Complete Quadrun, how high will it go?

[Marco]

Hehe, I see you have joined the club of believers now you've spent an aweful lot of cash on a silly piece of plastic and some paperwork

 

Ever since internet Atari 2600 collecting came into being, there have always been one or two Must-check-mental-sanity collectors that make people believe that a boxed Quadrun is worth $1k. I've seen it happen several times: one big spender quits and his place gets taken by a new one. It still works, but it's an extremely fragile balance. In fact, you might call it a dangerous bubble: if more than the occasional heavy collector would quit, the balance would most likely be disturbed, and prices would drop (even more than they already have, as people seem to have forgotten the prices from the big auctions from the nineties).

 

Collecting Atari 2600 games as any kind of investment, is a very bad idea.

 

Cheers,

Marco (who knows what overspending on Atari 2600 games is)

[Trade-N-Games]

I still need a boxed Quadrun for my collection. Its one of the very few that I need to finish my boxed collection. I still think I will wait a little longer. I am guilty of overspending on a few games in the past!However most I have got for nothing for all of the systems I collect for. Prices used to be alot higher around 1999-2001 and now most have gone down and with the internet and more people still digging out basements many rare games still are to be found. I had a newspaper article a few weeks ago and my phone has been ringing off the hook with people wanting to sell me stuff and I have gone over to a few peoples house and cleaned them out of old games.

[homerwannabee]

Hehe, I see you have joined the club of believers now you've spent an aweful lot of cash on a silly piece of plastic and some paperwork

 

Ever since internet Atari 2600 collecting came into being, there have always been one or two Must-check-mental-sanity collectors that make people believe that a boxed Quadrun is worth $1k. I've seen it happen several times: one big spender quits and his place gets taken by a new one. It still works, but it's an extremely fragile balance. In fact, you might call it a dangerous bubble: if more than the occasional heavy collector would quit, the balance would most likely be disturbed, and prices would drop (even more than they already have, as people seem to have forgotten the prices from the big auctions from the nineties).

 

Collecting Atari 2600 games as any kind of investment, is a very bad idea.

 

Cheers,

Marco (who knows what overspending on Atari 2600 games is)

Ahh, you're just jealous that I have an Atlantis 2 with paperwork and you don't You know you would think that would be the case but a good example of how you might be wrong is Spiker Pro Volleyball boxed for the intellivision. That game came up atleast 10 times this year and every time someone was willing to spend hundreds of dollars on it. I was amazed, time after time another person was willing to bid a rediculous amount of money on this game. My guess is the First quadrun auction was an aberation, the next one will go for more than $760 that is up right now. Quadrun is a bad example to see how the market is. I personally believe that this game is overrated. That stupid Antique Road show still resonates through peoples heads that this is the rarest Atari 2600 game. Even though it is not in the top 10 in my book of rarest games. The only thing the beats Quadrun in hype is Air Raid. I can't understand why a PAL pirate goes for so much more? There are 3 games in My book that will become expensive no matter what. They are Video Life, Pepsi Invaders, and Atlantis 2. I would count the Xante games, but there was a similar company called Beagle Brothers that was in the same league at one time. Besides those the strong probables are Gauntlet, and Karate. I believe any collectible industry will have their down times and their up times. One thing you have to agree with is that this hobby has not matured yet. It is still in it's infancy. I agree that if you are investing to make a huge profit 2 or 3 years down the line than you are stupid. But if you are in this for the long haul and can wait until the year 2020 to sell your stuff than you are very wise in deed. I have a rule of thumb for wise investment buying for any commodity or hobby. Look for things that are underrespected in a community and buy that. A good example of this was the housing market in the U.S. in the year 2000 everyone thought you were an absolute fool if you thought the housing market was going to take off. Look than at the beggining of 2005 with the housing market, everybody thought you were nuts to sell during a thriving market. Remember the phrase Buy low and Sell High. Also remember this coming up next year we will have a ten year anniversary for the classic gaming expo. In 1976 the comic book industry had their 10th comic book convention anniversary. Where were comic books as a collectable during this time? My guess is people were probably complaining how some moron just spent $100 on a mint condition First Spiderman Appearance. My guess is also a lot of collectors would of said you were insane to buy this for an investment. Here is another thing. Who is the big gun in this hobby? That's right it's Wonder007. What does Wonder007 do? He is a superintendent of a school district. My guess is he probably makes around $300,000 a year doing his job. My point is this, the filthy rich people have not entered the market yet. Why is this? Because most filthy rich people are in their late 50's or older. In about 15 to 20 years the generation of people who are collecting this stuff are going to take over and become filthy rich themselves. Once this happens the average shmoe like me who lives from check to check will no longer be able to buy the big ticket items. One last thing I don't do this just for investment. Think about this for a minute. If I was to spend $2,000 on a comic book this would not even make a dent on the radar of most Comic Book collectors. Stuff like that happens atleast 20 to 30 times a week. The fact is I could spend all of my disposable income on comics for the rest of my life and I would still not make it into the top 1000 collectors. I might be wrong but based on what I have now I think I am in the top 1000 for video games in general. And after getting 2 Atantis 2 carts just recently along with having 430 different

NTSC games for this system, I would think that I have made it into the top 100 of collectors for this system in the U.S. And to be able to say that only one in 3 million people in the United States has a better Atari 2600 collection than me is something I cannot put a price on. Sides video games are way funner than baseball cards or comic books on any day of the week. I believe one day that this market will have it's day in the sun. Wow that was a long post.

Edited November 13, 2006 by homerwannabee

[Dino]

Marco's not jealous - he's stating his opinion on the future of this hobby and I tend to agree with him. He has stuff in his collection that makes Atlantis 2 look like a Pacman cart.

 

I wouldnt bet on our generation spending big when they hit their 50's. Most of the collectors are now in their thirties and have had a good 10 years of income earning capacity to take up this hobby. With the advent of the internet, collecting has been made easy and most of these collectors have begun their collections. you'll get the occasional person taking up the hobby - like Wonder007, but equally, you have many that sell their collections. the truth is that there are only a small number of Atari 2600 collectors and whilst this will fluctuate, its not likely to increase markedly in the future. So the take home message is, as Marco points out - Dont invest for the future, buy the games for other reasons. if you want to invest, buy property or stocks.

 

No doubt this Quadrun will now go for more, but ther have been about half a dozen CIB Quadruns and dozens of loose Quadruns on ebay in the last year so dont expect the prices to continually hit $1,200 because it wont. The pirce drops markedly even as a few of these are sold. When the Motorodeos were found in South America, nobody knew to begin with that a stash had been found until the first few were sold. The first sold for over $400 and the third for about $250 (if my memory serves me correctly). Thats a 40% drop in price when 3 showed up. Once it was discovered that there were a stash of these the price then dropped more considerably.

[screamin1]

I agree with Homerwanabee. I think that video game collecting is in its infancy. For what it is worth my wife is Odessagirl, the one mentioned in an earlier post as a hard core collector. The games in truth are for me..I just use her bidder ID. I am in my early 30s. I have more disposable income than most people my age. I am a commercial banker and bring in 6 figures. Most people my age aren't in that financial situation. My age group is just becoming nostalgic. We are nowhere near the baby boomers. But give us 20 years and a lot more money and you will see video game collectibles shoot up. My humble opinion though. Yes, I am a hard core collector. I loved the games when I was young, but now prefer to admire them rather than play them. They just can't compete with Battlefield 2 in my opinion. But they bring me back to an innocent time in my life that holds great memories. That's why I collect. Also for potential future appreciation. I missed the Quadrun auction because I was out of town. I am always interested in the Rarity 8s and above.

[Crazy Climber]

I have more disposable income than most people my age. I am a commercial banker and bring in 6 figures. Most people my age aren't in that financial situation.

and I still won that Video Jogger you bid on a few months back? You must not have wanted it that bad...I scored it cheap:) Maybe I caught you off guard or are you more interested in boxed stuff? Just curious

Edited November 14, 2006 by Crazy Climber

[Rick Weis]

the REAL "Must-check-mental-sanity" are the investors in this hobby! IMO i don't see this collecting hobby ever going mainstream. but if it does, i hope it waits a few more years, last thing i need is 1 million people looking for Xonox boxes.

 

Rick

[CPUWIZ]

last thing i need is 1 million people looking for Xonox boxes.

 

Rick

 

One or two is enough for me.

 

[screamin1]

Crazy Climber,

 

I wasn't horribly interested in the Video Jogger. I already have 3 I think. I bid what I thought was a below market price. If I got it great, if I didn't that was fine as well since I have others. I probably help prop prices up a fair amount. I bid on a lot of things, but don't really bid top dollar unless I don't have it and have the funds on hand. I am more willing to bid higher during bonus time (paid in end of February) or at the first of the year (Jan 2007) as I am selling a rental house that closes in December.

[Crazy Climber]

Crazy Climber,

 

I wasn't horribly interested in the Video Jogger. I already have 3 I think. I bid what I thought was a below market price. If I got it great, if I didn't that was fine as well since I have others. I probably help prop prices up a fair amount. I bid on a lot of things, but don't really bid top dollar unless I don't have it and have the funds on hand. I am more willing to bid higher during bonus time (paid in end of February) or at the first of the year (Jan 2007) as I am selling a rental house that closes in December.

I gotcha

I have to admit I'm a little bummed out that your a dude. I thought it was kind of cool that a girl was bidding on rare Atari games, you don't see that every day

[screamin1]

Sorry to burst your bubble. I don't think there are any women that are interested in collecting video games. My wife happens to think it is a waste of money and storage space. It makes me happy though so she doesn't mess with me too much. The only time I really saw her pissed was when she found out I paid $500 for a loose Malagai. To her that is a ton of money for a "piece of junk". On my part I almost flipped when she spent over $300 on a Gucci handbag. What a monumental waste of money in my mind.

 

Just bid on that Out of Control auction. High bidder, but didn't meet reserve. Maybe next time it won't be offered with reserve. I bid $200, but guess that wasn't good enough. That's a cart I don't have a good understanding of what a fair price is for it.

[atarivision]

final bid: $760

Damn, I forgot about this, I would have taken another one for that price.

 

I didn't really think that I had much of a chance to win this auction, and I was a little surprised when I took it at only $760, as I had expected it to go much higher. I don't search ebay as extensively as some people here, but this is right around the lowest price that I can recall a complete Quadrun of this quality selling for in recent memory. Although this is the most that I have ever paid for a single Atari 2600 game, I am very happy to add this to my collection. This was my second shot at acquiring a complete Quadrun, I had finished as the 2nd highest bidder in the large lot from a couple of months ago that included a boxed Quadrun and sold for around $1200 or so if I recall.

 

The $760 price seems to have surprised a few people here, but I agree with those who suggested that the absence of a couple of the big-spenders can have a huge effect on the final outcome. My biggest competitor was Shawns823 who placed a snipe with 5 seconds to go. I don't know Shawns823, but it kinda makes me wonder if he was trying to buy that game for resale, or if he actually wanted that for his own collection. It's hard to tell with these big-time resellers.

 

Interesting that it was only 5 minutes after the $760 auction closed that another complete Quadrun was listed. No coincidence here, I am sure that seller had watched the prior auction and decided the time was right to make some money. Well I only need one Quadrun for my collection, but I will still be interested to see how much this new auction sells for. I will predict that it is going to go higher than the prior one did, perhaps $1000 or more.

 

Matt A. (waiting for Santa to deliver Quadrun, but otherwise Christmas is canceled at my house this year)

[Crazy Climber]

 

 

Just bid on that Out of Control auction. High bidder, but didn't meet reserve. Maybe next time it won't be offered with reserve. I bid $200, but guess that wasn't good enough. That's a cart I don't have a good understanding of what a fair price is for it.

Out of control auction? I must have missed it. What did it end up going for?

[Zwackery]

I bid on a lot of things, but don't really bid top dollar unless I don't have it and have the funds on hand.

After more than 2 years watching you bid on stuff, I tend to agree.

 

Your strategy of bidding low on stuff and just seeing what happens is kind of interesting from a long term perspective as you do occasionally get some nice stuff cheap.

 

Out of control auction? I must have missed it. What did it end up going for?

 

shawns823 had it up twice, once at BIN/OBO for $399.99 and the second time as a regular reserve auction which topped out at $191.27. I think it used to be worth more in the past and is one of those titles that just goes up exponentially with a box.

Edited November 14, 2006 by Zwackery

[+remowilliams]

The only time I really saw her pissed was when she found out I paid $500 for a loose Malagai. To her that is a ton of money for a "piece of junk". On my part I almost flipped when she spent over $300 on a Gucci handbag. What a monumental waste of money in my mind.

Well, to be fair unless your fabulously independently wealthy, they're both a monumental waste of money

[homerwannabee]

Bidding low can sometimes reap big rewards. My two biggest items I ever won off ebay were items I never thought I would get. The first was in may when I bid a max of 280 on a rescue terra I box and somehow got it. The other time was with the recent Atlantis 2 auction. How often does the third highest bidder actually get the original item up for auction?

[CPUWIZ]

That's a cart I don't have a good understanding of what a fair price is for it.

 

Every single one I have ever sold, did not leave my house below $400.00.

[Atarimania75]

I was hoping it would go up to at least $350.00 nothing i had up for auction met reserves tonight most have listed on the wrong night. Road Runner sealed barely went up to $20.00....and i think thats pretty damn rare. I may be high on some games but i think i don't think i am that unreasonable with the reserves i set.

[Buyatari]

The first was in may when I bid a max of 280 on a rescue terra I box and somehow got it.

 

This isn't too far off. I have had more than one I think they were all 300 or so complete. Has this game gone up alot recently?

[Atarimania75]

The first was in may when I bid a max of 280 on a rescue terra I box and somehow got it.

 

This isn't too far off. I have had more than one I think they were all 300 or so complete. Has this game gone up alot recently?

you have had a couple Out of Control's complete that sold for close to $300 hell i will buy one for that price :-)

[CPUWIZ]

The first was in may when I bid a max of 280 on a rescue terra I box and somehow got it.

 

This isn't too far off. I have had more than one I think they were all 300 or so complete. Has this game gone up alot recently?

you have had a couple Out of Control's complete that sold for close to $300 hell i will buy one for that price :-)

 

He is talking about RT1, I'd take 3 Out Of Control's for that price.

[Atarimania75]

The first was in may when I bid a max of 280 on a rescue terra I box and somehow got it.

 

This isn't too far off. I have had more than one I think they were all 300 or so complete. Has this game gone up alot recently?

you have had a couple Out of Control's complete that sold for close to $300 hell i will buy one for that price :-)

 

He is talking about RT1, I'd take 3 Out Of Control's for that price.

I noticed after i posted.......lol.....like lots of other auctions i forgot and the Rescue Terra game went for under $100.00 felt like banging my head against a wall. But i got a pretty good deal on this one i think.Atari 2600 with box.

[homerwannabee]

The first was in may when I bid a max of 280 on a rescue terra I box and somehow got it.

 

This isn't too far off. I have had more than one I think they were all 300 or so complete. Has this game gone up alot recently?

Since I bought my game it has come up only one time in the last 6 months and that was in early september. At that time it went for $406 with $20 in shipping and it was sold from a guy in france. Also there were 4 different people who bid atleast $350. Also a word to Dino. I was being sarcastic. The humor lies in the fact that I have Atlantis II which he does not own, and he has over 1500 different games if you include PAL that I do not own and the irony of the fact that I could use this line on him only because he ripped on me for buying a game he did not own.

[Dino]

The first was in may when I bid a max of 280 on a rescue terra I box and somehow got it.

 

This isn't too far off. I have had more than one I think they were all 300 or so complete. Has this game gone up alot recently?

Since I bought my game it has come up only one time in the last 6 months and that was in early september. At that time it went for $406 with $20 in shipping and it was sold from a guy in france. Also there were 4 different people who bid atleast $350. Also a word to Dino. I was being sarcastic. The humor lies in the fact that I have Atlantis II which he does not own, and he has over 1500 different games if you include PAL that I do not own and the irony of the fact that I could use this line on him only because he ripped on me for buying a game he did not own.

 

No worries Homewannabee.

 

BTW, you should think about using that box sticker to make 1 CIB Atlantis 2

[DreamTR]

Achika is a big time collector who recently got married to another collector, portnoyd. She has from what I understand, a couple of thousand games and systems at least.