RickR

Try as I might, I cannot seem to get Pete Rose into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  He will have to settle for my Atari collection, next to Title Match Pro Wrestling.
 

 
Thanks, StormSurge!  The Mountain King manual rocks as well; it will wait patiently for its companion cartridge, I'm sure.

Intellivison Night Stalker with manual and 2 overlays.
 
 

My "Superman" looks just like that one!  Thanks for the info, I had no idea there was a corrected bug in the game.
 
I also have "A Game of Concentration", and "Fun With Numbers".  Both missing end labels.  But nice to know they are rare, or scarce at least. 
 
Great info, nicely done.

I was at a shop just yesterday, and they had Atari bowling (text labels) in both red and blue.  Didn't know what to make of that. 

I need to take some good photos of my first complete* set (as of this past week) -- Atari 2600 text labels!  While this is undoubtedly the "easiest" of all the various VCS labels to collect, there are still a few difficult ones to snag at reasonable prices.  And, like all Atari cartridges, there are some fun things to point out on the common ones.  Until I have time to set them all up for one big group photo, here's a smaller group of what I feel are the hardest to find:
 

 
AtariAge's rarity guide is super helpful, but it is not without need of some revising.  When it comes to the plain text labels, its biggest flaw is that it rates Flag Capture as a '4', and as the toughest text label cart to find.  Perhaps this was true when the guide was published, but right now the two scarcest are, without question, (A Game of) Concentration and Fun With Numbers.  As of the time of this post, there is not a single (AGO) Concentration to be found on eBay, and there are only four Fun With Numbers carts, two of which are PAL format and one of which is missing its end label.  Everything else, including Flag Capture, can often be found for a few bucks.  I have no interest in ranking their rarity beyond pointing out that the two toughest to find are... the two toughest to find.  Those two titles have some similarities: both started off being sold under different titles (respectively: Hunt and Score, Basic Math), both were not very popular, and both still ended up getting (very rare) picture label re-releases late in the VCS game (1986, in the monochrome gray boxes).
 
Here's another interesting cart... check out this version of Superman.  What does the label reveal?
 

 
Copies of Superman with their copyright information on one line only contain a version of the ROM with a game-breaking glitch wherein one can avoid becoming Clark Kent by using x-ray vision for a few seconds when the game immediately starts.  The bridge still explodes and scatters pieces throughout the game world, but a second bridge remains in place, meaning you can win the game simply by rounding up Lex and his henchmen before going to the Daily Planet.  Wonder how they learned about this bug...
 
*Finishing up with a comment about what constitutes "complete" -- with Atari, I feel you sorta have to decide to draw the line somewhere.  Some titles were released with text in different colors (I believe Brain Games has the most color variants, but I'm not sure).  Some titles have labels with slightly different size text.  Some use slightly different fonts.  Here's an example of the font variation from my collection:
 

 
The Video Olympics cart is a later release, and uses a new styling of the original font -- some letters have gaps (check out the lowercase 'd' in Video Olympics compared to the one in Sky Diver), while some letters are totally different (check out the lowercase 'r' in "game program" , the angled stroke in the lowercase 'e', and the shape of the lowercase 'y' compared to the other cartridges).  Only a few cartridges were released in this second font style as far as I know.  The text labels for Championship Soccer, Dodge 'Em, Maze Craze, and Video Checkers were *only* released with this font style.
 
What I'm driving at here with all this is that my collection would balloon in size if I were to truly go for EVERY possible variation.  And really, I have no business judging anyone's collecting tendencies given my own fascination with minutiae, but I do question just how much joy a person can derive from having both the blue text Bowling *AND* the red text Bowling, you know?  But... to each their own! 

Dog walking...piddling...
 
I see what you did there.

Dog walking...piddling...
 
I see what you did there.

Hey, Rick, can I add that Jungle Hunt to the stack I'm saving up cash to pay you for?
 
I've been doing odd jobs like dog walking, etc., but the pay is only piddling, at best. But I will get that payment to you.

Some new additions to my Atari "For Trade" box.   In the middle are "Racquetball" and 5200 Pac Man.
 
(3D Tic Tac Toe is gone)
(Boxing is gone)
(Frogs & Flies is gone)

Bank Shot is really a lot of fun.  I've been playing it quite a bit and enjoying it. 

You will never believe this, but I, too, have a CIB Bank Shot here. Got it at an antique store awhile back.
 
Fun Fact: Bank Shot was programmed by Garry Kitchen and his brother, Steve.

Today's mail brings a Sega Game Gear (with the caps replaced) w/ Super Battletank, and a CIB Bank Shot Pool game.
 
 

Pshhh....Star Wars?  This was based on a much more important film:

Well, I figured I was paying for a flat rate box...and there was room....and see?  I was just getting my money's worth!

Various goodies from that Rowsdower fella.  Wii hunting game and gun attachment (he told me to be careful with that thing), a PS2 game, and 2600 Mega Force.  Is that a Star Wars game?  If not, it should be.  THANKS!
 
 

Well, I figured I was paying for a flat rate box...and there was room....and see?  I was just getting my money's worth!

Various goodies from that Rowsdower fella.  Wii hunting game and gun attachment (he told me to be careful with that thing), a PS2 game, and 2600 Mega Force.  Is that a Star Wars game?  If not, it should be.  THANKS!
 
 

Oh i have that wii game, but not that gun attachment. I think the game is fun

It is!

Today's mail brings a Sega Game Gear (with the caps replaced) w/ Super Battletank, and a CIB Bank Shot Pool game.
 
 

Forget the Ark..."of" and "the" are actually what's lost. 
 
This thread is gold.  Educational gold. 

"Le Tennis" -- hilarious!
 
As dumb as this looks, the explanation is pretty simple....it was probably an attempt to meet the Canadian labeling law.  I don't know if the law still applies to games/books, but I'm sure Activision was just playing it safe. 
 
And man, how cool are those?  I've never seen them before.  Thanks for sharing!

I might not mind trading for Desert Strike on SNES.  I used to really like that series on Genesis...I seem to remember Urban Strike being my favorite. 

SNES and N64 games for trade.  Yes, I know there's a lot of sports games here
 
(Power Rangers is off the list)
(Desert Strike is gone)

Enduro
Atari 2600
Difficulty: Default
High Score: 12,750
April 20, 2016