Do you think homebrews will be as sought after...

[sku_u]

in the future as standard releases are today? Some homebrew releases have bigger production runs then actual Atari releases and have reached a large audience. Especially the games included in the Activision Anthologies. I'd like to think that future generations of Atari collectors will seek these out to play.

 

No, this ain't one of those should I collect homebrews as investment threads, just a tribute to those who keep this hobby fun andd current

[NovaXpress]

As games, sure homebrews will always be sought after. Look at the quality we're getting! If you want the best 2600 games then there's going to be a heap of homebrews on that list.

 

As far as skyrocketing in value, I can't see the Ebay prices riding so high for much longer. Too many people know how to create perfect reproductions of any cart at will. There's no way to distinguish an original Rarity 10 from a skillful forgery. Eventually someone is going to get burned, realize it and make a stink about it, and the prices will fall.

 

Those new protos will likely only increase in value as the years go by.

[Xot]

Since some out of print homebrews fetch damn good money, I would say yes.

 

But what homebrews have larger runs than release games? I mean the best selling homebrews are only in the low hundreds, aren't they?

[NovaXpress]

I really want to know what all the big collectors think about this one. You can now get a Gravitar reproduction that's indistinguishable from the original Atari Club release. Does't that fact lessen the value of carts as a collectable?

 

Other antiques go up in value because an expert can alwas tell the difference between an original and a forgery. There are always differences between old and new. But if these video game repros are perfect imitations, why spend so much for the original? How can one trust that they are spending so much for an original.

 

We don't knbow the exact production runs of any rare games, so there's no way of knowing how many we shoudl expect to see floating around. I understand that Air Raid came in a unique case which hasn't been seen anywhere else. It can't be easily or cheaply duplicated. Maybe that's one reason why no more copies of this Rarity 10 have surfaced?

[CPUWIZ]

I really want to know what all the big collectors think about this one.  You can now get a Gravitar reproduction that's indistinguishable from the original Atari Club release.  Does't that fact lessen the value of carts as a collectable?

 

I would cost an incredible amount of money to produce silver labels like the one Gravitar and many other Atari carts have. It would never be worth it.

[NovaXpress]

The bigger the demand, the cheaper it gets. I've seen every trick in the book used to make backstage passes impossible to forge at rock concerts. Metals, holograms, the works. But a sharp dude who REALLY wants to can make a duplicate of anything. I've used silver such as that on fliers. It did indeed cost about a grand to get the first one made, but the other 10000 I ordered only cost pennies.

 

Places like Atari Age and the great artists who can make new carts happen are the future of the hobby. Our stuff is starting to look nicer than what the XBox kids are getting.

 

Now that the homebrews are putting most of the classics to shame, I hope the demand will increase.

[homerwannabee]

I just don't understand why a highly skilled duplicator would bother with Atari cartridges. Hmmm, which do I want to reproduce a 1952 mickey mantle card or a 1984 quadrun cartridge. Would'nt the Mickey mantle card have a better chance of being conterfeited. I could not see why a counterfeiter would waste his or her time or energy on a video game when the potential profit for a baseball card or comic book would return such a higher return. Besides don't you need a certain type of chip to produce a copy. Most games in general have a rom chip this would be alot harder to copy. And even if some people for whatever stupid reason felt a need to rip off such a cheap comunity than we would probably respond some kind of cartridge grading service which would have professionals that could tell if it's a fake or not.

[Cootster]

I really want to know what all the big collectors think about this one.  You can now get a Gravitar reproduction that's indistinguishable from the original Atari Club release.  Does't that fact lessen the value of carts as a collectable?  

 

Other antiques go up in value because an expert can alwas tell the difference between an original and a forgery.  There are always differences between old and new.  But if these video game repros are perfect imitations,  why spend so much for the original?  How can one trust that they are spending so much for an original.

 

We don't knbow the exact production runs of any rare games, so there's no way of knowing how many we shoudl expect to see floating around.  I understand that Air Raid came in a unique case which hasn't been seen anywhere else.  It can't be easily or cheaply duplicated. Maybe that's one reason why no more copies of this Rarity 10 have surfaced?

 

Well, seeing as how all the homebrew carts and boards (AFAIK) are built to the Atari first-party design, other companies' stuff is still safe. And some games (Pitfall II, Sprintmaster, Burger Time, and the CBS Ram+ games) are not yet copyable anyway.

 

I'd think forgery affects very few games. Gravitar, Crazy Climber, Waterworld, Quadrun, the last red-label NTSC games, and lab loaners are basically what gets faked.

 

But presumably as long as there are distributors of homebrews, it is likely that many popular titles will continue to be produced in some form . . . It'll probably come down to label variations. Are the Hozer titles that had nice labels (like Thrust and Oystron) going for a premium yet?

 

There are only 5 (or is it 6) Air Raids known to exist, OTOH, and presumably someone really cunning and technically savvy could make a fake, unless they had the materials handy, there's no profit in it.

[MegaManFan]

The reason someone would forge a Quadrun instead of a 1952 Mickey Mantle is because due to the high value of the 52 Mantle, the card would go through a higher degree of scrutiny to determine it's authenticity. The Quadrun would have a better chance of "slipping by" since even though this hobby has quite a few people who can spot the difference between reals and fakes, it hasn't been around as long as baseball card collecting or had "certified appraisers" like rare cards and stamps do.

[sku_u]

But what homebrews have larger runs than release games? I mean the best selling homebrews are only in the low hundreds, aren't they?

 

Just to name one, I'm sure Thrust in all its incarnations has sold more copies then Eli's Ladder ever did.

[Cootster]

We don't know that for sure. . . It is possible that, say, 1,000 Eli's Ladders exist, and very few of them happen to be in the hands of collectors, because we know precisely nothing about their distribution. Same with most non-Atari (and therefore not as fakable) R10s.

 

Only 12 real Asterix NTSC's exist, right? (the ones that Woita personally sold). But any enterprising person with the hardware can make a very cunning fake and fool someone who doesn't know any better.

 

That is why there probably needs to be a grading system (and a rarity guide less dependent on auctions, which could be for fakes). Like Nova said in the Tax Avoiders thread (which I think got baleeted because of that jerk troll harassing Ken Love), we need to find out the true history of these things while we still can.

[atari_wizard]

i agree. i think it would be a waste of time and money to forge them games.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Many years ago I thought it would be a great joke to make a fake proto (as in write up some code that looked like it could be a never-before-discovered proto and put it in a case with a "lab loaner" label), then somehow get it planted in a thrift store near where an annoying rgvc troll lived, with the expectation of him finding it.

 

Of course ASCII text would be in the code of the cart that would make fun of said troll. Even better would be an easter egg that made fun of said troll, for which you could simply say "what happens if you do x, y, and z?"

[christianscott27]

pitfall III harriet's quest comes to mind

 

speaking of old rgvc pranks