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Vectrex Overlay Reproductions


SeanKelly

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Vectrex Overlay Reproductions
It's TIME!
I have been involved in the Vectrex collecting community for over THIRTY YEARS now! I started a classic videogame collecting BBS back in 1989 that had a Vectrex section! I never had a Vectrex back when it was originally released in the early 1980s but as a collector it soon became one of my favorites. Over the years the games were hard enough to find but more often than not, even when I was able to find them, the overlays did not accompany the cartridges.
Over the past thirty years there have been several attempts to reproduce the elusive Vectrex overlays. Several people have tried printing them on various surfaces at home and while there have been some valiant efforts, nobody has been able to achieve the same level of quality as the originals. The problem is that it is very tricky to match the color and clarity of the originals and virtually nobody has been able to match the thickness because, well, it's just not possible to do at home. I always knew that someday, someone would figure it out. THAT DAY IS TODAY!
For the past 7-10 months I have been working with several different printers to try and come up with the perfect Vectrex overlay reproduction. During that time I have accumulated a stack of about 100 attempts that were unacceptable to me for one reason or another. After so many failed attempts, thousands of dollars, a few pissed-off printers and hundreds of hours, I finally have the ability to print an overlay that is the perfect size, shape, thickness and clarity as the original Vectrex overlays.
The results can be seen in the form of the overlays that have been available through my website for several weeks now such as Pitcher's Duel, Cube Quest, Tour De France, Multi-Cart and most recently Minestorm. The reaction has been nothing but positive.
In addition to overcoming the printing obstacles, I have spent months (and enlisted the help of some friends such as Tony Holcomb) recreating the artwork for each and every overlay from scratch. Just scanning the overlays and printing from the scans would not do this project justice. Every overlay was redrawn by hand pixel by pixel! The results are amazing if I do say so myself! But don't take my word for it, take a look at some of the comparison pictures below to judge for yourself.
Even if you already have some or even all of the original Vectrex overlays, having a set of these to use will allow you to put your rare originals away for safe keeping. To differentiate these reproductions from the originals every reproduction is clearly and permanently marked "REPRODUCTION" on the face of the overlay. In most cases, without this marking it would be nearly impossible to tell the difference between the original and these reproductions!
 
PRE-ORDER DETAILS
 
These overlays are not cheap to print and as much as I hate to do it, I need help covering the printing costs so for the next 30 DAYS, I will be taking discounted pre-orders for a full set of 27 Vectrex overlays!
The "full set" consists of every GCE released Vectrex game. Unreleased titles such as Tour De France or Dark Tower, for example, are NOT included in the set since they were never officially released. All of the 21 other released titles that were sold with overlays are included. In addition, the "full set" comes complete with the four European and two Japanese variations.
The pre-order price for the full set of overlays is $225. I will take the first 100 pre-orders or 30 days at this price - whichever comes first. After the pre-order period, I will place the order for the remaining overlays that haven't been printed yet and expect them to arrive within 3-6 weeks. Once they arrive, I will contact everyone who placed a pre-order and ask them to pay the shipping charge at that time (the package is about 2 pounds) and ship out their overlay set. After the pre-orders are shipped, I will then offer individual overlays for sale on my website @ $12 each. Full sets after the pre-order period will be $275.
If you'd like to get in on this pre-order, head on over to my website at www.vectrexmulti.com and place your order. There is an item on the main page of the "Vectrex Store" for the overlay preorder set. I really need your support to make this possible. If you know someone who is not on Facebook who might be interested, please pass along this information to them. The pre-order period will close on September 4th.
 
Thanks,
Sean Kelly

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That looks really good! I made a few quite a while ago, printed on transparent sheets with an inkjet printer and then laminated. I also had to fix the available graphics by hand. I didn't own any overlays, so I recreated the shape myself, even with a curved top and bottom edge, which makes them fit more precisely than the real overlays.

 

Do your overlays have opaque borders and texts? Those are the most tricky to do neatly by hand.

 

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