AtariGator Posted July 27, 2003 Share Posted July 27, 2003 I am a 32 yr old gamer who grew up playing the Atari 2600. I had two systems in excellent condition and had accumulated roughly 60 - 65 games by the time I was 13 yrs old. Had mostly Activision and many rare games. When I moved from home at 19 yrs old I needed some beer money. The NES had just come out, and through my 19 y.o. beer thirsty eyes, the graphics on the "outdated" Atari were "child-like" compared to my new NES. Of course my buddies and I had to drink beer when we played Mario and Duck Hunt, so to make some quick cash to buy beer I sold my entire Atari collection for $70 to some stranger Needless to say, it is something I now deeply regret, and I live with the pain everyday. I've now recently got a 2600 again for me and my new infant son to play, but I paid much more than $70 and I don't have the 65 games that I used to have. I basically gave away a piece of my childhood. Does anybody else out there have similar regrets of selling/giving away your childhood Atari? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfnmadness Posted July 27, 2003 Share Posted July 27, 2003 Ha, Still got my original 1978 with every cartridge I ever purchased, including all the ones I got in 84 during the crash at the local Kabee toys for $1 a piece. Thankfully, mom kept my system safe over the years and I got ahold of it again, much after my hard drinking years where over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frostbite Z Posted July 27, 2003 Share Posted July 27, 2003 Without a doubt I regret selling my VCS, Intellivision, Colecovision, and my games, especially all of my boxed Activision games! At least you remember why you sold it; sadly, I cannot say the same. Not quite sure why, but I did hang on to my 7800. I still have it and use it to play the Activision games I have bought to replace my collection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StanJr Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 Every day of my video game life. I had a fat collection (about 65 games) when I was a kid, with some what are now 8 and 9 rarity games and ALL of my most favorites. But to COMPLETELY overcompensate, I have snatched up over 250 games in my "adulthood." I miss the originals, but I'm happy enough with my recovery efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariDude Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 Part of me does since it would have been nice to have the system from my childhood but I did give it to a new family that had just moved to the United States with two little kids and I knew that they did not have a lot of money so since the Atari was not being used much, I figured to do a nice thing for them and just give them the system with the games that I had. We lost track of the family so I have no idea what ever happened to my original system after that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolt Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 I still have my original and all the old games. Raaaather, I regret this story--when I moved apartments, my pal Dave was REALLY interested in my Atari, asking if I still wanted it and so on (this is around 1994 just as I was getting back into it). Well, I didn't give it to him but a few weeks later when I went garage saling, I found an MIB Atari 2600 with about 30 games also in the boxes--all for $10. I kept about five games I didn't have and gave the MIB 2600 and the rest of the boxed games to Dave as a surprise. That Atari is now in a storage locker somewhere in New Jersey. He loves it and has about 200 games, but has a small apartment with a 1-year-old, so it had to be put away for a few years. I still have mixed feelings about giving it to him instead of giving him my old one and keeping the one in the box. I did a good thing, but sometimes I wonder if I was too generous. I feel like a jerk for thinking that way--I usually tell myself to shut up and just enjoy my games. One reason I can tell myself to shut up is that I passed up other opportunities to own one. Well after the point I'd started wondering about giving him that boxed Atari, I was driving to work through my neighborhood. I had just moved into the area and didn't really know people, and wanted to make the right impression on the new neighbors. Well, 2 blocks from my house, sitting with the morning trash was--you guessed it--a big Atari 2600 box in great condition. I don't know what was inside it, but odds are that it'd be an Atari, considering the condition. My mind raced: "Could I trash pick it? Should I trash pick it? What would my new neighbors think? Maybe the polite thing to do is to knock on their door and ask if I can take it. But who wants a stranger knocking on their door at 7:30AM asking if he can rummage through their trash? If someone did that to me, I'd think they were nuts!" So I sat a minute more, trying to decide what to do. Time was ticking away--I still had to get to the train station on time to catch my train. Finally, I decided I was just going to hop out, grab the box, run back into the car and speed off! I really WANTED that box! Just about then, this quiet suburban street exploded with activity--two joggers went by, a few dog walkers appeared. Someone came out to grab their paper off the lawn, a few kids left their houses to catch a school bus or something...and I chickened out. I couldn't pick their trash in front of so many people. I just drove off and caught my train, hating myself for not just doing it. I tried to console myself that the box was probably filled with diapers or soggy coffee grinds, but I didn't really believe it. Now every trash day that I drive by, I'm like one of Pavlov's dogs, peering at their cans longingly as if there'd be another box there this time. Arrrrgh. And when I REALLY want to drive myself crazy, I wonder what rare and exotic games were hidden inside that box! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bergbros Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 I do not regret selling my system. To tell you the truth, I got bored of the VCS and I got into handheld games, namely becasue they take up a lot less space and are a lot less messier. I love the games I have for my Lynx, Nomad, Advance SP and NEO GEO Pocket. I just came to the realization that I am a gamer rather than a collector and I wanted to branch out. Now that they are planning to have the Activision collection on the Advance, there is even less yearning for the old VCS. I will always look back fondly on the VCS and some of the games, but I moved on. If I have a hankering, there is always Stella emulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snorlaxnut Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 Yes, I regret letting my 2600 and my 7800 be sold at a garage sale. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krisjohn Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 I never had a brilliant 2600 collection, so I regret selling my CDTV much more. I also had quite a number of the original larger Transformers which I regret selling a little, but the money I got from them undoubtedly went towards my computer interests, so it's hard to feel too sorry for myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stein Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 do I ever.... what's really disturbing is I really can't remember why I got rid of it or to who I remember it having a bad power switch and it was an original heavy sixer. I should get a hammer and hit myself in the head... also regret getting rid of my commodore 64 and the hundreds and hundreds of disks I had I needed to pay for a new motor in my vw baja... what a dummy hey now I'm depressed, who started this thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeV0 Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 I never regret taking apart my original vader and short circuiting it. I hated those 2600 sticks so much, they ruined any form of fun after about 30 seconds. I wasnt interested really until the 7800 came out with the pads, these changed my 2600 perspective by a long shot. Shortly after being reuinited with the 2600 i found beer and loud music. Also long night NES sessions, I finished gunsmoke while using the controllers with my toes! What was i on??? I cant remember So no, i appreciate the 2600 more now then back in the 80's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voch Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 My Mom sold my Atari 7800 (with my blessing) when I was in college and was getting into more modern computers (Macs, PCs, SPARCstations). Now that I have learned how evil they are (I'm a Java dev now) I've started to collect the old stuff again. Voch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeybastard Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 When I was 13 I sold my CV collection and my 2600 collection to buy my first guitar. If I remember correctly I had 78 Atari carts (some middle rarity and a few very rare carts) and 64 CV carts (some very very rare, I'll never see those again). I got a NES when I was 14 (15?) collected a ton of games, sold it to pay for my prom at 17 - what a horrible horrible mistake that was. Nothing crazy rare but a nice collection. SNES collection got sold to fix my car in my first year at college and thank goodness since then I've been financially solvent to never have to sell any games again. Just thinking about these sales hurts me. I've gotten most of it back now though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bivotar Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 Actually, I don't regret selling my original Atari. I had probably 20 games, and I've always kept game boxes and manuals. Back in probably '82 we placed an ad in the paper and sold the whole deal for something like $175. We used the money from the 2600 to buy a brand new COLECOVISION! We thoroughly enjoyed the CV until we sold it a couple years later. We used the cash from that to purchase games for our new C64. So we went through kind of an overall upgrade process. I've since reaquired a 2600, CV, and more games than I ever could have dreamed of as a youngster. So no regrets really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avid Fan Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 Hell yeah. When I got a Genesis back in 93, my mom decided that I didn't need 3 systems hooked up and put the 2600 in the garage. About a year later I went to go hook it up in my room (I finally had a TV in my room) to find out that my mom had given the atari to my sisters dipshit boyfriend. He only had it for a week before my sister got mad at him and threw it againt his bedroom wall. I always wish I had the balls to ask him if he still has the carts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avid Fan Posted July 28, 2003 Share Posted July 28, 2003 double post, sorry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 I am a 32 yr old gamer who grew up playing the Atari 2600. I had two systems in excellent condition and had accumulated roughly 60 - 65 games by the time I was 13 yrs old. Had mostly Activision and many rare games. When I moved from home at 19 yrs old I needed some beer money. The NES had just come out, and through my 19 y.o. beer thirsty eyes, the graphics on the "outdated" Atari were "child-like" compared to my new NES. Of course my buddies and I had to drink beer when we played Mario and Duck Hunt, so to make some quick cash to buy beer I sold my entire Atari collection for $70 to some stranger Needless to say, it is something I now deeply regret, and I live with the pain everyday. I've now recently got a 2600 again for me and my new infant son to play, but I paid much more than $70 and I don't have the 65 games that I used to have. I basically gave away a piece of my childhood. Does anybody else out there have similar regrets of selling/giving away your childhood Atari? This story would be even better if the person you sold it too frequents these boards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 I don't really remember what happened to my first 2600, but then I never had many games for it. I had an intellivision two with a decent selection of titles (Diner included) that I think I gave away to a neighborhood kid. Most of the stuff I had over the years I just traded in for something new, or gave it away to people I knew or family members. I sold off most of my computer collection when I got married. Wish I woulda kept it all, especially my SNES stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inextremis staple Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 when nes came out i lost 3 2600's, a nifty turnstyle game holder, one of those 2600 storage units, and a whole slew of games all cuz mom wanted to give them to the church rumbage sale so that some needy person could give their kid a fun thing to play with for only $10... maybe 5... i regret she did it but i know that whoever got it really likes it. i just want my sesamae (sp?) street games back and pigs in space and mickey mouse and the single cart ghost manor (my fave) i want them all back waaahhhhh!!!! i just hope whoever got them had as much fun with em as i did is Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGator Posted July 29, 2003 Author Share Posted July 29, 2003 Unfortunately, I decided to get back into Atari after I got married and had a baby. It is hard to justify to the wife...she just don't understand what the 2600 meant to my childhood. Sometimes I have to sneak off to look for Atari carts in the wild, and I just feel so dirty like I'm cheating on her. Well, not really, but that did sound funny as hell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frostbite Z Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 Unfortunately, I decided to get back into Atari after I got married and had a baby. It is hard to justify to the wife...she just don't understand what the 2600 meant to my childhood. Sometimes I have to sneak off to look for Atari carts in the wild, and I just feel so dirty like I'm cheating on her. Well, not really, but that did sound funny as hell I can sympathize about the wife; mine thinks that all video games are a pure and simple waste of time. Still, she shows more tolerance for the 2600 games than any of the rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avid Fan Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 I'm lucky, my girlfriend actually encourages my gaming habit. Its because of her I wanna get a 5200 and a coleco, they just made a lot more 2 player games back then Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeybastard Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 My wife likes gaming too, thankfully. She prefers puzzle games on the PC, party games like Mario Party the occasional game of Kaboom but she's got dark side too. She LOVES shooting games like Area 51, Lethal Enforcers, etc. She also encourages my collecting as long as I don't get crazy with the cash outlays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redcurrie Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 Selling it, hell, I gave mine to Goodwill.......yes, I do truly regret it. I had my 2600 all through college and when I graduated and was going through my "I can't wait to be an adult" stage, I dropped it, all the games, manuals, case, etc. off at Goodwill. What was I thinking I now ask myself......at least as an adult, you have better access to the money to buy stuff. Also, my house can look like a video game store exploded all over it and the cat doesn't say a thing...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redcurrie Posted July 29, 2003 Share Posted July 29, 2003 Selling it, hell, I gave mine to Goodwill.......yes, I do truly regret it. I had my 2600 all through college and when I graduated and was going through my "I can't wait to be an adult" stage, I dropped it, all the games, manuals, case, etc. off at Goodwill. What was I thinking I now ask myself......at least as an adult, you have better access to the money to buy stuff. Also, my house can look like a video game store exploded all over it and the cat doesn't say a thing...... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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