Will Best Electronics ever go O'Shea's on us?

[sqoon]

Had this thought tonight. What if the owner of Best Electronics ever gets tired of sitting on all that old inventory and just wants out of the Atari parts business? Could he possibly go the O'Shea's liquidation/scrap route and potentially leave so many 5200 owners without an option to repair our systems and controllers? Now it might sound far-fetched top some, but is possible. Is it time to stock up on some of his parts just in case?

[+save2600]

Nope, no liquidations to be sure - else he surely had have done it by now.

[jaybird3rd]

From the dealings I had with them, the O'Shea people didn't exactly strike me as "Atari people": they got their Atari inventory pretty much by accident, and only gave a damn about it as long as collectors were still buying it. Once the demand dried up (thanks in part to their price hikes), they got rid of it as quickly as they could, even though they would have gotten a lot more value out of those cartridges if they had cut their prices and sold them off in bulk as homebrew donors.

 

It's never a good idea to wait too long to buy in this hobby, whether it's from Best or B&C ComputerVisions or from vendors like Schell's Electronics who offer limited quantities of specific items like multicarts. None of these people will be around forever, which is why I recommend anticipating your future needs and picking up what you need from them while you still can. Schell's, for example, is now closed, and those who waited too long to get a Cuttle Cart 2 or 3 now have to pay a premium for them on the used market. I already know that I'll want to be an Atari user and player even after I retire, so I've tried to gather enough replacement parts and other supplies to keep my systems going for the rest of my life.

 

I somehow doubt that anything valuable that is left over when Brad or Bruce or any of those people decide to retire will be scrapped outright. They've invested years of time and effort in Atari and have established many relationships and contacts within the community of Atari users, so I'm sure they'll have very little trouble finding another home for their inventory when the time comes.

[Retro Rogue]

or from vendors like Schell's Electronics who offer limited quantities of specific items like multicarts.

 

Schell's is closed.

 

http://www.schells.com/

[jaybird3rd]

Schell's is closed.

 

http://www.schells.com/

True, unfortunately. I actually brought it up as an example of what happens if you wait too long, although I should have made that more explicit. I clarified it in my earlier post.

[Retro Rogue]

True, unfortunately. I actually brought it up as an example of what happens if you wait too long, although I should have made that more explicit. I clarified it in my earlier post.

 

My misunderstanding.

[Lynxpro]

I hope O'Shea's sold off all of the 7800 Ballblazer and Commando cartridges [wait, did they have any?] before they scrapped them...the loss of those POKEY chips would be a crime in this scene...

 

I wish I would've bought more back in the late 90s when they acquired all of that inventory but I was a broke university student who had soured on Atari after the Jaguar failed and Corp closed up.

[mmervine]

I was out in San Jose this week and stopped by and spoke with Bradley. He says he is still having a blast as an Atari dealer and has no plans to retire any time soon!

[jaybird3rd]

I hope O'Shea's sold off all of the 7800 Ballblazer and Commando cartridges [wait, did they have any?] before they scrapped them...the loss of those POKEY chips would be a crime in this scene...

 

I wish I would've bought more back in the late 90s when they acquired all of that inventory but I was a broke university student who had soured on Atari after the Jaguar failed and Corp closed up.

They didn't have any Commando carts, but they still had lots of Ballblazers. I made one last purchase from them, fifteen cases of Ballblazer and Jinks cartridges, when I learned that they were about to scrap their stock. Their prices became too unreasonable shortly after that, probably because they learned that the POKEY chips inside the Ballblazers made them more desirable. Most of my carts later became homebrew donors of one kind or another, so at least they were spared from the scrap heap.

 

I also wish I had bought more in the late 90s, when they were still selling sealed carts for as little as $0.80 each; I remember seeing a feature about their "Atari Cave" in Wired magazine around that time. I did manage to get at least one copy of every title they had while their prices were still low.