When an Atari 2600 hunt in the wild captures your time.

[Atari Charles]

This is what I have learned:

 

Best place to hunt: Garage sale, friends' attics, garages, etc.

 

Worst Place to hunt: Pawn Shops. They just overcharge for everything.

 

 

Putting Ads in the paper can work, but I tried it twice and it didn't yield any results. I only got two phone calls: Someone trying to sell their Sony Playstation and someone wanting to sell their super Nintendo with a bunch of games for $400

 

 

The only good thing about pawnshops is usually they don't know what they have. I have picked up a Commodore Music Machine Cartridge FOR $5(It turns the C=64 into a synthesizer) and a few cool old 8 bit Nintendo games for $5 each.

 

When I come across Atari 2600s or games in the wild(not on Ebay), It is usually by fluke and usually for free. I have never found anything rare, but I have found games I don't have already.

 

Trading with fellow members can work out really well for everyone, unless you are trading with Pooyan or whatever his name is.

 

 

Atari Charles

[Stingray]

I've found a local vintage game & toy place that sells carts for 99 cents regardless of rarity (though the highest rarity I've gotten there was a 4), but for unknown reasons they sell 2600 Juniors for $45. Odd pricing scheme.

 

-S

[Whisper]

I can get 2 boxed Jr's for 10 Euro's each. Not bad I suppose, but I already own 2 unboxed ones and I'm running out of space. It's games I'm mostly interested in now, and perhaps some keyboard controllers.

 

I can get carts from the gameshop I am doing my internship project for, but they charge 4-5 euro for a common unboxed game (with often sticker damage because of the nasty glue of the price tags that have been on them for years) or beat up boxed ones varying from 8-10 euro, depending on popularity of the title. The pac-mans and Space invaders are the most expensive games here. Anyhow, they still have some games I don't have, but no real good or rare ones, so I just pass them.

[adams_ale]

Atari carts are not too hard to find around here, but I've only found 2 rare games in the 2 years I've been collecting. Picnic and Tooth Protectors. The tooth protectors wasn't for sale at first because the people at Cool Stuff knew how rare it was and one of them was keeping it for their personal collection. I talked with Alan Davis from AA and he happened to be friends with the owner and employees of the store so he talked them into selling it to me. Aside from having the largest collection of games I've ever seen he is a very nice guy. Most of the games I've bought in the area are between 1-2 bucks and I've never found a game at a thrift store or garage sale. My games have been found locally at pawn shops with the exception of Cool Stuff, and once at a flea market. If I picked up every game that I saw I would have a large collection, but I've been picky with the games that I buy. Only a little over one hundred games here.

[ANTHONY ATARI]

I find your statement about garage sales interesting. Every time I go to a garage sale, they just have stupid decorations and stuff.

 

I stopped going to most garage sales because there would be a sign that

says, GARAGE SALE. Then I go down the road its pointing to and drive all the way out there and the sales over and the dude never took down his stupid sign. So it was getting on my nerves that I was wasting my time and gas.

[Mindfield]

You're right about pawn shops and thrift stores not knowing what they have. I've found some Atari carts at a few of 'em, but very little worthwhile (or worth the sticker price).

 

On the other hand, I've found some non-Atari gems. I walked into a Value Village one day to be confronted by a wall of CIB Intellivision games at $3 apiece. Brought home a bunch that day. At that same VV I found an NEC SuperGrafx with 2 controllers, AC, AV, Battle Tap and 4 Japanese games (one very rare) for $20, then found a baggie of 6 TG16 cards the next week for $4. A friend of mine even picked up a Vectrex at a goodwill down the street from where I work for $5. Bastage...

 

I find posting in local Usenet newsgroups sometimes yeilds some great results. I've come across a bunch of incredible deals that way.