Holy F#@%! (Super-Massive Lot, Need Advice)

[Wickeycolumbus]

Suck.

 

..Al

 

 

For us it sucks sure, but for the collectable market in the end this is a good thing that these are gone. And he still has Jinks and Ballblazzer so it's all good in my books cause thats all he has that I have any intrest in anyhow.

 

1.2 million units gone BUT 30 thousand left. That is more donor boards then we all will ever use combined.

 

It's a shame to see those super chip games go though I suppose it's not that big of a problem now though, with the release of the Harmony/Melody right around the corner.

[homerwannabee]

So you guys lost out to a scrap dealer at with you bowing out at .20 cents a cart. This is not good at all. My guess is that the other scraper went at least a cent higher, and factor in the pain of disposing of the sealed boxes and loose manuals around the cart, then it could be very conceivable that these carts could be worth .22 cents a pop. This my friends is not good at all. My previous calculations are now out the window as for being Way,way,way too low. Gold is now around $1,100 an ounce. That means these carts are worth at least 2 cents per hundred dollars in gold. Meaning that if gold were to climb to $2,500 an ounce the hobby as we know it will go throw what will be known as the great smelt off. See at $2,500 an ounce these carts are worth .50 cents a cart. And here is the kicker while looking at gold prices I saw this article. It predicted gold to go to $5,000 an ounce by the end of 2010. If gold goes to this price as predicted than almost every single Atari 2600 auction will be won by the smelters. How can they not when they would become worth $1.00 a pop.

 

http://goldnews.bullionvault.com/gold_5000_111720091

Edited November 17, 2009 by homerwannabee

[Mirage]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

[homerwannabee]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

No here is the thing. O'sheas you have to deal with the boxes, and manuals, and you have to truck out the stuff as well. This all costs money. With Ebay they are shipping the carts right to your door step. Just wait a month or two after buying dozens, upon dozens of 100 game lots, and you have enough to go forward with the smelting.

[fiddlepaddle]

At least O'Shea's made some money. Atari had to PAY when it dumped a million ET carts...

[gdement]

This is disappointing. It would have been nice to be able to get like 1000 copies of something for homebrew conversion, if and when the need arises. It sounds like 2 board types will still be available, but they probably won't be cheap enough to be worth using.

I can see some potential use for clean/unused C100339 boards, but that one apparently won't survive. That's a pretty common board though.

[shadow460]

A match would take care of the box and docs. Just light a fire to them, simple as that. When it's done, all that's left is metal.

 

My offer for a few of the boxes and docs still stands, and I don't care if the carts come with them or not. These games are very easy to get when they're loose, but the books and boxes are another matter for someone like me who usually gets his games in the wild.

 

Out of that, the one I'd like to get the most is a Ballblazer box for my silver end label Ballblazer cart and its docs to go in. Then they can sit next to the red one on the shelf with my other games where they should be, not in some salt mine or some furnace.

 

Part of the trouble, though, is that it's not feasible to deal in small lots with this.

 

If this really is what's happening, though, I'll just wait until what I want comes up on Craigslist or comes into one of the local stores. They'll charge what it's actually worth...$1 each.

[+Allan]

Somebody should make a deal with the smelters. Strip the boxes and shells (these you keep) and give the boards to the smelters. It saves the shells and also saves the smelters from having to open the boxes and shells.

 

Allan

[Shawn]

This is disappointing. It would have been nice to be able to get like 1000 copies of something for homebrew conversion, if and when the need arises. It sounds like 2 board types will still be available, but they probably won't be cheap enough to be worth using.

I can see some potential use for clean/unused C100339 boards, but that one apparently won't survive. That's a pretty common board though.

 

 

339 boards are no real loss as the 565 board with SRAM on them are a better donor board anyhow. Jinks is a mix of 339 and 565 actually.

[gdement]

This is disappointing. It would have been nice to be able to get like 1000 copies of something for homebrew conversion, if and when the need arises. It sounds like 2 board types will still be available, but they probably won't be cheap enough to be worth using.

I can see some potential use for clean/unused C100339 boards, but that one apparently won't survive. That's a pretty common board though.

 

 

339 boards are no real loss as the 565 board with SRAM on them are a better donor board anyhow. Jinks is a mix of 339 and 565 actually.

 

True. The only special/interesting thing to me about the 339 is that it has a solder point connected to the Maria HALT pin. A long time ago somebody (I think supercat) mentioned the idea of using that for separate graphics/code banks. The 565 doesn't have a point connected to this.

The benefit would be that this way, you essentially double the addressable range.

While Maria is active, it could address 32KB of all graphics, but when the 6502 takes over it lands in a different address space.

 

This would only be useful if 64KB EPROMs are 28-pins... I think they are. 128KB and above won't fit though.

 

 

I assume the 339 Jinks carts are older builds, and that the later production that O'Sheas has are probably all 565's. I've never actually bought any of them though.

As you probably know, the 339 had some issues with RAM so I think in later production it was only used for non-RAM games.

Edited November 18, 2009 by gdement

[CPUWIZ]

Jinks is a mix of 339 and 565 actually.

 

I've struck deals with a seller on ebay for multiple lots of 20+ Jinks carts (I tell them to throw away the box and manual) and out of the 50+ I have turned into Sirius & Plutos, none were 339's.

[Dino]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

No here is the thing. O'sheas you have to deal with the boxes, and manuals, and you have to truck out the stuff as well. This all costs money. With Ebay they are shipping the carts right to your door step. Just wait a month or two after buying dozens, upon dozens of 100 game lots, and you have enough to go forward with the smelting.

Shipping would be a killer

[jaybird3rd]

I've struck deals with a seller on ebay for multiple lots of 20+ Jinks carts (I tell them to throw away the box and manual) and out of the 50+ I have turned into Sirius & Plutos, none were 339's.

I can't say I've seen a 339-based Jinks, either, and I've taken apart quite a few. Perhaps the early Jinks cartridges used them, as the 339 was (I believe) an earlier design than the 565.

 

Maybe it's overly dramatic to say it this way, but I'm still almost in a state of mourning over these lost cartridges. The 2600 inventory O'Shea had doesn't concern me so much; aside for the shells, the only really interesting items were the 2600 SuperChips inside Dig Dug, and I understand that even those have been made obsolete by newer solutions.

 

The loss of the 7800 cartridges is what really hurts. Even though they were all common titles, most of them were among the best the 7800 had to offer. If nothing else, they would have been so valuable and helpful to have as donors for new games. As I got my hopes up about this lot, I envisioned having a stockpile of inexpensive cartridges to use with my own 7800 games (when I finally finish them), and being able to do everything under one roof: developing the games in one room, and burning them to EPROMs and building cartridges in the next room. I had picked out a mix of cartridges that could have accommodated the requirements of any game idea I could imagine. My father and I were even planning a spring-loaded apparatus for easily desoldering ROMs and POKEYs. It would have been a very efficient little production line.

 

But now they'll all be scrapped, and given the small size of the 7800 homebrew scene (so far), replacements won't be so easy to come by. There have been attempts to make new shells, and there have been a few new 7800 boards made (I thought your gold-plated 48K boards in particular were excellent, CPUWIZ), and I suppose there are still other places to get old cartridges for the time being. But the O'Shea inventory was an almost inexhaustible one-stop source for everything, and somewhat reasonably priced even at $5 per cartridge, and I'm afraid that losing it will make new 7800 cartridge production more expensive and unpredictable.

 

Then again, maybe this will finally force the issue, and will create enough demand for a reliable source of new shells, new boards, and other solutions that haven't had enough of a market so far because of the steady availability of O'Shea's old stockpile. I guess we'll see.

Edited November 18, 2009 by jaybird3rd

[Mirage]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

No here is the thing. O'sheas you have to deal with the boxes, and manuals, and you have to truck out the stuff as well. This all costs money. With Ebay they are shipping the carts right to your door step. Just wait a month or two after buying dozens, upon dozens of 100 game lots, and you have enough to go forward with the smelting.

Shipping would be a killer

 

Exactly. I didn't even go into detail on all the reasons why Homer's scenario is not even remotely plausible. This plan is like going out into your yard with a sifter trying to find precious metals to sell. You probably would find some, but when you consider the value of time... not worth it. But this is a worse plan because you have shipping costs to deal with, not to mention bad ebayers LOL...

[dommie]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

No here is the thing. O'sheas you have to deal with the boxes, and manuals, and you have to truck out the stuff as well. This all costs money. With Ebay they are shipping the carts right to your door step. Just wait a month or two after buying dozens, upon dozens of 100 game lots, and you have enough to go forward with the smelting.

 

Don't count on it. It was extremely hard to track down a refiner that would even take them. The gold quantity is so small and the labor so extensive per game.

[dommie]

Somebody should make a deal with the smelters. Strip the boxes and shells (these you keep) and give the boards to the smelters. It saves the shells and also saves the smelters from having to open the boxes and shells.

 

Allan

 

Don't count on it. These things get pulverized in order to get sorted and separate the board from the rest.

[homerwannabee]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

No here is the thing. O'sheas you have to deal with the boxes, and manuals, and you have to truck out the stuff as well. This all costs money. With Ebay they are shipping the carts right to your door step. Just wait a month or two after buying dozens, upon dozens of 100 game lots, and you have enough to go forward with the smelting.

 

Don't count on it. It was extremely hard to track down a refiner that would even take them. The gold quantity is so small and the labor so extensive per game.

If this is true, than why did you guys lose out to a gold refiner? If this was true you should of easily won the bid at .10 cents a cart, but you lost out at .20 cents a cart.

[Mirage]

Homer, you really are not realizing the quantity difference to a smelter or other business person between over a million carts at once, and dozens or even hundreds at a time, with all the labor and shipping and time overhead differences in each case. The "Great Atari Cart Smeltoff" scenario exists in your imagination and in your imagination only.

[dommie]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

No here is the thing. O'sheas you have to deal with the boxes, and manuals, and you have to truck out the stuff as well. This all costs money. With Ebay they are shipping the carts right to your door step. Just wait a month or two after buying dozens, upon dozens of 100 game lots, and you have enough to go forward with the smelting.

 

Don't count on it. It was extremely hard to track down a refiner that would even take them. The gold quantity is so small and the labor so extensive per game.

If this is true, than why did you guys lose out to a gold refiner? If this was true you should of easily won the bid at .10 cents a cart, but you lost out at .20 cents a cart.

 

We didn't lose out to a gold refiner, we lost out to another scrap guy. Our E-scrap gold refiner was setting our bidding prices because he's the ultimate buyer. His prices are contingent on several things (pre-brokering some/all of the gold, future gold price speculation, etc.). Of course they are worth more than $0.20 a cart in raw material, but we need to be able to make money off of them or else we're not making a living. You're not even factoring that the plastic has recycle value, as does the cardboard. But at a certain point, the profit margin becomes too small that it's not worth it. That was our point we reached at $0.20. And you haven't begun to factor other realities in like these things exist halfway across the country from where we are. What do you think it costs to freight in 1.2M games? ($25k-30k or so) What about storage? This has an ultimate cost as well.

[homerwannabee]

Homer, you really are not realizing the quantity difference to a smelter or other business person between over a million carts at once, and dozens or even hundreds at a time, with all the labor and shipping and time overhead differences in each case. The "Great Atari Cart Smeltoff" scenario exists in your imagination and in your imagination only.

Well see. I really hope your right. It is the fact that even at 1 million units that a smelter feels they are worth the trouble. It is the fact that right now carts are being smelted into gold. Let's be honest if someone told you a month ago that these carts would be smelted for gold, would you of believed it? The answer is no.

 

Also here is board member Classics stating that he has already had 5200 boards bought by a gold refiner. So if this could happen already what makes you think it won't happen at a higher price. This person did not have thousands of boards, he only had hundreds.

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/149772-230-5200-games-20-shipping/page__view__findpost__p__1827316

[Mirage]

Homer, you really are not realizing the quantity difference to a smelter or other business person between over a million carts at once, and dozens or even hundreds at a time, with all the labor and shipping and time overhead differences in each case. The "Great Atari Cart Smeltoff" scenario exists in your imagination and in your imagination only.

Well see. I really hope your right. It is the fact that even at 1 million units that a smelter feels they are worth the trouble. It is the fact that right now carts are being smelted into gold. Let's be honest if someone told you a month ago that these carts would be smelted for gold, would you of believed it? The answer is no.

 

Also here is board member Classics stating that he has already had 5200 boards bought by a gold refiner. So if this could happen already what makes you think it won't happen at a higher price. This person did not have thousands of boards, he only had hundreds.

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/149772-230-5200-games-20-shipping/page__view__findpost__p__1827316

 

Yes, of course things like this will happen on a small scale. The world is large enough that little things happen all the time that you wouldn't normally expect (outlying events). But with all the items out there with gold in them, to think that gold smelters/dealers will in quantity start looking for Atari carts specifically... is a bit far fetched. And yes, I would have believed this happening a month ago for a quantity of a million+ carts, absolutely. It's all in quantity with things like this. Getting a large quantity all at once... it's called batching for efficiency to make it worth while. Your "higher price" puts these carts at a value of $1.00 each, but you have to take out of that all of your other expenses/overhead/shipping/time... this is a very unlikely scenario. A million carts... not unlikely... a hundred(s) carts at a time in any significant amount... not likely at all.

 

At least your posts are always interesting to read though.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Mirage1972

[homerwannabee]

Homer, I don't think the gold smelters are going to be going after ebay auctions or whatever, even in lots, for $1.00 a cart. It wouldn't be profitable at all. Not worth their time. The only way this would be even remotely profitable, even at $5,000/ounce is in extremely large lots like the O'Shea's lot, and even then only if they were cheap enough for them to still make a good profit. Really absolutely think you are being a wee bit overly paranoid about this.

No here is the thing. O'sheas you have to deal with the boxes, and manuals, and you have to truck out the stuff as well. This all costs money. With Ebay they are shipping the carts right to your door step. Just wait a month or two after buying dozens, upon dozens of 100 game lots, and you have enough to go forward with the smelting.

 

Don't count on it. It was extremely hard to track down a refiner that would even take them. The gold quantity is so small and the labor so extensive per game.

If this is true, than why did you guys lose out to a gold refiner? If this was true you should of easily won the bid at .10 cents a cart, but you lost out at .20 cents a cart.

 

We didn't lose out to a gold refiner, we lost out to another scrap guy. Our E-scrap gold refiner was setting our bidding prices because he's the ultimate buyer. His prices are contingent on several things (pre-brokering some/all of the gold, future gold price speculation, etc.). Of course they are worth more than $0.20 a cart in raw material, but we need to be able to make money off of them or else we're not making a living. You're not even factoring that the plastic has recycle value, as does the cardboard. But at a certain point, the profit margin becomes too small that it's not worth it. That was our point we reached at $0.20. And you haven't begun to factor other realities in like these things exist halfway across the country from where we are. What do you think it costs to freight in 1.2M games? ($25k-30k or so) What about storage? This has an ultimate cost as well.

So if I get this right you offered $240,000 for the games, and the cost to move them is and extra $25,000 to $30,000. That right there means you in reality were paying 22.5 cents a cart. Then you add in labor costs, and profit margin, and the smelting costs, and it would not be too far of a stretch to say that they are worth at least 25 cents a cart.

 

Here is one thing to remember as well. Even if gold goes up. The cost to refine this games remains the same.

[homerwannabee]

Homer, you really are not realizing the quantity difference to a smelter or other business person between over a million carts at once, and dozens or even hundreds at a time, with all the labor and shipping and time overhead differences in each case. The "Great Atari Cart Smeltoff" scenario exists in your imagination and in your imagination only.

Well see. I really hope your right. It is the fact that even at 1 million units that a smelter feels they are worth the trouble. It is the fact that right now carts are being smelted into gold. Let's be honest if someone told you a month ago that these carts would be smelted for gold, would you of believed it? The answer is no.

 

Also here is board member Classics stating that he has already had 5200 boards bought by a gold refiner. So if this could happen already what makes you think it won't happen at a higher price. This person did not have thousands of boards, he only had hundreds.

 

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/149772-230-5200-games-20-shipping/page__view__findpost__p__1827316

 

Yes, of course things like this will happen on a small scale. The world is large enough that little things happen all the time that you wouldn't normally expect (outlying events). But with all the items out there with gold in them, to think that gold smelters/dealers will in quantity start looking for Atari carts specifically... is a bit far fetched. And yes, I would have believed this happening a month ago for a quantity of a million+ carts, absolutely. It's all in quantity with things like this. Getting a large quantity all at once... it's called batching for efficiency to make it worth while. Your "higher price" puts these carts at a value of $1.00 each, but you have to take out of that all of your other expenses/overhead/shipping/time... this is a very unlikely scenario. A million carts... not unlikely... a hundred(s) carts at a time in any significant amount... not likely at all.

 

At least your posts are always interesting to read though.

My point is this. As gold increases, then it goes from not likely, to somewhat likely, to an unknown amount of likeliness. And I will concede that even at a higher price there probably has to be at least 100 carts involved, and given the fact that most auctions are much lower than that, perhaps the doomsday scenario is not so bad. But the likeliness of carts being smelted into gold does go up with the price of gold going up. Simple intuition will tell you that.

Edited November 18, 2009 by homerwannabee

[+cvga]

I'm sending all of my carts to Ca$h4Gold! If I hurry, I can get 25% more cash (compared to their standard payout rate).

[homerwannabee]

I'm sending all of my carts to Ca$h4Gold! If I hurry, I can get 25% more cash (compared to their standard payout rate).

I sense this is the beginning of thread fail! Yep, I will be pounded mercilessly for my overreaction.