The TV Repairman's Stash Uncovered

[Dolt]

Well, I bought the stash from the TV repairman for $100. Like anything you hear described on the phone for you, it's a mix of good and less good when you finally see the real thing up close, but I'm satisfied.

 

In total, it was 121 games where the rarest game was Jawbreaker. It turned out I actually had every game. Nonetheless, I was able to replace a lot of games in my collection with ones that had better labels and I got about 30 label variations out of it too. By far, most of this collection was from the 70s era of Atari--pre-picture label Atari games. Out of 121 games, maybe 25 were third-party games.

 

There were about 5 duplicates, as he said, but they were what you'd expect--Combat, Space Invaders, etc. Only 2 games were dead after I cleaned the contacts--Demon Attack and Asteroids, so no great loss.

 

All but about 5 games had pink nailpolish dots on the end. I suspect that since he used to rent games, this was to ensure that people didn't rent a game and replace it with a dead copy of it at home. I managed to get the polish off of about 80percent of them but in the other cases, the dots were on the labels. At this point, I have to express my gratitude to the great people at Apollo, Tigervision and early on at Atari who laminated their labels (those Atari picture labels are not laminated ), so that I could take the polish off without huring the label.

 

The game boxes are in great shape, and I got three of the book-styled numbered boxes with the games and manuals. I've never seen these before--someone last week commented on the boards that they have a great 'high class' feel to them, and that's certainly the case! Out of all the game boxes, I only had 4 already and they, too, were not in as good a shape as these, so I'm happy with that. Also, the 2600 system box is different than the one I already had, so I'm keeping it. It also had the inside cardboard to hold a system, which I didn't have in my 'old' system box, so that's a plus.

 

I'm still sorting through the manuals, but there's a ton that were to games not in this pile (which is fine, because I had the games in question, so now I have manuals to go with 'em).

 

As for the 5200 stuff, I didn't expect that. He had said there was an adaptor so I knew about it, but the trak-ball, I thought was going to be for a 2600. This is a primo find though, as it's all mint in box in its bag with the foam holding it in place, never used. The metal stripe across the top of it even still has see-through purple tape across it to keep it from being scratched. There's about 7 boxes for games, and manuals to go with them, but no games themselves. I don't plan to keep the 5200 stuff, so if anyone want to make an offer, PM me.

 

Anyway, I'm happy with how this turned out. Thanks to everyone for their advice.

Clive

[Dolt]

The photo didn't load for some reason.

[ewrann]

Great Find and great story. Thanks.

 

E

[Stingray]

I'd say that was a pretty good deal for $100.

 

-S

[StanJr]

too bad it was stuff you already had, but you did get some nice stuff in there, so I wouldn't call it a loss.

 

[Dolt]

Oh, i'm not complaining. Some of my carts had crummy labels, so to be able to replace them with ones from this stash was nice. Also, as noted, I don't have many boxed games, and there's a bunch of manuals that I needed, so over all, this was a sweet score.

[+RangerG]

You got a great find for $100.

[Cap5750]

I wonder what was in that original wooden box....wine?

 

Cap

[AtariAger]

Hey Dolt...

 

Nice find!...You should know that the boxed "61" Basic Math, is pretty hard to come by also.

 

Congrats!!!

[Spirantho]

Nice find!...You should know that the boxed "61" Basic Math, is pretty hard to come by also.  

 

Too right....

if you want to recoup some of your cash that's about $30 right there...

[Saikyo]

Glad it went all well for you, Yeah the box to 61 Basic Math is very rare,

do you have an actual 61 Basic Math game cart as well?

[Dolt]

Yep, all those boxes came with the games. No manuals for the numbered boxes though, for some reason. I thought the numbered Street Racer had lost its end label, but it turned out to be loose inside the box, so I reattatched it.

For the record, I have no interest in selling the Basic Math box (or the game), but boy, it sure seems to be a prized item--I've gotten a slew of PMs about it...

[Bruce Tomlin]

Nice find!...You should know that the boxed "61" Basic Math, is pretty hard to come by also.

Just for perspective here, in my own ten years of collecting, I think I've only ever found a single (or maybe two) boxed 01 Combat cart. Any of the original six games boxed is a good find.