skellyetc

I wasn't really questioning your timing but rather merely pointing out that it was probably the worst possible timing for such a project. Of course I'm only referring to the shell part of it...the board looks very cool! Listen, I'm not even suggesting that you don't go ahead with it if that's what you want to do. This thread was pointed-out to me by a couple different people so I thought I'd come in and add my two cents. It's an awful lot of money and there are perfect shells available already. If there's enough interest beyond the shells that I have available, by all means you should go ahead with it. If not, I'm happy to sell you some shells at a reasonable price. As far as me posting my email address in the thread goes...the fact that I had to register here at Atari Age just to be able to post here should probably suggest that I don't do forums and I'm probably not hip to the etiquette. I didn't know that was impolite but given the fact that both my post and the original author's comments were intended as a service to the Vectrex community it would seem to me that it could be overlooked. Sean Kelly

A couple of things I'd like to clarify here... Regarding the "monopoly" that Richard says I've held long enough, the reason I have this so-called monopoly is because I paid for it. Around fifteen years ago now (where has the friggin time gone??) I was making my multi-cart and I was cannibalizing original "commons" for them. The commons were getting harder and harder to find and more and more expensive when I could find them so I decided I needed to do something about it. I sent an original shell to a company that measured every last line and curve and drew-up an exact blueprint of the shell. I then did some research and found a company in China that would take the blueprint and make a mold out of it. The mold I made is an EXACT copy of the original shell (sans the clips on the side which, as has been pointed-out in this thread add a lot to the cost) right down to the GCE copyright on the back. Keep in mind that this was all done at a time when no homebrew cartridges were being made. It was also done without any "fund raising" or "pre-orders" or "chipping-in". I paid for 100% of it out of my own pocket and I didn't complain about it. When all was said and done, I'd spent over $15,000 on the entire process including my first order of shells. Needless to say, it was not a popular topic of conversation with my wife... When homebrew games started to show up, I was only too happy to sell my shells at just a little over my cost to help facilitate the homebrewers bringing their games to market. The only thing that I didn't want to do was supply shells to folks who were making a product that competed with my multi-cart because my multi-cart is what enabled the shells to be made in the first place. Is that so unreasonable? If McDonald's spends a bunch of money and comes up with this new box that keeps their burgers hot ten times as long as what's available today, do you think they're going to sell them to Burger King? Or allow their distributors to do so? Burger King is certainly free to spend their money and make their own box as is anyone else who wants to make a Vectrex cartridge shell. The Vectrex shell market is just a wee bit more limited than the burger box market so in the case of the Vectrex, it's an awful lot of money to spend to re-invent the wheel. Anyway... My supplier in China has minimum orders that I have to meet in order to place an order. Generally that minimum is 1000 pieces but at that level, the price per piece is the highest. Colored shells are considered a separate order because they have to clean and re-tool the machine to make colored shells. Transparent colored shells are another story all together. Not only are they a separate minimum order, they also cost more than twice as much as the regular grey ones because in order to make them transparent, a different type of plastic has to be used that is much more expensive. Believe me, I'm far from a plastics "expert"...I'm just passing-along what I've been told. The few colored shells I've done, I've been able to beg and plead with the guy (which is a task in itself since I don't speak a lick of Chinese) and get him to let me do smaller runs of colored, transparent shells. I've made transparent blue, transparent red, clear, and transparent green. I think the most I have ever charged for my shells is about $2.50 apiece even in lower quantities for the standard grey ones and I almost ALWAYS have some in-stock. I generally do not keep colored shells in-stock. The only colored ones I've done have been of the transparent variety and all of them have been done for a special project or another. They cost twice as much or more depending on the quantities. It's kind of odd that this is being brought-up now of all times. A group of us JUST got together a few weeks ago and placed the largest order I've ever placed for Vectrex shells. There were several people in on the order and we bought around 5000 pieces. Everyone should be pretty much stocked-up for the foreseeable future. If anyone here did not get in on that order and would like some shells, just drop me a line as I have plenty of them in-stock. I'm on the gmail service as "skellyetc". I don't have webpage anymore...I don't really want one. I will be found at my gmail email address as long as Google offers it. You know...it bugs me when people talk about my involvement in the Vectrex community in a negative way. I have been buying/selling/collecting/trading/supporting the Vectrex and the Vectrex community for probably 25 years now. I spent a lot of my own time and a buttload of my own money making these shells and I sell them for a more than reasonable price. I could easily have charged twice what I charge for the shells but I don't. What more can I do? Sean Kelly