How much of your collection is stuff you owned as a kid?

[Room 34]

I was just thinking about how most of my "classic" video game collection is stuff I have just acquired in the last couple of years, vs. what has been in my collection since the early days.

 

I still own my original Atari 2600 console that I got in May 1982, although I no longer use it since the left difficulty switch doesn't work (which I just discovered a few months ago when attempting to use Synthcart on it!), and I also have one of the original CX40 joysticks that came with it. I have maybe 20 or so of the original carts I had as a kid, most of which I indiscriminately wrote "SA" on with a fat blue permanent marker... and some of which I've been able to remove that marker from with noxious chemicals recently. (Came off of Yars' Revenge and Defender nicely... not so well on Space Invaders and Berzerk.)

 

Pretty much all of the rest is recent acquisitions... half a dozen consoles, a drawer full of controllers, and 90% of my cartridge collection.

 

So... how much of yours is "new to you" and how much is stuff you've been hoarding for 20 years?

[CPUWIZ]

ZER0

[Room 34]

Sounds like there's a story there... so what happened to all of your old stuff?

 

I did give away about half of my 40 childhood 2600 carts to a friend who moved out of town in 1987... but the rest I've held onto all along! It even went with me to college and on 3 cross-country moves!

[Christophero Sly]

I still have my 2600 (1980) and 6 of the 9 carts I originally owned. I had to get a new top for that 2600, but I still have the sticks, paddles, ps, and switchbox.

[x6d696168]

None.. Sadly I didn't actually own a 2600 when I was younger. But my Aunt did, I used to spend alot of time at her house. I don't know if she still has it, likely her children have destroyed it.

 

I did actually own a 5200, but my mother gave it to my cousins neighbor. I didn't really care at the time, because the 5200 made me mad with its constantly breaking controllers. I had about 30 games, the trackball, the joystick coupler? (for robotron), wico joystick set (which i could never get working..). We got the 5200 used when I was like 6 or 7.

 

Now though, I do own a 2600, I got it for my birthday this year (actually this month). I had told my mom that I was looking for an atari (she's a yardsale freak) and she sent me one. Along with 20 games, lots of manuals, joysticks, paddles, and a couple catalogs (as well as two 7800 games). Today I hit the flea market and picked up a couple more games. I have 39 games in total now. Its bringing back lots of memories.

[Christophero Sly]

I did actually own a 5200, but my mother gave it to my cousins neighbor.  I didn't really care at the time, because the 5200 made me mad with its constantly breaking controllers.  I had about 30 games, the trackball, the joystick coupler? (for robotron), wico joystick set (which i could never get working..).  We got the 5200 used when I was like 6 or 7.

 

That was a great set-up! To bad you no longer have it.

 

Now though, I do own a 2600, I got it for my birthday this year (actually this month).  I had told my mom that I was looking for an atari (she's a yardsale freak) and she sent me one.  Along with 20 games, lots of manuals, joysticks, paddles, and a couple catalogs (as well as two 7800 games).  Today I hit the flea market and picked up a couple more games.  I have 39 games in total now.  Its bringing back lots of memories.

 

Cool! Sounds like your well on your way to a nice collection. Good luck to you, and have fun.

[x6d696168]

That was a great set-up!  To bad you no longer have it.

 

Yea My girlfriends brother has a spare 5200 that he said I could have, so I'll be starting that collection again soon enough.

 

Cool!  Sounds like your well on your way to a nice collection.  Good luck to you, and have fun.

 

Thanks, I'm already having lots of fun, my game collection is already outgrowing the freespace that I have.

 

I have lots of game systems other than the atari stuff. Intellivision, JVC X'Eye (Sega Genesis/CD Combo Unit), 32x, NeoGeo CD, N64, PSX, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, Saturn.

 

I need to repair the controllers on the Intellivision.. When I was a teenager, I had a nes, and about 50 games, I sold it all off.. Now I want to get a NES again and all those games.. Same for my genesis, I had the genesis, and the mastersystem converter and about 40 games, and I sold all that off.. If I would have saved all that stuff, I'd be saving lots of money =)

[Breakpack]

I still have the original pack-in games when I got my Atari 2600 Christmas '81 (Pac-Man & Combat).Don't have the original Atari though.Got the original Ms.Pac-Man from '82 .I just recently 'retired' them and bought better labeled Pac games to replace them (Combat is still in service tho.Basically I still own the games I bought throughout my life (and have kept them all 'cept duplicates).The only game I had die on me was Up 'n Down I liked that game too ...

[Room 34]

ZER0  

 

Ah well... at least you've recouped your losses... and THEN some!

[raindog]

All the old non-Atari stuff I have is from when I was a kid; the 2600 and some of the games for it are from a friend's childhood, not mine (I had Odyssey2 and then Colecovision, but most of my friends and relatives had the 2600.)

[tailGator]

None of the stuff I have now came from when I was a kid.

 

I sold my 2600 to get a 7800.

I then sold my 7800 plus @ 50 games to get an NES

I still have my NES, but I sold a bunch of NES games to get Genesis games

 

There's a pattern here. My theory was (and still is) - it's a lot better to sell stuff you don't play anymore as soon as possible. That way, the games will retain its value. If in the future you still want it, you can always repurchase it for a whole lot cheaper.

 

The problem here is if I had something rare, it would cost me a little more to reacquire. Thank god I never had CCW when I was young. I'd be kicking my self and my lousy theory out the door.

[Big Player]

I had 22 carts when I was a kid and still have most all of them. The only ones had to replace were Mountain King that had died and Video Pinball which I took apart to see what the insides looked like.

 

I still have my 2600 console but I use another one for everyday use that has a better TV display.

 

I went through so many joysticks when I was a kid, there was no way I'd still have them. Good thing they weren't very expensive.

[NE146]

Pretty much 90% of all my videogame stuff is the things I originally acquired as a kid (and beyond). My general way of operating is I acquire games for a particular system while that system is 'alive'.. then when the next latest and greatest thing comes around, I move on to that one. ... Well, at least that's been the pattern

 

I did just acquire a 7800 and carts though so that was a definite 'retro' purchase

[ubersaurus]

well, a hefty chunk of games for my 2600, 7800, NES, and SNES (not counting handhelds) are all from when I was a kid. Basically, what I would do with my allowance money would be to go to Big Lots and pick up the clearance 2600 and 7800 titles, which, added to the ones my family already owned (the bulk of which was from the clearances of 83/84), gave me a good number of my atari carts. The NES and SNES games I mostly got from holidays, although when I got a job I went to buying up other games that I felt sounded neat.

[Nukey Shay]

All my AppleII, Atari, And Commodore 8-bit computer disks. The computers themselves have all been replaced, but the drives are still the same. I left all my consoles to the ex.

[Atariman]

only a tiny amount of my collection is what I had as a kid. I still have the vader 2600 and I'm sure the original joysticks and paddles are somewhere in a big, tangled mass of "kinda working" stuff. I'd say that only about 5% of the games that I own are the ones that my family had when I was a kid. We only had about 15 or 20 cartridges. We sorta added onto the cartridge collection (probably made it up to about 25 or 30) I then bought a Jaguar, then a Lynx, and my collection just sorta exploded after that since games were pretty cheap for everything I had.

[dwh]

I had about 200 games, but I threw away the box that had the boxes and some magazines.So I got alot more loose carts in the last two years,and am now working on getting the boxes again.The best thing about collecting now is the new homebrew games,and 'reproduction' games,it's amazing what people can do with these old systems.

[MegaManFan]

Just my Commodore 64 and 128 and 90% of the games for them.

[brendan]

A whole bunch of my stuff is from when I was a kid - I still have my working heavy sixer from '79 and all of the cartridges (minus the Berzerk that died and I took apart). I still have my Apple ][+, Tandy Color Computer 2, and NES and all of the related cartridges, software, and hardware and then some. Of course, since the 80s, I've about quadrupled the size of these collections... Damn, I'm a pack rat.

[Voch]

My mom dumped my 2600/7800 collection when I went to college to learn computer stuff. I was fine with it at the time but have since learned that computers are evil and Atari is fun.

 

Voch

[Wily]

I still got my Pifall!-cart from the early-/mid-eighties. I think it´s not in a minty condition but still working. I bought a substitute Pitfall! complete and in very good condition, but I will keep the old Pitfall!-cart to remind myself, how I started my video-gaming-career ^_^ Damn, that´s really a twenty years ago... I´m gettin´ old!!!

 

Wily

[Godzilla]

aside from maybe less than 5 or 10 trades or sales, Id say probably at least 50-80% of my collections for various systems is from my childhood. Probably at least 200+ of my 400+ 2600 carts are from my youth.

[Shannon]

There's a pattern here.  My theory was (and still is) - it's a lot better to sell stuff you don't play anymore as soon as possible.  That way, the games will retain its value.  If in the future you still want it, you can always repurchase it for a whole lot cheaper.

 

I used to do that with N64 games... buy them new and then when I finished them, trade them in for store credit. Then a year later repurchase them at a lower price.

 

This was "before" I decided to try to collect boxes and manuals as well.

[sku_u]

When I was a kid, I had around 50 or so 2600 games, almost every Vectrex game, and over 100 NES games. I sold the NES and games when I went off to college, which was a big mistake. My mother threw out my Vectrex and games, but the 2600 and games survived to this day.

 

Also most of my 5200 collection actually belonged to my wife when she was a child and she is also an avid collector, though not a member here, so I'd say about 15% of my collection dates back to childhood.

[+Atarius Maximus]

I have about 70 original games that I purchased in the 1980's, about half of those were bought after the crash when games could be had for $5-10. I can still identify all of my original carts, as I put address label stickers on the bottom with my name. I took them with me when I moved out of my parents house in 1988, which is probably why I still have them all! The rarest cart I own that I purchased as a kid is Pengo, and is now one of my "prized" carts.