I've seen various topics about different aspects of collecting, but not sure if anyone covered this. Anyway, when did you start collecting your Atari 2600 games and how did you start?
Rules of this mean you actually pursued getting games, whether to save in nice condition or play. Having games from when you were a kid don't count, unless you never stopped trying to acquire more games throughout the years.
I had Atari when I was a kid back in the late 1970s and gave it up by 1983 when I got my Colecovision and moved on to better things. I eventually sold all my carts to my brother's friend and his house went up in flames in the mid-1980s, so all of my original carts were destroyed.
I began collecting in 1995 when I had my comic book store. One of my customers, who became my only part time employee, came in with a box from a garage sale. It was a 7800, which I had never heard of, and had about 25 games. He pulled a few games out that he wanted to keep and said I could have everything for what he paid, $20. So I took it home, hooked it up, and felt the nostalgia. I then thought about that feeling and if I had, then others about my age were destined to also have that feeling and thus I thought that this would be the next collectible. So I worked on finding out info about the system, somehow finding Digital Press with their price guide, the giant list of games, which opened me up to a vast amount of 3rd party games that I never even heard of, and my passion began. Due to space, I refrained from collecting boxes, and didn't start keeping them until I found O'Shea in 1997 and purchased almost 600 sealed games from him.
So now I have somewhere in the 625 games, not counting the few variations I keep. I consider Sears separate, so that is included in the total. I probably have 350 boxes now. Though space is still an issue. And once I started the Atari 2600, I expanded with other vintage systems. At first it was anything made before 1990, until I got my hands on Turbo Graph-x, Jaguar, and Virtual Boy. Then Playstation came along and I recently (last 3 years) found a SNES. Also add in Dreamcast and a Gameboy Advance that I won in a raffle, and I have more systems that I care for. I have managed to stay away from N64, Game Cube, PS2, PS3, and X-Box.
Systems I do consider collecting, but more for cartridges than diskettes are many of the computers like the Aquarius, C64 and Vic 20, Atari 400/800/XE, Tandy, and even the Timex Sinclair. I have probably 90% for systems like Colecovision, Intellivision, the 7800, Bally Astrocade, and Fairchild.
Anyway, sorry to get off topic. So how did you start the 2600?
Phil
Rules of this mean you actually pursued getting games, whether to save in nice condition or play. Having games from when you were a kid don't count, unless you never stopped trying to acquire more games throughout the years.
I had Atari when I was a kid back in the late 1970s and gave it up by 1983 when I got my Colecovision and moved on to better things. I eventually sold all my carts to my brother's friend and his house went up in flames in the mid-1980s, so all of my original carts were destroyed.
I began collecting in 1995 when I had my comic book store. One of my customers, who became my only part time employee, came in with a box from a garage sale. It was a 7800, which I had never heard of, and had about 25 games. He pulled a few games out that he wanted to keep and said I could have everything for what he paid, $20. So I took it home, hooked it up, and felt the nostalgia. I then thought about that feeling and if I had, then others about my age were destined to also have that feeling and thus I thought that this would be the next collectible. So I worked on finding out info about the system, somehow finding Digital Press with their price guide, the giant list of games, which opened me up to a vast amount of 3rd party games that I never even heard of, and my passion began. Due to space, I refrained from collecting boxes, and didn't start keeping them until I found O'Shea in 1997 and purchased almost 600 sealed games from him.
So now I have somewhere in the 625 games, not counting the few variations I keep. I consider Sears separate, so that is included in the total. I probably have 350 boxes now. Though space is still an issue. And once I started the Atari 2600, I expanded with other vintage systems. At first it was anything made before 1990, until I got my hands on Turbo Graph-x, Jaguar, and Virtual Boy. Then Playstation came along and I recently (last 3 years) found a SNES. Also add in Dreamcast and a Gameboy Advance that I won in a raffle, and I have more systems that I care for. I have managed to stay away from N64, Game Cube, PS2, PS3, and X-Box.
Systems I do consider collecting, but more for cartridges than diskettes are many of the computers like the Aquarius, C64 and Vic 20, Atari 400/800/XE, Tandy, and even the Timex Sinclair. I have probably 90% for systems like Colecovision, Intellivision, the 7800, Bally Astrocade, and Fairchild.
Anyway, sorry to get off topic. So how did you start the 2600?
Phil