are available in the Collectorvision vault (which I plan to purchase once I get my Phoenix next month), but a good many of them are physical cartridge only - and those are what i've been concentrating on first.  My concern is that if I play them a lot, I'm going to wear out things like the box - even if i'm careful.  I thought about box protectors, which I still plan on getting, but that's still going to wear on it a bit.  I also thought about storing loose carts and keeping the boxes up on a shelf - safe.  They're fairly priced when first released, but they're not what I would call cheap once you add them all up.  It'd be a shame to tear or ruin boxes. 

 

So what does everyone else do?  I also thought about getting an Atarimax dumper and then I could load the ROMs on the Phoenix directly, but I feel like that's a weird gray area (even though I purchased the games and it would be for my personal use) and half the fun of buying the carts is to play the ACTUAL CARTS.  Half of my hobby here is playing the games, but the other half (maybe more than half, actually) is the art that's involved with these cases, packaging, etc.  So I want to be able to use them and display them for years to come.

 

For original commercial carts, i'm going to be a weirdo and use Universal Game Cases for the loose carts with nice artwork for the ones I don't have boxes for.  

 

-J

[+evg2000]

Boxes in protectors on shelf for display.  Games in a drawer for playing.

[mingus]

25 minutes ago, evg2000 said:

Boxes in protectors on shelf for display.  Games in a drawer for playing.

Sounds like what i'll end up doing.  The only carts i'm worried about are original Parker Brothers carts that, by some miracle, have good labels - but i've got no issues with those running as ROMs!  (maybe Q*Bert....but I think i'll buy a playing copy!)