4
This topic is locked
I brought the cart up to the guy at the register and said "Just this.." - the stuff in the 2600 box normally sold for $1 a piece. He looked at the cart and said "This looks interesting" and took it into his back room office. 15 minutes later, after some phone calls and Web searching, no doubt, he comes back and says "Sorry, I can't sell this. It looks to be some sort of prototype and I could probably get $70 for it". I couldn't be sure that it was a prototype without looking at the board and the guy had done this to me in the past with other games (not prototypes, but he bases a lot of his prices on eBay after-the-fact - like, if you look like a "collector"). So I walk out and call Curt Vendel for a second opinion.
After talking with Curt, we realized that it was most definitely a 2600 prototype of Meltdown, which was previously only released for the 7800. I knew the game was a 2600 version, as it didn't have the additional fingers on the PCB for the 7800. So, I went back into the store and asked to look at the cartridge. It turns out that when the guy was in the office, he broke the handwritten white sticker to access the screwhole of the cartridge. He showed me the PCB which was a great looking, flawless EPROM board with an EPROM (I can't remember if it was 2K or 4K) that looked like it came right out of a package - it was totally unscratched and the entire cartridge was in flawless condition. He then said maybe he could sell it for $50 to $70, thinking it was a prototype of the 7800 version.
So, after talking for a while (turns out he is a big collector in Vegas, I guess), I offered to give him cash for it. But then he balked again and said he couldn't sell it at all! He changed his tune now and said he thought it was for the 2600 and could "get $200" for it. Not having that kind of cash, I left. Pissed off and having wasted 30 minutes.
That's the story. Has this ever happened to anyone before? I guess I shouldn't really expect to get bargains at videogame stores, but if the cartridge is in a box of other stuff for sale, it should be for sale, and not have the price jacked up once a customer is interested in the product. The dude says "If I wasn't here and it was just my partner, you would have gotten it for $1" - meaning his partner knew nothing about videogames. The crappy thing is is that I don't think that even Tempest has a copy of this game and it would have been great to image the ROM and preserve it for the community. It was in my hands and then got snapped away. It ruined the rest of my visit to Vegas. I was fuming.
Anyway, at least I can positively confirm that I saw a 2600 Meltdown prototype and can provide other visual details if you are curious about it.
Joe
) could get together and purchase it together to get it dumped or whatever it is they do with it.
