More about mass burials

[+Random Terrain]

I do not remember ever seeing this page:

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/articles/burials.html

 

Have you seen it? Although it has an eye raping black background and is full of bullet holes, I think I might link to it from my web site.

Edited May 9, 2007 by Random Terrain

[NovaXpress]

Where did they get this info? Why do they have so many details about the guy who supposedly bought 20,000 trakballs yet they don't know his name? I dunno, but these stories seem apocryphal.

[AtariDude]

This is from Curt Vandel's Atari Museum site. He must have obtained some of these from other people involved in the Atari community.

 

I do have a question though: Did not Howard Scott Warshaw mention that the story about the E.T. burials in New Mexico turn out to be a hoax? He mentioned in an interview that while it makes for a nice fable, it is not based on fact. Anyone else from the old Atari able to back up Howard?

[gdement]

I have no idea if these things happened, but I'm just guessing that some of them could be embellishments that started out having some truth to them:

 

 

"During the laying of the concrete slab for Atari's 2600 final assembly building tens of thousands of ROM chips were mixed into the cement and let harden into the buildings foundation slab. Perhaps this may have been a good luck gesture, perhaps it was just to add filler to the cement."

 

If I was to guess, I would imagine maybe they put one or a few ROM chips in the cement for sentimental reasons. Then the story got retold enough times that it started to grow.

 

 

"Atari Pongs, Video Pinball's and other dedicated game consoles were taken out to the parking lot where a semi tractor-trailer cab ran them over and destroyed them before they were thrown into the dumpsters."

 

If this ever happened, I would imagine it was a motivational demonstration for the employees. They might have gathered everybody around, announced "We're dedicated to the VCS now so forget about the old crap" and then destroyed a few obsolete machines for effect. Again, a story like that would tend to grow over time.

[NovaXpress]

This is from Curt Vandel's Atari Museum site. He must have obtained some of these from other people involved in the Atari community.

The problem being that those old Atari employees don't exactly have the clearest memories of that era. They'd probably be more accurate if you asked them how much they paid for an 8-ball of cocaine back then.

 

"Dude, I was loaded up some some killer Maui Wowie and I saw them take away millions of ET carts to be buried in a secret desert ceremony. And Bentley Bear was driving the truck! I'm serious man!"

[Philflound]

HAHA. It's always fun to hear stories like these. The ET burial story has been told one too many times.

 

On a different note, back in 1995, I had the opportunity to purchase a massive inventory of items from someone. This was pre-Ebay and if I had Ebay at the time and it was big as it was in 1999-2001, then I would never have had to close my store and I'd probably be a millionaire now.

 

The items were a mix of many things. The husband and wife were friends of my mom from church. They used to supply the Christmas Kits that kids would sell in school to help raise money. They also supplied many local stores with inventory.

 

What I bought along with my toy dealer friend who stocked my store with vintage toys were some battery operated toys from the 1960s brand new mint for a few bucks each and 60 coloring books from 1964 at 50 cents each. The batt op toys alone at the time were $150-250 each. You can see the coloring books on my website since I still have a few left.

 

My comic partner in crime wanted to know if it was worth buying this person out of everything. The toy guy said no. Problem was, it was well worth it, but I was not familiar enough with the merchandise to know this.

Everything was from the 1960s and 1970s for the most part.

 

So here was the deal. Everything was $10,000.

Here is what you got.

 

100,000 pieces of knick knacks. Yes that is 100K!!

Various toys, probably at least 5000 knockoff dolls, wind up banks, etc.

200 bobble head dolls (we did not see these at the time or else we would have gotten them)

tons of holiday items such as streamers, hang ups, etc.

 

Lets just say that storage would have been at least 5 of those 10x10' units stocked floor to ceiling if not more.

 

The people who bought them out WHOLESALED the items and pulled in $250,000 in the first year. I could only cry.

 

My entire life would have been different, and probably a whole lot better. But I can't say anything for sure.

 

Phil

[Philflound]

Oh, I forgot to mention that almost 10 years later, which of course is now, these people still have alot of merchandise! I remember a friend of mine telling me that there were these tv/radio things from the 1950s. They had about 60 of them and they got $50 each. That's $3000 back just from those pieces alone. There was much more items than I mentioned above. I remember some items from Japan, along with some weird ashtrays, which I found out were also valuable. It was like a dream come true. I thought of the nightmare of storing and moving it all though.

 

Phil

[Dolt]

One man's trash is another's treasure. You never know what will do well for you, but it means having to hold on to everything! Worse, it means having to know what you have, which as all collectors know, is difficult sometimes.

 

Case in point, I get a lot of press kits for bands at my job, and I just keep 'em in a pile. I used to put them on ebay, but they always go for about 8 bucks unless it's a legendary group--and then you get $12. With all ebay's nickel and diming, it's not worth my time any more to post them. Well, about 3 months ago, I was sifting through them and found one for a band called Kara's Flowers, from 1997. They had a nice press kit for an album that didn't go anywhere; they had quickly vanished. Well, now Kara's Flowers has a new name--Maroon 5, and they've been a big hit for about a year now. I popped it on ebay and got $27 easy for it--just for a folder, photo and biography. Trick is, for every press kit that eventually becomes worth something like that, I have 400 for bands that blew away like tumbleweeds. I have a decent memory, but I'll never be able to track what's in this pile of press kits ever.

 

And I suspect that's what may be happening for your pals. They got rich, but you can take solace in the fact that they'll never be able to take the full advantage of making the most that they might have from all that stuff.

[Nukey Shay]

I do have a question though: Did not Howard Scott Warshaw mention that the story about the E.T. burials in New Mexico turn out to be a hoax? He mentioned in an interview that while it makes for a nice fable, it is not based on fact. Anyone else from the old Atari able to back up Howard?

 

His opinion is that it was a hoax (because he personally didn't see it happen). With so much happening with Atari at the time, I think that it's safe to say that it would have been a stretch for any programmer to keep tabs on everything they did.

 

 

If this ever happened, I would imagine it was a motivational demonstration for the employees. They might have gathered everybody around, announced "We're dedicated to the VCS now so forget about the old crap" and then destroyed a few obsolete machines for effect.

Nope...things are not destroyed in the corporate world for that reason. But they ARE destroyed to be able to write them off the bottom line (in order to write them off 100%, they cannot be sellable or salvageable in any way - whole or part). The place that I worked at a few years ago did this on a yearly basis during inventory.

[Radio F Software]

Thats a genius idea to scrap Trackballs for parts and sell them individually. I need to think up stuff like this.

[Mountain King]

Anyone have the link to that site where someone buys a house on top of the e.t. burial site and a million E.T. Carts come up out of the ground and haunt the house?

[Philflound]

The tv with the snow on it starts telling little Carol Ann to phone home!

 

Phil