Insights on Espial, Sword of Saros and Survival Island...

[MattG/Snyper2099]

Ok,

Is it just me or is Espial impossible to find? There hasn't been one on ebay in 4 months now! Certainly it has to be rarer than a 6! It comes up less frequently than halloween or any other rarity 7 cart for that matter. It even shows up fewer times than most rarity 9 carts!

 

Also, are Sword of Saros and Survival Isalnd really 8's? I've been watching ebay for 6 years now and have only seen these one time each.

 

I have an additional insight to the swords of saros/survival island games. Does anyone else own copies that have black numbers on the side of them printed like serial numbers? My carts read "36" and "37" and I am wondering what numbers other peoples' carts have on them? I think it is highly unlikely that more than 500 of each of these games were sold by mail order. Shouldn't each of these be a 9 or a 10 if these numbers are accurate?

 

MattG.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

I've edited the title as well as the description of this post. That is why I bumped it. Does anyone else not care about finding out this numbering sequence used by starpath???

 

MattG.

[sku_u]

Rarity 5 and 6 games tend to show up less frequently on Ebay because they don't command high prices. If someone sold one for a lot of money, four auctions for this specific title would pop up right after. Even though I don't own a copy of Espial, I've seen it being sold with other games pretty frequently on Ebay.

 

One last comment: Ebay is not a good guage of rarity.

[CPUWIZ]

I have had at least 3 Espial's in the last couple of years, I 'upraded' in condition until I got a NIB one.

 

Now if I could only get the box + instructions for River Patrol and Miner II, my Tigervision collection would be complete.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

One last comment: Ebay is not a good guage of rarity.

I don't think it is either. Not by itself anyway. Rarity, to me, shouldn't only be based on ebay frequency but, it is a piece of the pie.

 

MattG.

[smile_walle]

I am very lucky, I do have Mint shape of Tigervision Espial (complete in box). I agreed with you seem very very rare and hard to get. Its seem should move from 6 to 8?

 

Hear soon

 

Jason

[Marco]

Have you guys forgotten about the giant flux of NIB Espial games that flooded eBay a year ago. There were actually TWO sellers that were both sitting on a HUGE stack of them, one in Canada and one in the US. The price that they were getting for their NIB Espials dropped rapidly from around $40 to around $15-$20 in the end. They both stopped selling them, but they are probably just waiting till the market picks up again to sell some more of their stock.

 

Not to be controversial, but I do believe Espial is only a rarity 4.

 

Cheers,

Marco

[smile_walle]

Have you guys forgotten about the giant flux of NIB Espial games that flooded eBay a year ago. There were actually TWO sellers that were both sitting on a HUGE stack of them, one in Canada and one in the US. The price that they were getting for their NIB Espials dropped rapidly from around $40 to around $15-$20 in the end. They both stopped selling them, but they are probably just waiting till the market picks up again to sell some more of their stock.

 

Not to be controversial, but I do believe Espial is only a rarity 4.    

 

Cheers,

Marco

 

Well....I seem overlook and didnt noticed what you explained about two seller does have huge stock of Tigervision Espial (CIB).

 

I just need the name of two seller and I could contact them to see what they said to me.

 

Jason

[MattG/Snyper2099]

Have you guys forgotten about the giant flux of NIB Espial games that flooded eBay a year ago. There were actually TWO sellers that were both sitting on a HUGE stack of them, one in Canada and one in the US. The price that they were getting for their NIB Espials dropped rapidly from around $40 to around $15-$20 in the end. They both stopped selling them, but they are probably just waiting till the market picks up again to sell some more of their stock.

 

Not to be controversial, but I do believe Espial is only a rarity 4.    

 

Cheers,

Marco

 

Just because someone has a stack of Espials doesn't mean that it is a rarity four. Most rarity fours sold at least 250,000 units back in the day. I doubt seriously that this is the case with Espial. Unless, each of those people selling on ebay has 125,000 espials to sell. I am suggesting that it may be just as rare as springer or miner volume II, that's all. I'm trying to keep a straight head here but, a rarity 4? I don't think so.

 

I remember very clearly the espials selling on ebay and never bought one. But, if I see them pop up again I'll probably grab one just for the instructions.

 

Also, I wanted to mention I do own a loose copy of this game and purchased it from another collector, not ebay.

 

I also wanted to mention an auction I saw on ebay about two years back. It had roughly 60 sealed atari 2600 games. Most of the titles were common and there were many duplicates. Among the lot were 2 sealed crazy climbers. Now, since this individual sold this lot, I've seen 3 or 4 sealed crazy climbers on ebay in the last 2 years. Now, does this mean that a sealed crazy climber souldn't be a rarity? I think not.

 

Just because someone gets lucky and finds a stockpile of rare carts, that doesn't make them any less or more rare, just easier to immediately acquire.

 

MattG.

[Pitfall Harry]

Here's a recent Espial sighting...

 

Espial

 

 

Ben

[CPUWIZ]

Here's a recent Espial sighting...

 

Espial

 

 

Ben

 

And that one wasn't the only one.

[Marco]

Just because someone gets lucky and finds a stockpile of rare carts, that doesn't make them any less or more rare, just easier to immediately acquire.

 

I think most rarity lists are based on availability, not factual rarity. You'd be surprised by the low number of collectors out there. If someone were to find 100 boxed Gauntlets, that would pretty much fill up the wants of people who collect boxed games. I found a batch of Yoko game copiers once. By the time I had sold/traded them, the market was pretty much saturated.

 

Now you could argue that this wouldn't change the rarity of these items, but since we almost have no figures on production runs, it's availability (and desireability, but that's another matter) that determines rarity.

 

Most rarity ratings are based on a mix of availability and demand. After all, isn't that exactly the reason why people would want to give Espial a higher rating - because it supposedly didn't appear on eBay all that much in the past couple of months?

 

On a sidenote, I've noticed many people get upset when I or others claim that a certain game may not be as rare as we previously thought it to be. Perhaps they think it affects the status of their collection or something. Please note that I have no intention (nor gain) to play down anyone's collection. But as a general rule, I think Atari 2600 games are just not as rare as we have been thinking. They simply made too many of most games, and there's too few of us to collect them all.

 

Cheers,

Marco

[MegaManFan]

Most rarity ratings are based on a mix of availability and demand. After all, isn't that exactly the reason why people would want to give Espial a higher rating - because it supposedly didn't appear on eBay all that much in the past couple of months?

 

After thinking about it for a long time though, I've determined in my own mind that the AtariAge system is the right one. Now if a large cache of Music Machines or Video Lifes suddenly appeared on eBay and were all legit, I could see that as a reason to bump them down from 10 to 9. Other than that though, basing the rarity on the known productions numbers and availability as opposed to the DEMAND is always the best practice. On a good day, London Blitz or Wall Ball could sell for more than Gas Hog, just based on demand, and Chase the Chuckwagon could sell for more than Obelix. Just depends on how many people on eBay want it that day, and has nothing to do with the game's actual rarity.

 

On a sidenote, I've noticed many people get upset when I or others claim that a certain game may not be as rare as we previously thought it to be. Perhaps they think it affects the status of their collection or something. Please note that I have no intention (nor gain) to play down anyone's collection. But as a general rule, I think Atari 2600 games are just not as rare as we have been thinking. They simply made too many of most games, and there's too few of us to collect them all.

 

Cheers,

Marco

 

Well I can understand people taking it personally, especially if they spent a large amount of money to collect some of the "high end" Atari rarities. But I do think you underestimate the number of collectors Marco. The number who would pay "big ticket price" for a rarity might be small, but the number who would buy and play the 50 cent to $1 games is MUCH significantly larger.

[Tempest]

Why is it that all Survival Islands and Sword of Saros tapes say PAL in the corner? I thought no one had found a PAL version or that they were very very rare. Is this a common typo on NTSC versions of the game?

 

Tempest

[Marco]

After thinking about it for a long time though, I've determined in my own mind that the AtariAge system is the right one.  Now if a large cache of Music Machines or Video Lifes suddenly appeared on eBay and were all legit, I could see that as a reason to bump them down from 10 to 9.  Other than that though, basing the rarity on the known productions numbers and availability as opposed to the DEMAND is always the best practice.

 

I agree, but I've almost never seen reliable production numbers. So, all rarity ratings, IMO, will always be a case of negotiated truth. The rarity of a game is what we, as a community, agree it is. I'm sure you scientists will frown upon this postmodernist approach, but I think it's what we will have to settle for.

 

Also, there's always the tricky difference between rarity and value. I may have mixed them up. It seems though that it's obvious that value is based also on desireability. It also seems to me that rarity is based upon it - albeit partly - as well.

 

Well I can understand people taking it personally, especially if they spent a large amount of money to collect some of the "high end" Atari rarities.

 

Heh, trust me, I've been (and still am) there myself. I've probably spent too much money on dozens of games. Do I regret that? Of course, I do find it frustrating to see certain games sell for way less. But then again, seeing those games as part of my collection makes me forget. And then it really doesn't matter if a game is a rarity 4 or 7. At least, not to me.

 

But I do think you underestimate the number of collectors Marco.  The number who would pay "big ticket price" for a rarity might be small, but the number who would buy and play the 50 cent to $1 games is MUCH significantly larger.

 

You're probably right. I wonder though what the result on rarity is of that big army of low-end collectors. Perhaps they may just enlarge the gap between items that are deemed to be really common and really rare?

 

I'll gladly repeat my theory on rarity here: :wink:

 

95% of Atari 2600 games are more or less common, meaning that every collector will eventually get their hands on them. The remaining 5% are more or less rare, meaning that only the lucky, the rich and the foolish will own them.

 

Plausible theory or not, I hope you all enjoy your games, for whatever reason. Don't let me spoil your fun because I say that a certain game is of a certain rarity.

 

Cheers,

Marco

[CPUWIZ]

Here is another one ...

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...3019837602&rd=1

[Godzilla]

I got a really nice loose espail off of ebay several months ago for in the $15 range. Is espial the only produced xevious-type shooter out there?

 

I've got both sword of saros and survival island, but that is only becuase I bought them from Triton back in the day... I've never seen them anywhere since.

[sly]

Tempest Said:

 

 

Why is it that all Survival Islands and Sword of Saros tapes say PAL in the corner? I thought no one had found a PAL version or that they were very very rare. Is this a common typo on NTSC versions of the game?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tempest, they all say, I believe either it is a typo or one side is NTSC while the other is PAL.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

I think it is a typo. Mine both say PAL and there are both NTSC???