Friday morning Atari pick up

[retroshaun]

This morning was a wild one... not only did I sleep in and miss my trip to the gym as well as going to my sons Daycare for a pre-work Fathers Day celebration, but in between that lot I managed to drive 20 mins or so to an early morning yard sale in a nearby town where I picked up this pretty sweet Atari deal.

I spotted the sale on CL and decided to go as there was a pic of a 2600 and a vectrex so I pretty much got there at 'opening time' and snagged the Atari. The vectrex was nowhere to be seen so I asked the guy about it and he said "oh yeah thats mine". I asked if it was for sale and he said 'yeah, to a collector'. I assumed that meant it was already gone but no - apparently he was only interested in selling to a collector (presumably for what he considered 'collector prices'). Long story short it was pretty frustrating dealing with the guy but he has my email and number should he decide to make me an offer. By all accounts its mint, in box, all packaging intact. We'll see!

Back to the Atari stuff. As you can see I got a woodgrain VCS in box. I mostly got this for the box which is in great condition. Its a little faded but extremely sturdy and the inner box is absolutely mint too, pretty much factory fresh. The only damage is on the inner, end flap which has a rip down the middle, presumably from an over-excited 8 year old desperate for gaming goodness on Christmas Day in the late 70s :-) The VCS is there but no power supply, games, sticks etc, just the console. Not a problem. I also picked up a spare console in the deal.

Probably the most interesting part is the paperwork. It came with a bunch of common game manuals but as you can see in the pics a lot of game catalogs from Activision, Imagic, Atari etc. It also has a dealer price list, a bunch of business card type things and an internal memo from Atari! Finally, theres also the VCS Owners Manual that I assume came with the system. I say 'assume' as its the first VCS I ever owned that came with this manual and although its hard to tell from the pics, this thing is in A+ condition, it literally looks like it was printed yesterday. No creases, the spine is totally flat and unbent and theres not a mark or fade on the paper.

So - I got that lot for $35. Not bad... I'm really excited to have more paperwork for this system, especially as I never actually owned one back in the day (I was a Odyssey 2 then C64 kid).

Here's some pics... sorry for the quality, they were snapped on a crappy camera phone in a mad rush before work. I can take better pics if anyone is interested.

Enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5843029606/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5842482975/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5843029544/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5843029420/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5843029350/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5842482815/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5843029522/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5842482915/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5842482891/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54651860@N00/5842482869/

[GameGavel]

Sweet. I have a beautiful woodgrain A2600 and box in like new condition. The box holds as many memories for me as the system I think. It stirs up all kinds of emotion when I look at it

[wongojack]

My VCS manual has what would seem to be an identical picture, but I think its black . . .

[retroshaun]

I wish I could find one "complete" in box (everything in place, cable ties etc) but so far no luck. This is a good 2nd best though.

I'm very curious as to the price for the Vectrex - and I'm prepared for the worst!

The guy also had a Tron VFD tabletop for $25 which I thought was a little steep (he said - you know - Tron is the in thing now!) but I'd probably have taken it if I didn't have one already.

[wongojack]

BTW retroshaun - I'm in Dallas and I wanted to share with you my favorite T-Shirt slogan I've seen about the Mavs win over the Heat: "Lebron, how does my Dirk taste?"

[BydoEmpire73]

BTW retroshaun - I'm in Dallas and I wanted to share with you my favorite T-Shirt slogan I've seen about the Mavs win over the Heat: "Lebron, how does my Dirk taste?"

That's awesome.

Great find, retroshaun, congrats!

[Dhalamar]

Great find, bastard. :P

Now you've got me wanting to play mine a hell of a lot more. I've gotta get some working 2600 controllers and paddles sometime. The Sega Genesis controller works and it works great ... it's just not the same. :P

I'm not about to hook that thing up to an HDTV ... gonna have to dig out my old 13" Wal-Mart brand CRT TV for that sucker.

[tcv]

Probably the most interesting part is the paperwork. It came with a bunch of common game manuals but as you can see in the pics a lot of game catalogs from Activision, Imagic, Atari etc. It also has a dealer price list, a bunch of business card type things and an internal memo from Atari!

Huh. What an odd to wind up in a box? It looks like the system was purchased direct from Atari, but a inter-office memo? I wonder if the console was owned by someone working for Atari at one time.

Great find!

[retroshaun]

BTW retroshaun - I'm in Dallas and I wanted to share with you my favorite T-Shirt slogan I've seen about the Mavs win over the Heat: "Lebron, how does my Dirk taste?"

Yeah I saw that and also saw the debate over which comment was the most childish (as it was worn by a Dallas player as I am sure you know), and that one won! :-) Anyway - chuffed for Dirk, still hate Terry!

[retroshaun]

Huh. What an odd to wind up in a box? It looks like the system was purchased direct from Atari, but a inter-office memo? I wonder if the console was owned by someone working for Atari at one time.

Great find!

Right, exactly... very odd, but I'm a sucker for these little paperwork time capsules.