Atari 1988 black picture label reissues

[Room 34]

I am wondering if anyone has rarity information on the 1988 black picture label reissues Atari put out.

 

These came in grayscale boxes, and the cart labels have fairly poor-quality reproductions of the original artwork, in color, apparently taken from the original instruction manuals and not from the original carts -- the Atari logo and CX numbers are smaller.

 

Also, the labels are not just reproductions of the originals, with a new copyright date pasted in... because they never have the line mentioning which controller to use.

 

I have a couple of these that I got recently sealed-in-box (although of course I opened them). Canyon Bomber and Homerun.

 

There's no differentiation of these in the rarity guide (although they do appear in the Giant List of Label Variations), but I think they're different enough to warrant a separate rarity assessment.

 

Does anyone know how many of these reissues Atari produced?

[sku_u]

How different are they appearance wise? i didn't even know Atari had black label reissues in 1988. Interesting.

[Room 34]

At first glance you might think they were the originals.

 

I will try to find some time to scan them. But for now I'll describe them.

 

The print quality on them is pretty poor. They look basically like the originals, but are definitely recreations, not reprints.

 

Bauhaus font is used (same as the originals). The "game program" text in white at the top is there, followed by the game title. Where the "Use with _____ Controllers" text would be, it's just black.

 

Then the image. As I said, it's the original art, but it looks like they reproduced it from the old instruction manuals (shrunken down to fit), because the Atari logo and CX number are much smaller than on the old cartridges. At the bottom (I'm doing this from memory), it says:

 

Made in Taiwan. ©1988 ATARI CORP.

[CincYnoTi]

for atari games, there are only a few label variations that have different rarity assigned. most text and picture label versions of the same game have the same rarity. here are a few exceptions where there are different rarity for different label variations:

 

graviter silver vs red

original numbered games such as combat vs 01 combat

asteroids picture vs silver

space invaders picture vs silver vs red

flag capture text vs picture

 

flag capture happens to be one of the few games where the 1986 re-release is the only picture label available. concentration, fun with numbers and blackjack picture labels are three others which did not have pre-1984 picture labels released. other than these, there are not many of these re-issues shown on atariage...homerun is one of the few:

 

http://www.atariage.com/cart_page.html?Sof...ItemTypeID=CART

 

the giant list of label variations is the best reference i have seen. of the roughly 60 text/picture atari releases, only about 15 have NOT had re-releases reported found (such as space war, star ship, video chess). that doesn't mean they don't exist, just nobody has cataloged finding one yet (think about sears picture superman). i have about 35 of these titles. anyone have 1986 outlaw, warlords, indy, haunted house, star raiders, or 1987 adventure they want to trade???

[Room 34]

Yup... that's the Homerun I have.