Article On Collecting Video Games.

just read this on a favorite news site of mine:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...-mario-bros/

I thought this was interesting because it underscores how knowledge is power, and luck never hurts.

Lovely.

You might also like the story of "Red Sea Crossing", an Atari 2600 video game based loosely on the Bible story of the Exodus. Somebody showed up with a copy on the Atari forums years ago, and for a long time people thought it must be a hoax, because this game was completely unknown. Then evidence from industry magazines turned up indicating that it was an actual game that was made, and gameplay video was posted, and this fellow's copy turned out to be genuine. I think it's still the only one known. It subsequently sold for beaucoup bucks. It was a fun story to see unfold.

Neat article. Video games can be complicated in varying degrees like stamps and covers. Condition is paramount as well as the article shows.

Before ebay and the Internet a we know it there were Usenet groups. There was rec.collecting.stamps as a few may recall with Joseph Luft's Stamp Trader's List. There were several groups just for video games. I use to collect various game system from the various Atari systems, Vectex, Channel F, Intellivision and others. I would travel to all the thrift stores, used toy stores, and flea markets in the MD/DC/VA metro area. I saw on the Usenet groups people would have auctions. I started having auction selling systems, controllers and carts and for awhile I did extremely well as the cost for material as dirt cheap from the thrift stores and I would score some decent collectible games. I would then post and update auctions on these Usenet groups - created them from scratch and had to do everything from beginning to end without the use of any pictures. Payments were completely by mail, but at least shipping was a lot less back then. But alas all good things came to an end. ebay came around and the sources for material dried up as too many other folks were scouring the thrift stores for games. The returns of searching the stores wasn't worth it. At least now with stamps and covers there's an almost over abundance of material. We'll see how long that will last.

I have a friend whose son-in-law, a computer programmer, collects vintage video games. My friend said that he spends massive amounts on some of the choice games. Before he told me this, it had never occurred to me that video games were actually collectable, although I did know that some people are addicted to them and have massive amounts of them. It pains me to think that I sold my Atari 2600 game console and about 50 games back in the 80s for $50. A few of the games that I had were pretty obscure.

I had an Atari 2600 too! No idea what happened to it though.