Why is this 2600 going for so much?

Wickeycolumbus · January 19, 2009

A light sixer with Football, Combat, Home Run, Freeway, Bowling, Asteroids, Battlezone, Fishing Derby, and Sky Diver. Why is it $53.99? Am I missing something?

http://www.shopgoodwill.com/viewItem.asp?ItemID=4380579

Stan · January 19, 2009

That's a decent set-up, but I agree. However, I must say, it depends on the bidder for most of this stuff. Though there are plenty of knowledgeable collectors out there, there are likely three times that amount in middle-life-crisis freaks and people who just want to remember their youths a bit. Just takes a few of those to get high bids. Case in point, I sold a 2600 with original paperwork, two buggy controllers, a set of paddles with the wire broken (though they worked) and typical crap games (He-Man, Combat, Tennis, Missle Command, Air Sea Battle) and I got $45 for it. Just takes the right bidder, and since they don't usually have the sense to check other auctions, they tend to keep bidding on whatever they start bidding on. This phenomenon explains why something unrelated like Fireball Island will continue to go for hundreds of dollars in spite of the fact that there are usually ten up for sale per two weeks. People just start bidding and don't think. Plus, though it sucks, lots of these thrift stores know that people come in looking for cheap stuff to resale for huge profit, so lots of them try to sell it for more.

Edited January 19, 2009 by Stan

Zwackery · January 20, 2009

I think Stan makes some good points, and I'd like to add that, when shopgoodwill.com first went online, you could get really good deals, but as more people became aware of it, a lot of those cheap-o deals went away, yet there are still people bidding on there who seem to be operating under the impression that they are getting a better deal on shopgoodwill than they could get on eBay or elsewhere.

Of course, maybe the bidders are looking at it as a charitable donation, too.