24 replies to this topic

[homerwannabee]

OK, I decided to put a new perspective on the AtariAge rarity list. Here are what I think are the rarest games by rarity. Basically these are the 1.9's 2.9's, 3.9's of the group.

Rarity 1
Night Driver
Star Raiders

Yeah, they are common, but no where near as common as Combat, Space Invaders, and are less common than pitfall which is a rarity 2 game.

Rarity 2
Backgammon
Boxing (Activision)
Commando Raid
International Soccer
Keystone Kapers
Maze Mania
Othello
Sneak N' Peak

As far as rarity 2 games these are a tad rarer. International soccer I would say is the rarest of the bunch. You just don't see it, and Sneak N' Peak was a horrible game so it is definitely on the rarer side.


Rarity 3
Basic Math/Fun With numbers
Basic Programming
Checkers
Quest for Quintana Roo
Realsports Soccer
Spiderdroid
Super Challenge Baseball (Telegames)

Checkers, and Basic Math/ Fun With Numbers top this list. Marco has a $200 bounty on this game, and he still can't find it. Basic math is a little easier to find but is also a tough one. The Telegames games for the most part are underrated as tuff ones to find. I think Telegames suffers from being around so long. They may have been around a long time but they are hard to find because of when they started selling games.

Rarity 4
Basic Math 61
Escape from the Mindmaster
Final Approach
Fireball
Front Line
Frontline
Karate (Froggo)
Ocean City Defender
Spelling
Suicide Mission
Wabbit

Zellers, Starpath, and Apollo games have some extremely tough to find games.

Rarity 5
Artillery Duel
Beat em and eat em/Lady in Wading
Dishaster
Dragonstomper
I want my mommy
Night Stalker
Philly Flasher/Cathouse Blues
Roc N Rope
Universial Chaos

Universial Chaos is heads and shoulders above everyone else in this group. I have seen a ton more Waterworlds, Glibs, and Tooth Protectors than this game. The porno game double enders can be rare as well, as evidenced by the recent high prices for the games sealed.

Rarity 6
Cannon Man
Espial
Official Frogger

These games come up once in a blue moon. Cannon Man is 10 times rarer than the silver label Gravitar that people seem to go gaga over.

Rarity 7
Party Mix
Springer

Springer is hugely tuff, and Party Mix is hard as well. You just don't see this to often

Rarity 8
Diagnostic Cart
Survival Island
Sword of Saros

The fact that it was a Diagnostic cart should give people an indication it extremely hard to find. Survival Island and Sword of Saros are found like once or twice a year it seems.

Rarity 9
Assault
Great Escape
Lochjaw
River Patrol
Tomarc/Motocross
Wall Defender
Z-Tack

Included the Bomb Games because while they are a tad easier to find than the other games, they are near impossible to find actually working. With Lochjaw and River Patrol I can't remember the last time these games came up boxed on Ebay.

Rarity 10
Birthday Mania
Gamma Attack

There are two known copies of Gamma Attack out there at the moment, and one known copy, and rumored to exist copy of Birthday Mania. There are some huge collectors that will never ever own this game.

[Chickybaby]

I've noticed over time you seem to be quite fixed on rarities of games, price values, and who owns what. I'm really curious how this began and why? I understand documenting to an extent what's out there but many people like me are private and don't want to encourage attention for the most part about what they do or don't have among other things. Please don't take my question negatively as it's not intended that way. Intersting topic.

[Cebus Capucinis]

I think it's just economic theory style fascinating. Tracking all the prices and rarities is a lot like the stock market, it's always just fun to look at the statistics and make projections and things like that.

Or maybe Homer has a huge hoard of Birthday Mania carts and just tracks it to make sure he'll become a billionaire.

[homerwannabee]

Chickybaby, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 9:34 AM, said:

I've noticed over time you seem to be quite fixed on rarities of games, price values, and who owns what. I'm really curious how this began and why? I understand documenting to an extent what's out there but many people like me are private and don't want to encourage attention for the most part about what they do or don't have among other things. Please don't take my question negatively as it's not intended that way. Intersting topic.

Because I am interested in numbers. I am especially interested in numbers that have some sort of meaning. The reason for being into numbers is because I have an analytical mind, and a mathematical mind to boot. Since I could remember I have always been interested in numbers. When I was 5 years old I was able to multiply, and make change. When I was a kid I would spend hours and hours of my time pouring through a baseball stat book in the library. If you look at what I am into you will see it has everything to do with numbers.

Who owns what:Gives a more detailed account of the number of carts out there, makes it so a cart is not counted twice thus making a more accurate number.

Rarity. It's on a number scale from 1 to 10.

Prices: They are all about numbers. In order to have a price you have to have a number.

I love numbers. I really love numbers. It is my life. This is what I do for fun. I even make my own stats up that I can't find on the Internet. Here are a couple of things I have worked on

Most hits in 7 years
Most hits in 8 years
Most hits in 9 years
Most hits in 10 years
Democrat and Republican party electoral vote history
The lowest shut out and competion years in baseball
Highest consectutive win years as a coach
Odds of winning an NBA championship in relation to wins
Record for most TD's in consecutive seasons as a quarterback
Cities with the highest murder rate ever.

Yes, I actually made stats for all these things.

I think at times there is a misunderstanding of why I am fixated on prices. It is not a greed thing as it is a number thing.

Edit: One more thing needs to be said. I did not create the registry of rare games guide. Cinncynoti did. I just decided to make it up to date. So keeping track of who owned what was way before I even did that.

Edited by homerwannabee, Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:32 AM.

[Dino]

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:49 AM, said:

Survival Island and Sword of Saros are found like once or twice a year it seems.

You're just not looking hard enough LOL!

[the.golden.ax]

Red Dodge Em is harder to find than a Red BMX... just my 2 cents worth.

AX

[homerwannabee]

Dino, on Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:44 PM, said:

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:49 AM, said:

Survival Island and Sword of Saros are found like once or twice a year it seems.

You're just not looking hard enough LOL!

I said for a rarity 8 game. Really you think this is just as common as Mr. Do!s Castle or Crazy Climber. If you are you are not looking hard enough for those titles. For every Sword of Saros you will find 10 Crazy Climbers.

[Dino]

homerwannabee, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:02 AM, said:

Dino, on Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:44 PM, said:

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:49 AM, said:

Survival Island and Sword of Saros are found like once or twice a year it seems.

You're just not looking hard enough LOL!

I said for a rarity 8 game. Really you think this is just as common as Mr. Do!s Castle or Crazy Climber. If you are you are not looking hard enough for those titles. For every Sword of Saros you will find 10 Crazy Climbers.

Yep, they are def. more rare than CC and MDC. I was laughing at the "once or twice a year". I dont look very hard at all and I see them at least half a dozen times a year.

As an aside, that would make them solid R6s in my personal books. CC is about an R4 in my books. i personally have a much stricter view on what an R8 should be. I would expect an R8 to be a title that comes up for sale once a year on average. If it comes up for sale every 2-4 years on average it should be an R9 and over 5 years an R10.

[homerwannabee]

Dino, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:05 PM, said:

homerwannabee, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:02 AM, said:

Dino, on Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:44 PM, said:

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:49 AM, said:

Survival Island and Sword of Saros are found like once or twice a year it seems.

You're just not looking hard enough LOL!

I said for a rarity 8 game. Really you think this is just as common as Mr. Do!s Castle or Crazy Climber. If you are you are not looking hard enough for those titles. For every Sword of Saros you will find 10 Crazy Climbers.

Yep, they are def. more rare than CC and MDC. I was laughing at the "once or twice a year". I dont look very hard at all and I see them at least half a dozen times a year.

As an aside, that would make them solid R6s in my personal books. CC is about an R4 in my books. i personally have a much stricter view on what an R8 should be. I would expect an R8 to be a title that comes up for sale once a year on average. If it comes up for sale every 2-4 years on average it should be an R9 and over 5 years an R10.

Boy you wouldn't like NES kids. Since everything is so common they basically have what amounts to Atariage 6 and 7's as 9 and 10's.

[cvga]

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:09 AM, said:

Prices: They are all about numbers. In order to have a price you have to have a number.

I love numbers. I really love numbers. It is my life. This is what I do for fun. I even make my own stats up that I can't find on the Internet. Here are a couple of things I have worked on

Most hits in 7 years
Most hits in 8 years
Most hits in 9 years
Most hits in 10 years
Democrat and Republican party electoral vote history
The lowest shut out and competion years in baseball
Highest consectutive win years as a coach
Odds of winning an NBA championship in relation to wins
Record for most TD's in consecutive seasons as a quarterback
Cities with the highest murder rate ever.

Interesting. I think it would be interesting to create a video game index. Sort of like the S&P 500 but based on the going prices for select Atari games. I'd propose choosing 25 or so Atari 2600 games of various rarities and creating one index that represents the basket price of all 25 carts (based on recent sales) and a second index that gives additional weight to the lower rarity carts in order to avoid having the higher rarity carts dominate the value of the index. It would be fun to track and refer back to when people make posts in the future about the prices going way up or way down.

[CPUWIZ]

Dino, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 7:05 PM, said:

homerwannabee, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 6:02 AM, said:

Dino, on Mon Oct 26, 2009 10:44 PM, said:

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:49 AM, said:

Survival Island and Sword of Saros are found like once or twice a year it seems.

You're just not looking hard enough LOL!

I said for a rarity 8 game. Really you think this is just as common as Mr. Do!s Castle or Crazy Climber. If you are you are not looking hard enough for those titles. For every Sword of Saros you will find 10 Crazy Climbers.

Yep, they are def. more rare than CC and MDC. I was laughing at the "once or twice a year". I dont look very hard at all and I see them at least half a dozen times a year.

As an aside, that would make them solid R6s in my personal books. CC is about an R4 in my books. i personally have a much stricter view on what an R8 should be. I would expect an R8 to be a title that comes up for sale once a year on average. If it comes up for sale every 2-4 years on average it should be an R9 and over 5 years an R10.

Perhaps, but that is all "blah" to people who don't care about loose crap. A boxed Crazy Climber in the condition I have it in, took me 5 or 6 years to obtain.

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

CPUWIZ, on Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:04 AM, said:

Perhaps, but that is all "blah" to people who don't care about loose crap. A boxed Crazy Climber in the condition I have it in, took me 5 or 6 years to obtain.

Yes, that´s true!

[Dino]

iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin, on Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:44 AM, said:

CPUWIZ, on Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:04 AM, said:

Perhaps, but that is all "blah" to people who don't care about loose crap. A boxed Crazy Climber in the condition I have it in, took me 5 or 6 years to obtain.

Yes, that´s true!

Boxed CCs are still very common. Granted very few are in pristine or sealed condition. But lets face it, apart from a couple of titles, NTSC carts are all pretty dirt common. If you want to talk about rarity, talk PAL!

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Dino, on Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:24 PM, said:

iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin, on Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:44 AM, said:

CPUWIZ, on Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:04 AM, said:

Perhaps, but that is all "blah" to people who don't care about loose crap. A boxed Crazy Climber in the condition I have it in, took me 5 or 6 years to obtain.

Yes, that´s true!

Boxed CCs are still very common. Granted very few are in pristine or sealed condition. But lets face it, apart from a couple of titles, NTSC carts are all pretty dirt common. If you want to talk about rarity, talk PAL!

HELL YES!!!

[twanbiz]

if you make the index ill make the etf!

[Mirage]

Mr. Galaxian, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:09 AM, said:

Cities with the highest murder rate ever.

Yes, I actually made stats for all these things.

Pretty much OT, but I'm actually more interested in this, if you'd care to share.

[homerwannabee]

Mirage, on Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:40 PM, said:

Mr. Galaxian, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:09 AM, said:

Cities with the highest murder rate ever.

Yes, I actually made stats for all these things.

Pretty much OT, but I'm actually more interested in this, if you'd care to share.

Well here you Go

Cities with the highest murder rate 2005, 2006
Cumberland Gap, Ten pop 205 murders 2, 2006
Industry, Ca pop 840 murders 3, 2005
Industry, Ca pop 875 murders 4, 2006
Ayden, NC pop 4,666 murders 6, 2005
Opa Locka, FL pop 15,673 murders 8, 2005
Anniston, Ala, pop 23,956 murders 14, 2006
East Palo Alto, Ca pop 32,255 murders 15, 2005
Chester, Pen pop 37,091 murders 18, 2006
Irvington, NJ pop 58,921 murders 21, 2006
Irvington, NJ pop 59,820 murders 28, 2005
Youngstown, OH pop 77,747 murders 34, 2005
Compton, Ca pop 96,874 murders 65, 2005
Richmond, VA 195,271 murders 84, 2005
Birmingham, Ala pop 233,577 murders 104, 2006
Newark, NJ pop 280,877 murders 105, 2006
St. Louis, Missouri pop 346,005 murders 131, 2005
Oakland, Ca pop 398,834 murders 145, 2006
New Orleans, pop 431,153 murders 162, 2006
Washington D.C. pop 550,521 murders 195, 2005
Baltimore, Ma pop 637,556 murders 276, 2006
Detroit, Mi pop 884,462 murders 418, 2006
Chicago, Ill pop 2,857,796 murders 468, 2006
Los Angeles, Ca pop 3,871,077 murders 489, 2005
New York, NY pop 8,115,690 murders 539, 2005
New York, NY pop 8,165,001 murders 596, 2006

[Mirage]

Wow, lots of dead people. The Cumberland Gap one is kinda crazy... everyone in that town should have known the victims. Numbers like that are interesting to me, to think so many people murdered every year, and that's just those cities. Anyway, totally OT ended, thanks for the list.

[White Knight]

Dino, on Thu Oct 29, 2009 4:24 PM, said:

iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin, on Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:44 AM, said:

CPUWIZ, on Wed Oct 28, 2009 1:04 AM, said:

Perhaps, but that is all "blah" to people who don't care about loose crap. A boxed Crazy Climber in the condition I have it in, took me 5 or 6 years to obtain.

Yes, that´s true!

Boxed CCs are still very common. Granted very few are in pristine or sealed condition. But lets face it, apart from a couple of titles, NTSC carts are all pretty dirt common. If you want to talk about rarity, talk PAL!

How many great conditioned CC's would you say are out there? I am lucky to have mine in a glass case.

[Ranthulfr]

It would be kind of cool to have + or - attached to the rating scale. Though I wouldn't want to be the one keeping up with all that minutiae.

[atari181]

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:09 AM, said:

Chickybaby, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 9:34 AM, said:

I've noticed over time you seem to be quite fixed on rarities of games, price values, and who owns what. I'm really curious how this began and why? I understand documenting to an extent what's out there but many people like me are private and don't want to encourage attention for the most part about what they do or don't have among other things. Please don't take my question negatively as it's not intended that way. Intersting topic.

Because I am interested in numbers. I am especially interested in numbers that have some sort of meaning. The reason for being into numbers is because I have an analytical mind, and a mathematical mind to boot. Since I could remember I have always been interested in numbers. When I was 5 years old I was able to multiply, and make change. When I was a kid I would spend hours and hours of my time pouring through a baseball stat book in the library. If you look at what I am into you will see it has everything to do with numbers.

Who owns what:Gives a more detailed account of the number of carts out there, makes it so a cart is not counted twice thus making a more accurate number.

Rarity. It's on a number scale from 1 to 10.

Prices: They are all about numbers. In order to have a price you have to have a number.

I love numbers. I really love numbers. It is my life. This is what I do for fun. I even make my own stats up that I can't find on the Internet. Here are a couple of things I have worked on

Most hits in 7 years
Most hits in 8 years
Most hits in 9 years
Most hits in 10 years
Democrat and Republican party electoral vote history
The lowest shut out and competion years in baseball
Highest consectutive win years as a coach
Odds of winning an NBA championship in relation to wins
Record for most TD's in consecutive seasons as a quarterback
Cities with the highest murder rate ever.

Yes, I actually made stats for all these things.

I think at times there is a misunderstanding of why I am fixated on prices. It is not a greed thing as it is a number thing.

Edit: One more thing needs to be said. I did not create the registry of rare games guide. Cinncynoti did. I just decided to make it up to date. So keeping track of who owned what was way before I even did that.

I for one also loven knowing the actual rarity of games and how much they are worth. i love to play Atari games, but don't always have the time. I love collecting them. Their is nothing like finding a game for $3 at Goodwill and knowing it is worth $50. In college I also loved Statistics and how stats can predict the chance of something happening in the future. Long live the Rarity Guide!

[atari181]

cvga, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 10:43 PM, said:

homerwannabee, on Sun Oct 25, 2009 10:09 AM, said:

Prices: They are all about numbers. In order to have a price you have to have a number.

I love numbers. I really love numbers. It is my life. This is what I do for fun. I even make my own stats up that I can't find on the Internet. Here are a couple of things I have worked on

Most hits in 7 years
Most hits in 8 years
Most hits in 9 years
Most hits in 10 years
Democrat and Republican party electoral vote history
The lowest shut out and competion years in baseball
Highest consectutive win years as a coach
Odds of winning an NBA championship in relation to wins
Record for most TD's in consecutive seasons as a quarterback
Cities with the highest murder rate ever.

Interesting. I think it would be interesting to create a video game index. Sort of like the S&P 500 but based on the going prices for select Atari games. I'd propose choosing 25 or so Atari 2600 games of various rarities and creating one index that represents the basket price of all 25 carts (based on recent sales) and a second index that gives additional weight to the lower rarity carts in order to avoid having the higher rarity carts dominate the value of the index. It would be fun to track and refer back to when people make posts in the future about the prices going way up or way down.

Like the inflation index. Sounds like a job for Homer.

[A.J. Franzman]

homerwannabee, on Sat Jan 16, 2010 7:44 PM, said:

Industry, Ca pop 840 murders 3, 2005
Industry, Ca pop 875 murders 4, 2006

Since you don't live very far away, you might be aware of this, but for those unfamiliar with the area:
These numbers are very misleading. Industry is actually a fairly large suburb of Los Angeles, but as its name implies it's almost entirely zoned as industrial; very few people live there, in comparison to how many people work there. Also, about 5 miles of freeway run through Industry, so even something like a fatal incident of road rage involving people just driving through will spike the statistical murder rate.

BTW, I live in an unincorparated section of Los Angeles county adjacent to Industry, and I feel safer there than in my own neighborhood because of all the gang and drug activity here.

Edited by A.J. Franzman, Thu Apr 29, 2010 5:36 PM.

[Miss 2600]

homerwannabee, on Tue Oct 27, 2009 10:43 PM, said:

Most hits in 7 years
Most hits in 8 years
Most hits in 9 years
Most hits in 10 years
Democrat and Republican party electoral vote history
The lowest shut out and competion years in baseball
Highest consectutive win years as a coach
Odds of winning an NBA championship in relation to wins
Record for most TD's in consecutive seasons as a quarterback
Cities with the highest murder rate ever.

Do you play the NCAA basketball brackets? It would be interesting to see if statistics can help in one's bid to win an office pool (although this past tournament was probably a little more unconventional than most).

Edited by Miss 2600, Thu Apr 29, 2010 7:09 PM.

[White Knight]

Is there a sister topic out there, like the most common games by rarity? Would love to see one started.