CV Dacman, Steamroller, and VCS Ice Hockey Sealed

[thegamepeddler]

Considering eBay ditched my original account, I'm a bit surprised this one still exists. I'm even more surprised that I remember the password! Anyway, cutting to the chase: I have three auctions up on eBay. This represents some rare/unusual stuff. A circa 2000 ColecoVision Dacman complete. A circa 2000 ColecoVision Steamroller complete, and a retail sealed, new-in-box Atari 2600 Ice Hockey complete with retail tags and all that jazz. The auctions:

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 302581098352

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 302581106034

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 302581113936

 

Short story long: I originally got back into classic gaming in the late 90's because I was obsessed with my neighbor's ColecoVision round abouts 82-83 when he got it. In large part this was because he and my older brother would torture me with it. They would promise to let me play and then ALWAYS renege at the last minute. This thing was AWESOME back in the day! I got to play Smurf like 1 time for 5 minutes and that burned ColecoVision into my psyche forever.

Fast forward about 15 years, and I decide to look it up on eBay. They were only about $30-40! I bought one, and got absolutely hooked. I wanted to know more about it. I also hunted for classic gaming stuff at thrift stores and garage sales relentlessly. And those were the salad days, man. This stuff was out there in the wild for the taking, and almost everyone thought it was junk. So I seriously bought everything I saw. Later that year, the retro craze exploded, and prices were going through the roof. That Xmas I made something like 2 grand on eBay selling the stuff I found in thrift stores, which was a big deal back then in the days before power sellers and mountains of Chinese crap. Really I got into it kind of late, so most of the really interesting, truly rare stuff had already been found, but I had a lot of fun hunting.

I started going through eBay, auction by auction, trying to find good deals on lots. I realized there's tons of analytical data there, and most ColecoVision price and rarity guides didn't line up with what was happening on eBay. So I started compiling the data, and came up with The Game Peddler's Guide to ColecoVision. I put it together as an HTML file, and charged $1.25 for it. It was so ridiculous, but something like a dozen people bought it! That's how crazy things were in classic gaming at the time. The lunacy of it. The stupidity of it. The audacity of it. Anyway, I continued buying, fixing, and reselling. I continued to refine my guide.

I was lucky enough to be around for the first CGE, and since I live in southern California, I had the fortune to attend. I don't think I got my copy of Steamroller there. I'm pretty sure it came in the mail some time after the show. The game I wanted at CGE was Ms. Space Fury. But I missed it because my friend and I were so overwhelmed by the smokiness of The Plaza, we had to take a break, which happened to coincide with when MSF went on sale at the show.

I talked to Daniel Bienvenu fairly regularly at that point through email or aim or icq or something. I was always interested in ColecoVision's true potential, and would constantly grill him about what the hardware could do since he was the programming expert at the time. These conversations, and my respect for him are how I came about acquiring the Dacman copy.

I don't remember how I got the Ice Hockey. It was probably in one of the many eBay or auction lots I bought containing classic gaming stuff.

The exact timing on this is fuzzy, but at some point I took my substantial classic gaming horde and put it into storage. It was a fair amount of stuff. I had a 19" crt monitor box filled to the brim with Atari 2600 carts. I had at least one of every major console from the 2600 to Playstation. I didn't ever really have a lot of rare stuff, nor did I really collect it. I enjoyed getting good deals, fixing items up, and turning them over. (and I liked playing them!) Some people gave me flak for it. I provided a service to a willing audience, and I had fun doing it.

Anyway, this storage unit was costing me, so I threw the entire lot, EVERYTHING I had, on eBay. It sold for $600. For the life of me I can't remember the name of the guy that bought it, but it was someone I was familiar with from the classic gaming community. He drove about 300 miles from Fresno to pick this stuff up with a horse trailer. It was hilarious. We loaded everything up onto the trailer, and that was the end of my classic gaming eBay days. I hung onto a few things: the 3 games mentioned, and a fully functional Vectrex that I found in a thrift store for $10. I offer the games to a new owner rather than have them sit in my closet half-forgetten any longer. The Vectrex is mine to keep. Think of it as the cart hunter's equivalent of a 10-point buck. There are two consoles in my living room: My PS4 Pro and my freakin' VECTREX! Thanks for listening.

 

EDIT: You know, it's funny, but I just read through a bunch of stuff, and apparently I'm fairly hazy on some of these events. I have several posts on here from 2006. I don't remember that AT ALL. Now I'm not sure if I was at the first CGE or CGE 2k. I THOUGHT I only went to one, but I could swear I was at the one where Ms. Space Fury was released. That was apparently 2003? and I KNOW I was at one before that. I posted a pic on these forums in '06 taken at CGE 2k1, and I'm nearly positive *I* took that picture. Memory is a strange thing.

 

EDIT2: oh, while going through my old posts, I came across Will Berdan. I'm pretty sure he's the one that bought all my stuff. His eBay handle was different than here, I believe, but have no recollection what.

 

EDIT3: more research into my own past... I believe what happened is that I received both Dacman and Steamroller in 2000 by mail. I attended CGE 2k1, and only 2k1, which is where I missed nabbing a first run Ms. Space Fury by about 5 minutes. Break from the smoke story is true.

Edited December 29, 2017 by thegamepeddler