Do you own any rare games? (1 Viewer)

[Bryan^H]

Being a video game player/collector my whole life, from the Atari 2600 through current gen I have acquired some pretty rare games. I guess the rise of NES popularity has become the most surprising. There is a used video game very close to me and they opened in 1995. I have been frequenting there since they opened Usually once a month if not more. NES games there have always been $5 a piece for the most part, and of my 358 games for the NES, I'd say 98% were bought from them. I remember I passed up Duck Tales 2 in the late 90's because it was $20(That seemed like quite a bit for a loose NES game) but I did buy Fire & Ice for $10. I also got Mighty Final Fight, and Dragon Fighter for five bucks.


Games I bought original from Electronics Boutique which are a bit rare are Radical Rex for the Sega CD, and some games for the Sega Saturn(the prices on some games are skyrocketing) like Sega Ages, Sonic Jam. I have Little Samson for the NES which I paid $5 for in the late 90's, and strangely enough I saw it twice in the wild since I got that copy around that timeframe(apparently not so rare in my neck of the woods). I love Taito games, and Cadash for the Sega Genesis is one of my favorite games ever.


Working at Toys R US back in the day, I can kick myself for passing on Panzer Dragoon Saga which is now close to $600 Selling my entire Sega Genesis collection (78 games mint in box with instruction manuals all perfect)
for Geoffrey cash when I worked at TRU to buy a Sega Dreamcast(9/9/99) was also a mistake I think. It was nice having over $700 store credit per the buy back program and not spending a dime to get the Dreamcast and all the launch games, but man I really missed my Genesis collection after I lost it.

Do you own any rare games,and do you plan on keeping them or selling them?

 

[Sam Posten]

I own a working Vectrex with a half dozen games. Only thing rare in my collection

 

[Bryan^H]

I love the Vectrex. I remember playing it on the store display(Meijer)in 82' or 83.
I didn't havethe kind of money for one as a kid, and then they faded into obscurity. Wasn't until E-Bay until I saw one again. They fetch crazy prices mint in box.

 

[Sam Posten]

Mine is decidedly not mint =) I bought it at a computer flea market for like $50, best money I ever spent.

 

[Stan]

Don't know if they're rare, but still have several of the old Zork and Half-Life games. Even kept an old PC circa 1999? with a 1.44 floppy disc drive and a whopping 32 Mb. of memory. Wow, how things have changed.

 

[LeoA]

Count me as a Vectrex fan.

I think some of my rarest titles are for the Atari Jaguar. Battlesphere Gold in particular goes for a lot of money. And Skyhammer cost $80 new, although I think you can still buy that one new from Songbird Games so I suppose it can't be called rare when it's still available today from the publisher.

And my Cuttle Cart II for the Atari 7800, a reprogammable multicart that allows you to load up your 2600/7800 collection except for Pitfall II and a handful of modern homebrews onto a MMC card, goes for over $500 used when one happens to be available.

Will crash someday though when a more modern multicart becomes available.

 

[Ruz-El]

I have a bunch of old systems and games but never looked into cataloging them to see their value. One day I'll get to it ha ha.

 

[jcroy]

Galaxian for the Colecovision.

I don't know how rare it is, but it was released towards the end of Colecovision's market lifetime sometime during the great home video game market crash. I have never seen Galaxian on a store shelf back in the day.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I had Galaxian for the Atari 2600 as well as Commodore 64. None of my friends had a Colecovision and I only remember seeing them in KB Toys after the market crash when they were dumping the systems (along wigh various Atari systems and games) for pennys on the dollar. Since we already had a 2600 my parents passed on getting a Colecovision at that point.

 

[jcroy]

I had Galaxian for the Atari 2600 as well as Commodore 64.

I should have been more clear. Back in the day (circa mid-1980s), I don't think I ever saw a brand new shrink wrapped Colecovision version of Galaxian on a store shelf. I only found my copy at a thrift shop during the 1990s for 2 dollars.

In contrast, I remember the 2600 version of Galaxian being widely available back in the day. (Dunno about the 5200 version, which I don't recall ever seeing).

None of my friends had a Colecovision and I only remember seeing them in KB Toys after the market crash when they were dumping the systems (along wigh various Atari systems and games) for pennys on the dollar. Since we already had a 2600 my parents passed on getting a Colecovision at that point.

I remember the dump bins filled with old consoles and games shortly after the crash. At the time I was blissfully ignorant of the market condition for consoles, and thought it was cool that so many 2600 games were only $5 or less brand new shrinkwrapped.

It was only years later when I came to the realization that the market crash abruptly ended the lifecycle of the 2600, Colecovision, Intellivision, etc ...

 

[LeoA]

Galaxian for the 2600 is very common. Not quite to Pac-Man and Combat standards, but it's something that any 2600 fan today will acquire in short order since so many people had it.

Also pretty common to find for the Atari 5200, with AtariAge even having it labeled as a 1 in their rarity guide (On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being reserved for the rarest commercially released titles). Many a Galaxian, Super Breakout, Pac-Man, and other commons for the 5200 have been sacrificed in modern times to give up their plastic shells to modern homebrews like Adventure II.

The 2600 actually was revived after almost dying with the crash, thanks to the success of the NES making Atari realize that there was still life in the console marketplace. Millions of Atari 2600 Juniors were sold for $50 during the late 1980's into the early 1990's, scores of classics were rereleased, and Atari and Activision released several new games into the early 90's for the system. Atari even was heavily advertising it on tv during this time, such as this commercial from 1987 (Just don't ever insert a cart with the label facing you as shown in this commercial, since it's backwards ).



The Intellivision also was revived by INTV Corp, composed of some former Mattel employees, after the crash. But its business until the end came around 1990 was largely a mail order one and didn't have much of a presence at retail, so it passed by unnoticed by many people. That's also why many of the system's rarest and most valuable games like Diner, a sequel to Burgertime, are from this publisher.

 

[Bryan^H]

I have this. I saw one unused in its sealed Baggie sell for $5,000 on
E-Bay.

 

[Bryan^H]

.....Not that I believe E-Bay pricing is accurate. E-Bay is horrible when it comes to rare video games. It is the only collectible hobby I know of where a seller on E-Bay can actually dicatate the price of a rare game.
EXAMPLE:
Right now there is an opened copy of Trouble Shooters(complete in box with manual) for the Sega Genesis for $500. ??
Sealed the price value is $350, CIB $160 and just 3 weeks a go I missed out on a CIB copy(very nice) buy it now for $150. But because currently the only copy complete in box on E-Bay is a Buy It Now for $500, it will most likely sell at that, and cart only copies will end up going for $200 from here on.

It is frustrating because there are no rules in video game collecting. A comic book worth $50 is worth $50 on E-Bay(give or take a few bucks) but video games are like the wild west of hobby collecting. A game worth $100 can go for $500, or more because panic sets in if there aren't multiple copies available for a few weeks.