Boxed Atari 2600 Air Raid Found After 20 Years!

dcultrapro · October 25, 2012, 15:18:34 PM

awesome... is there any site like Game Gavel in the UK? or one that sells pal games as well as US? wicked site. And an amazing find!!

TL · October 25, 2012, 15:35:14 PM

Quote from: "dcultrapro"awesome... is there any site like Game Gavel in the UK? or one that sells pal games as well as US? wicked site. And an amazing find!!

Yeah there is a UK version, or there was anyway. Nobody really uses Game Gavel as its far harder to sell stuff there than ebay.

Shadowrunner · October 25, 2012, 17:13:51 PM

Quote from: "The Laird"
Quote from: "dcultrapro"awesome... is there any site like Game Gavel in the UK? or one that sells pal games as well as US? wicked site. And an amazing find!!

Yeah there is a UK version, or there was anyway. Nobody really uses Game Gavel as its far harder to sell stuff there than ebay.

Yeah Game Gavel isn't very well known which makes it harder to sell on. On the plus side though they don't charge anywhere near as much as ebay does. You just pay a really small monthly fee and you keep all the money you make on the auctions.Â For this game I think it was a good idea cause they would pay a fortune if they listed it on ebay and it's getting enough exposure around the net that anybody interested in it will definitely find out about it.

zapiy · October 26, 2012, 17:23:52 PM

wow, what a lucky sod.. why not me lol..

TL · October 29, 2012, 16:23:42 PM

For those of you who have never seen this legendary game in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaeG1FmvbRA

Shadowrunner · October 29, 2012, 18:17:24 PM

Well now that I see how amazing the game is it's totally worth 30 grand!!! LOL

TrekMD · October 29, 2012, 18:25:58 PM

Quote from: "Shadowrunner"Well now that I see how amazing the game is it's totally worth 30 grand!!! LOL

Well, we could rename it Pocket Raid!Â

Shadowrunner · October 29, 2012, 18:55:07 PM

Quote from: "TrekMD"
Quote from: "Shadowrunner"Well now that I see how amazing the game is it's totally worth 30 grand!!! LOL

Well, we could rename it Pocket Raid!Â

LOL Yes that's a perfect name!

TL · November 02, 2012, 19:21:11 PM

[size=180]CURRENT BID: $17,100

TIME LEFT: 2d 7h[/size]

http://www.gamegavel.com/item.cgi?show_item=0000687017

TrekMD · November 02, 2012, 19:36:36 PM

Whoa, that's a bit of cash.Â

Shadowrunner · November 02, 2012, 21:13:30 PM

Another copy of this game went up on ebay last week. It was boxed but without instructions and the box was a little crushed. It went for $13,000 I think which is still a lot but a lot less then the last one that sold for $30,000. People must be really looking for this game now and the more that are found the less they are going to be worth. Still interested to see what this one goes for that's complete.

TL · November 06, 2012, 16:29:38 PM

In the end, things worked out pretty good for Harv Bennett, the Pomona, CA man who recently unearthed a copy of the incredibly rare Atari 2600 game Air Raid.

You might recall his story: After reading up about the scarcity of the game, Harv and his daughter Alana went treasure hunting in the family storage shed, excitedly finding Harv's pristine copy amidst stacks of other Atari 2600 games. After verifying its authenticity, they put it up for bidding at video game auction site Gamegavel.com, hoping collectors would go nuts.

They did.

The sale ended late Sunday, and collectors didn't disappoint. The Bennetts pocketed $33,433.30 for the game, setting a new Air Raid record. The previous high mark came in 2010, when a copy sold for $31,600.

All totaled, there were 31 bids for the Bennetts' copy of Air Raid -- and the price escalated quickly. By the end of the first day, bidding jumped from $100 to nearly $16,000. But then things stalled, and it looked like the Bennetts wouldn't come close to the record.

At the last minute, though, a pair of collectors slugged it out. "Wonder007" raised the price to $17,200, only to be topped by "videolifer" 33 seconds later with an epic bid of $33,333,30. "Wonder007" raised his bid by another $100 and with that, the auction closed.

Released in 1982 by a company called Men-a-Vision, Air Raid is considered one of gaming's rarest treasures. Only about a dozen copies have popped up over the years, making it a Holy Grail for Atari 2600 game collectors.

The money, says Harv, will go to Alana.

"My daughter is living the American dream," he told gaming website Polygon. "She just bought a house, and it's a real fixer-upper. Almost all of the money I'm giving to Alana to help her with her house."

The Bennetts weren't the only people to see a sudden windfall thanks to Air Raid in the past week. An eBay auction of another boxed copy of the game ended with a sales price just shy of $14,000.

The Bennetts had several advantages, though: their copy was in much better condition, plus it contained the game's original instruction manual, which apparently has never been found intact before.

While the new high mark for Air Raid makes it the most expensive Atari 2600 game ever, it's still significantly short of the all time record price paid for a video game. That honor goes to an exceedingly rare prototype cartridge of Nintendo's original The Legend of Zelda, which eventually sold for a stunning $55,000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46Y4JwGw ... r_embedded

TrekMD · November 06, 2012, 16:32:37 PM

Damn, makes me wish I had bought a copy of this game back then!Â LOL

TL · November 06, 2012, 16:48:13 PM

Quote from: "TrekMD"Damn, makes me wish I had bought a copy of this game back then! LOL

TO THE DELOREAN!!!!

TrekMD · November 06, 2012, 16:52:12 PM

Quote from: "The Laird"
Quote from: "TrekMD"Damn, makes me wish I had bought a copy of this game back then! LOL

TO THE DELOREAN!!!!

My uncle has a DeLorean! I'll have to "borrow" it! LOL