Atari Age Rarity Ratings

[hbomb]

Are the Atari Age rarity ratings for only the cart or are they for cart and box? Also, does anyone know how often they are updated? Surely, these carts get destroyed or go missing everyday which increases their values.

[lowscore]

Are the Atari Age rarity ratings for only the cart or are they for cart and box? Also, does anyone know how often they are updated? Surely, these carts get destroyed or go missing everyday which increases their values.

 

Actually it seems like more often than not a pallet of NIB rare-title-of-the-month will appear and plunge the value of said game.

[+Psionic]

Are the Atari Age rarity ratings for only the cart or are they for cart and box?

Loose cartridge only.

 

Also, does anyone know how often they are updated?

Rarely...the rarity scale is a long term project and the scarcity of most games is well established at this point. A new discovery of several copies of a rare game may affect the short-term rarity (and price), but it will rarely affect the long-term rarity.

 

Surely, these carts get destroyed or go missing everyday which increases their values.

Quite the contrary...as lowscore said, the trend has been for new copies of rare games to show up. Besides, it is true that carts are destroyed or lost everyday, but in order for this to affect the rarity rating of a given game, we would have to know about it. I mean if some random guy decides to throw away his entire Atari collection (which includes a CIB Music Machine or something), how is that going to affect rarity? The collecting community wouldn't even know that the copy of Music Machine that was destroyed existed in the first place. If anything, occurances like that are what help rare games keep their rarity (the rarity of games is based on the number of "found copies" and is contingent upon no more copies being found). Also, many games (R9-10) are so rare that they're just impossible to find as it is, the few copies that end up in the landfill at this point are moot.

 

Anyway you slice it, an R7 is an R7 and an R9 is an R9. An R9 could theoretically become an R7 if enough new copies are found (NOS palette), but this is a rare occurance. On the other hand, an R7 is never going to become an R9...unless someone literally starts collecting all copies of a particular game and destroying them (in which case said person would likely be shot, and rightly so).

[jpfalcon2003]

Agree with some of the rarities, but shouldn't Atari 2600 Super Baseball be of a little higher rarity. This i not a game that is seen in the wild for sure. It is also not seen in too many collections. A few old stores do have this title new in box however, but i think this title should be at least a R4 or R5.

[jpfalcon2003]

Agree with some of the rarities, but shouldn't Atari 2600 Super Baseball be of a little higher rarity. This i not a game that is seen in the wild for sure. It is also not seen in too many collections. A few old stores do have this title new in box however, but i think this title should be at least a R4 or R5.

[fsuinnc]

I haven't seen a single A2600 cart in the wild for several years. To the point I rarely go thrifting any more. (maybe everything has moved to ebay).

To me everything has become rare or at least scarce. (which is not to say they have increased in value).

[Red 5]

I still get lots of 2600's and carts at tag sales.

 

All commons, but I still get them.

 

In 7 or so years of collecting, the rarest thing I ever got at a tag sale was Guardian.

Not too bad.

 

Doesn't stop me from trying though.

 

There are some rarities that make no sense at all.

Super Baseball, Silver label asteroids, Glacier Patrol, Universal Chaos should all be much rarer than they are.

I just mentioned in a recent post that I just got Glacier Patrol. 500 NTSC carts in my collection and I just got a rarity 4 that I have been actively searching for, for over a year.

Also, I have never found an NTSC silver label asteroids in all my years of searching.

 

Ikari Warriors and Motorodeo should be much lower than they are.

 

There are many others that get debated all the time.

 

 

Digital Press updates their rarity list with much more regularity, but all the love is here at AtariAge (even with

the unupdated rartiy lists.)

[homerwannabee]

Ok, it has been long enough. So I will unlease my theory. If you notice this site still has 2 administrators. Maybe, there is some kind of working agreement between Alex, and Albert that they both have to agree on a rarity change. And since Alex has not been around for so long the rarity guide has not been changed.

[Omegamatrix]

Ok, it has been long enough. So I will unlease my theory. If you notice this site still has 2 administrators. Maybe, there is some kind of working agreement between Alex, and Albert that they both have to agree on a rarity change. And since Alex has not been around for so long the rarity guide has not been changed.

Homer, I love your theories.

 

Al must have wanted to preserve the rarity guide "as is" because he put Alex into a meat grinder and disposed the remains of Alex in various homebrews. Non-Alex carts are now more rare then Alex-Inside© carts. Alex-Inside© adds an astonishing 4K of ram to each cart, and homebrewers love them, er... him.

 

That is my theory and I am sticking to it.

Edited August 25, 2007 by Omegamatrix