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Your Rarest 2600 Game


RickR

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There's a video game store not far from me...reasonable prices on the games themselves, but consoles? Forget it; highway robbery. (Although I wouldn't doubt it's because where they are, the rents are pretty outrageous.) But the guy there told me they use the AtariAge rarity guide as a way to price their Atari stuff.

But FFS....Adventure -- rarity 1 -- very, very, very common, but man...try to get a CIB copy for a reasonable price.

 

And Basic Math. It gives me a headache to see what people ask for CIBs of that one, too. For a rarity 1 game.

 

I guess it's kind of like the "butcher cover" version of The Beatles' Yesterday And Today album. It is **not rare**. There were 750,000 copies in circulation. But the reason they command such high prices is that all the dealers bought 'em up. Makes my blood boil.

Edited by dauber

Supernatural, perhaps...baloney, perhaps not.

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I consider the AA rarity guide as a "guideline" only.  I think they've done a great job on it.  But in some cases, it's a bit off.  That's ok, considering what we paid for it:  $0.  In most cases, it's pretty accurate.  I think it is probably very difficult to maintain, so no complaints. 

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I found a Jag for 325 with 3 games.  I don't even have a job yet!  There's no way I could afford it.  That same store sells the Atari 2600 Jr for $75 so they just love to grab your money.  They told me that they replace capacitors and clean the systems inside, but the first 4-switch I bought from them had a bad capacitor, and when I returned it, I got one that needs the Game Select Switch fixed!

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Combat for $5?!?  Better come CIB for that price.  

 

The 2600 4-switch I got needed some TLC as well but I have restored it.  Found a bad cap that I replaced with a better one so I get a better RF signal now.  I also replaced all of the chrome switches even though the originals did work and I had to replace the broken Difficulty B switch.  Nothing too major.  If you can replace the switch (if you haven't already) I kept the working switches from my console.  I can send you one no problem.  Send me a PM if interested.

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Combat for $5?!?  Better come CIB for that price.  

 

The 2600 4-switch I got needed some TLC as well but I have restored it.  Found a bad cap that I replaced with a better one so I get a better RF signal now.  I also replaced all of the chrome switches even though the originals did work and I had to replace the broken Difficulty B switch.  Nothing too major.  If you can replace the switch (if you haven't already) I kept the working switches from my console.  I can send you one no problem.  Send me a PM if interested.

Thanks.  I'll try to fix mine first, but otherwise, I'll let you know.

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I'm coming in way late to this discussion but off the top of my head (and using the AA site as a measuring stick):

 

Quest for Quintana Roo - Sunrise (R8)

 

Also rarish:

Mines of Minos (R6)

Threshold (R6)

Earth Dies Screaming (R5)

Laser Gates (R5)

Artillery Duel/Chuck Norris double (R5)

 

All loose so no bonus points there. I do have a Frogger II in box with all the originals for the 5200 though. One of my nicest finds at the thrift store years ago :P

 

I'll have to look through my collection again to be sure...I have a Starpath cart but can't remember which tapes I had for it apart from Communist Mutants. I have to imagine that few of those tapes survived as more than a couple were probably erased. 

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Probably the two rarest games I own are the "Miner 2049er" games, both volumes. I bought Vol. II a few years back and it is still in mint condition. I also have the box and instructions for the first "Miner 2049er." They were and are really decent titles. I also own a wrapped "Atari Video Cube," but the same game with the title, "Rubik's Cube." which I do not have is rarer. I used to own "Stronghold,"  from Comma Vid. Unfortunately, it was stolen by some really asinine people that my brother once hung around with. That was worth an auction value of $250.00 at the time. Bummer… :(

 

Now, I have over 240+ A2600 games alone, and that is just for the A2600.

 

Thanks for letting me share. ^_^

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I'm coming in way late to this discussion but off the top of my head (and using the AA site as a measuring stick):

 

Quest for Quintana Roo - Sunrise (R8)

 

Also rarish:

Mines of Minos (R6)

Threshold (R6)

Earth Dies Screaming (R5)

Laser Gates (R5)

Artillery Duel/Chuck Norris double (R5)

 

All loose so no bonus points there. I do have a Frogger II in box with all the originals for the 5200 though. One of my nicest finds at the thrift store years ago :P

 

I'll have to look through my collection again to be sure...I have a Starpath cart but can't remember which tapes I had for it apart from Communist Mutants. I have to imagine that few of those tapes survived as more than a couple were probably erased. 

 

I also have a Supercharger cart with the cassette "Phaser Patrol."  I also have "Stella Gets a New Brain," the CD-ROM with all the Starpath/Arcadia games. It can play on any CD player that plays audio compact discs and has a headphone jack. It's pretty cool. :)

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I also own Mines of Minos and Miner 2049er for the VCS.

 

@ jaguar prices

 

In Germany the prices are indecent, too. For an new AvP you should have to pay € 350. A new Console (NTSC) costs € 400 and a PAL-console € 350. Only two years ago the prices were not more than € 200. But used modules are also expensive. Brutal sports deluxe without box for € 20. That is ruthless in many ways.

Edited by TeddyGermany
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Think the rarest stuff I have is a few 5's:

 

Strategy X

Roc N Rope

Frankenstein's Monster (in the mail from NSG!)

 

I have seen Gremlins and Ram It at one of my local game shops but they wanted 20 for Ram It and 25 for Gremlins. I've been willing to spend more money on Atari games now because I've got many of the commons making bargain purchasing more rare, so I might pick one or both of them up next time I'm up there.

 

Update: Got 20 bucks in frequent buyer cash from the local gameshop a few months back, and used it to (mostly) snag Gremlins. Of course, to get that cash you have to spend 200 dollars...  :o

 

But hey, that was 10 dollars here, 20 dollars there over the course of a year or two so I'm not sweating it  :D A lot of it was snagging 2600 games at a buck a piece so they really helped round out my collection and got me over the 200 game mark.

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I also own Mines of Minos and Miner 2049er for the VCS.

 

@ jaguar prices

 

In Germany the prices are indecent, too. For an new AvP you should have to pay € 350. A new Console (NTSC) costs € 400 and a PAL-console € 350. Only two years ago the prices were not more than € 200. But used modules are also expensive. Brutal sports deluxe without box for € 20. That is ruthless in many ways.

 

That does not surprise me about those prices, which are more expensive in America since the US dollar is worth less than the euro right now and has been for about fourteen years (I check the spot prices of the two currencies regularly). But, I hear you. They are getting expensive because in retail and auction sites they are getting almost impossible to find. I have been a thirty-four year long collector of Atari games, and I can see that the scarcity is there for most of them. In America, a stock Falcon030, as an example, can fetch USD$2,500.00. Notice I said just stock. People want these things. Typical rule of supply and demand, I guess. :)

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My rarest is probably my Dragster cart that has a foam protector insert stuck inside it. It's most definitely not valuable or highly sought after by any means, but I would say it's probably hard to find.

 

Possibly also my copy of Pitfall 2, which is apparently a lot more scarce in the wild than Pitfall.

 

EDIT: Oh, I finally reached 900 posts. Huzzah.

Edited by LeeJ07

"I'd buy that for a dollar!" -Smash T.V.

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Hmm.. this is a tough one. But using the AA scale the following would be my rarest loose carts in my VCS collection:

 

Master Builder

Crazy Climber

Boing!

Chase the Chuckwagon

 

However, I consider both of my Parker Bros. prototypes carts to be the most rare. Especially my WIP version of Star Wars: TAG.

 

I also have a decent condition Activision Checkers....with the foam insert. I keep that in the glass case as well. It was the last Activision title I really needed for the collection (Loose of course), and to find it with the foam insert still completely in tact was even better.

See what I'm up to over at the Ivory Tower Collections: http://www.youtube.com/ivorytowercollections

 

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At the moment it's a tossup between Jr. Pac-Man and Super Football. Oh the shame!  :lol:

I liquidated my collection of 150'ish Atari 2600 games two years ago and just slowly started rebuilding with common titles this summer. At one point in my previous collection though I did own copies Frogger II: Threeedeep!!, H.E.R.O., and Montezuma's Revenge as well an original production copy of the homebrew Princess Rescue. I imagine I'll probably get all of them back someday except for Princess Rescue, since that one has just gotten too expensive to re-buy now. 

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At the moment it's a tossup between Jr. Pac-Man and Super Football. Oh the shame!  :lol:

I liquidated my collection of 150'ish Atari 2600 games two years ago and just slowly started rebuilding with common titles this summer. At one point in my previous collection though I did own copies Frogger II: Threeedeep!!, H.E.R.O., and Montezuma's Revenge as well an original production copy of the homebrew Princess Rescue. I imagine I'll probably get all of them back someday except for Princess Rescue, since that one has just gotten too expensive to re-buy now. 

Just curious -- what made you decide to sell your games?

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Just curious -- what made you decide to sell your games?

 

A combination of lack of money, seemingly flakey hardware, and poor decision making.  :lol: I was rather hard up for cash for life's basics (food, paying the utility bills, etc.) and I had been through four Vader model 2600's in a year because they kept breaking down on me. Seeing that the 150'ish games that I had collected for the 2600 combined with the value of the accessories I had added up to around $800 and feeling incredibly frustrated with not being able to keep an Atari system working for more than 2 months I decided to liquidate my entire collection. 

 

The real kicker is that about 6 months after I sold off my entire collection I found out that there was never anything wrong with the systems at all, it was actually the coaxial port on my retro gaming CRT TV that had gone bad and was causing all the issues that I thought were problems with the systems. After learning that, and missing my old collection of Atari games something fierce, I decided to slowly start rebuilding. It's been really difficult going though, since when I built up my old collection all the local game stores had tons of Atari 2600 games and sold them for anywhere from $0.50 to $2 each, so I was able to get almost all my games locally and on the cheap. Since then almost all the local stores got rid of their Atari games on eBay because there wasn't a big enough local market for them (it was always just me and one other guy who ever came in to buy Atari stuff), and the only store I can find Atari games at locally now sells them for $5 to $10 each. Because of that it's been really difficult rebuilding my collection, especially since I'm very picky about label condition and won't buy any games with ripped or torn labels. 

Edited by Jin
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Another A2600 game I have is the European title Pick'n Pile. It is rare in the United States because it was made in the European Union. In fact, it was made in Germany. It was created by UbiSoft, the creators of Rayman and Assassin's Creed. I can barely see it on a flat-screen NTSC TV because it is a PAL game, of course. It is visible on there, but full of static from the signal. However, it is playable and in excellent condition. I got it NIB through mail order. Pretty cool addition to my collection. I have a couple of Xonox Double-Enders as well, which are Chuck Norris Superkicks/Artillery Duel and Artillery Duel/Spike's Peak. I really should be posting pictures of my video game collection, since I have at least 239 A2600 video game titles. It took me thirty-five years to get to this point in my Atari collection (from 1982 to present, at this writing). I remember my first games, which were Pac-Man and Combat (which came with the A2600 VCS my family purchased from my aunt, of course). The A2600 console was only $129.99 in 1982. Now, the same system may be worth more. I still have an A2600 Short Rainbow and an A2600 Jr. Sorry for being long-winded, but I love talking Atari stuff.

 

I will get pictures up soon of my collection, to show and tell. Thanks for letting me share. :)

Edited by DegasElite
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That ain't long winded -- share some more!  I think we all love talking Atari stuff here. 

 

I've got a couple of Xonox double enders too:  Ghost Manor / Spike's Peak and Artillery Duel / Chuck Norris Super Kicks.   Kind of interesting how they have different combinations of the same games.  Plus I'm pretty sure they made single game carts too. 

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It's been really difficult going though, since when I built up my old collection all the local game stores had tons of Atari 2600 games and sold them for anywhere from $0.50 to $2 each, so I was able to get almost all my games locally and on the cheap.

 

Make sure to check out the "For Trade" forum here on Atari.io.  I've got a bunch of extra games for trade (hint, I also let them go cheap if I know you are going to keep and play them instead of reselling).  It's an easy way to build your collection back up. 

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That ain't long winded -- share some more!  I think we all love talking Atari stuff here. 

 

I've got a couple of Xonox double enders too:  Ghost Manor / Spike's Peak and Artillery Duel / Chuck Norris Super Kicks.   Kind of interesting how they have different combinations of the same games.  Plus I'm pretty sure they made single game carts too. 

Yes. They did. Especially for the ColecoVision. I had like three single cartridges for the Coleco from Xonox. I gave up the Coleco collection so I could concentrate on Atari accessories and games. Xonox was a Minnesota-based company. I find that interesting since I am from Minnesota. Small world. :)

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New member here, first post! just tested positive for the Covid 19 today (front line healthcare worker so it was bound to happen!) and am just starting my ten day quarantine. . . which hopefully means lots of retro gaming for me! I collect for the VCS, 7800, Odyssey II and Intellivision. . . but I'm mainly a VCS guy. Been on the hunt since starting college so a good twenty years or so. I'm currently at 395 different games in my 2600 collection. My rarest so far (not including repros like Red Sea Crossing, Gamma Attack, Answer Soft's Gauntlet, etc.) would be: Frankenstein's Monster, Time Warp, Demolition Herby (color label), Motocross Racer, Space Master X-7, H.E.R.O., Montezuma's Revenge, Mr. Chin (Dishaster), Rubik's Cube, Stargunner, UFO (Condor Attack), Mr. Do's Castle, Gremlins, Star Wars Arcade, Death Trap, Up N' Down, Tomarc The Barbarian, Cosmic Corridor, River Raid II, Polaris (green label), Robin Hood/Sir Lancelot. . . some of those weren't so rare when I first got them; Frankenstein's Monster was all of two bucks when I got it from a used game store in Traverse City some ten years ago (along with many other gems)! all time favorite is plain old Adventure and I've collected many of it's hacks and similar games like Epic Adventure and Misadventures Revisited. So hard to find something in the wild that I don't already have but I still always look! I consider an on cart repro of LOTR: Journey To Rivendell to be a holy grail as I've yet to find someone who can make one. . . of course Quadrun, Chase The Chuckwagon, Glacier Patrol and all the other usual suspects are up there as well! anyways just thought I'd share and happy hunting!

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