2600 Cartridge Organization

[ziggystar]

Ok, So you've got 200 Atari games. What is the best/cheapest way to organize them? Then when you do how do you organize them? By alphabet, by rarity? By which are your favorites?

[Witchfynde]

Ok, So you've got 200 Atari games. What is the best/cheapest way to organize them?

 

Boxes: if you don't have much of a collection, you can use shoeboxes; if you DO have a big collection, a, um...bigger box.

 

Then when you do how do you organize them? By alphabet, by rarity?

 

Mine's in the order I got 'em, personally.

 

By which are your favorites?

 

Tunnel Runner, Midnight Magic, Pitfall 2, Seaquest, H. E. R. O.

[Brad2600]

I have a nice wooden wine rack that I got from work and it holds all of my 100+ 2600 games(except for boxed games).

 

I organize by label....text labels alphabetically with other text labels, Sears labels, Activision, Imagic...etc. The Activision and Imagic carts are organized by company.

[BTHOTU]

I do mine by lable type and keep the favorites on top. they are in my entertainment system cabinet.

[ziggystar]

Well I called Best Electronics and they have those nice plastic snap together boxes that hold like 10 each. But they will only sell 5 per customer! Anyone have some they can sell me?

[Brian R.]

I've got a few custom made wood storage units - two hold 50 each, one holds 25. I've also got four of those snap together plastic ones. I've also got a small plastic tower for my MNetwork games

 

For my 7800 carts, I keep them in those book binders.

 

As for how the 2600 carts are organized, I've got 'em grouped by manufacturer - Atari, Activision, Imagic, 20th Century, etc. Within the Atari ones, they're organized by their CX numbers.

[sku_u]

I use plastic containers I get from the Container Store for $5 each. They are stackable and each one neatly fits around 50 carts. I keep my carts alphabetical by system. As I have well over 500 carts now between the three Atari systems alone, this is getting kind of tricky. Extras are thrown into my trade bin and are not alphabetical.

 

As for boxed games, I use a regular bookshelf and again place them alphabetically. Oversized items are neatly piled against the wall near the book shelf.

[SS]

I'm using Rubbermaid Snap-Top containers right now. However, Albert had a plastic drawer system at the PC that fit exactly four carts across and maybe 20-25 deep. I think he said that he got it at Office Max; I may need to check that shit out.

[ziggystar]

Doesn't somebody have some of those flip top cases that hold 40 or so for sale? I guess they are like gold now. I never see them on ebay. I got mine from a collection I bought. BOy if I had 4 of those even. I hate shoeboxes!

 

[Adriana]

I have shallow cardboard 'underneath the bed' boxes, that I got from Target. About two or three should hold all 200 cartridges.

 

I organize mine (and I have well over 500) by company -- and then within company, alphabetically.

 

I've also been thinking about having a separate section for paddle games, and keyboard controller games. Makes it easier when you've got them all in one spot.

[ATARIPITBULL]

I pretty much have mine set up like Adrian. I have mine in those huge plactic bins, ones for sealed games, and ones for complete games with box, ones for loose cartidges with instructions, ones for loose cartridges by them selves, ones for Controllers with boxes and ETC. I also have mine in alphabetical order from the companies they came from.

 

[ATARI TROLL]

I don't have any of the above mentioned. I do have mine stored in a wall shelf (4) to be exact with cabinet doors.

 

Cheers

[ziggystar]

I've seen pictures of cabinets that have atari carts in them. Are atari carts the same size as something else like beta tapes or 8 tracks? Or are people just building these themselves?

[christianscott]

i have a wooden wall shelf that fits 300 carts pretty nicely, i group them by label type or brand. for example i have all my atari red text on one shelf, telegames yellow on another, early atari lower case with border on another. i think the shelf was built to hold CDs. i have to keep the weird shelled ones on another display, the m networks, xonoxs. i did find a custom built 2600 shelf in a thrift that holds 50 carts, using that for my 7800's. roughly speaking you can get away with using those wooden "napa valley" CD and tape crates for video game purposes. the best trick i've found is using those wall mounted casette holders to store my gen and SMS carts.

[sku_u]

I've seen pictures of cabinets that have atari carts in them. Are atari carts the same size as something else like beta tapes or 8 tracks? Or are people just building these themselves?

 

There was another thread where someone bought a whole bunch of these nice wood stackables. I think they were 8 track shelves and made a truly awesome set up with these. He took pictures as well. I can't seem to find the thread, though

[MegaManFan]

Some individual companies I put in 14-16 cart "slot trays" or whatever you'd like to call them (the ones with the faux wood grain finish and a hole either in the middle or on the side). I've got red label Atari and blue label Activision all in one game console organizer, and US Games and CBS in another. Parker Bros, Apollo, etc all have their own stacks on my bookshelf, and then all the Atari and Activision carts are stacked seperately row by row by row in stacks of 16, alphabetical top to bottom. The Sears carts are all sorted the same way. LVARs and text labels I keep in seperate boxes stored on the shelf.