Air Raid (Atari 2600) for sale on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110514343174

I guess this deserved a thread since it's the first time the game "AIR RAID" for the Atari 2600 appeared complete in box for open sale.

Members from Digit Press, Atariage etc. will have followed this. I'm really excited about the final price

 

12k already. definately one to watch

 

Anyone here thinking of getting it? Anyone here have one of those ultra-rare things?

 

I agree with Assembler, I've yet to discover a hardcore early 80's Atari collector who is less than 35 years old, everyone starts with NES nowadays.

That makes the ending price just the more interesting. There must be many Atari collectors out there who have earned good money by now. Now imagine nobody even knew what the box looked like until this particular copy popped up! Would be fun to see some wealthy 45yr old Atari nuts go insane over this. ^^"

 

agreed:lol:

btw. I made the box.

 

I'm not thirty yet, but Atari has a certain charm for me. I don't claim to be hardcore or anything, but I have lots of fun collecting Atari stuff (and Coleco, and Intellivision, and 80s home computers - Early eighties stuff).
I don't have a big collection or anything, but it's just so fun!

I remember a lot of Atari stuff from when I was a kid. Hell, I still regularly played my 2600 in the early 90s! I also love the XE and the Commodore 64. Man, those were awesome.
Maybe it's because when you guys already had the NES, Atari was still the dominant system in Mexico and other areas of the third world.

Now, if I were asked what games I like better, I would certainly say PC Engine or SNES is a lot cooler, by much.

But for charming and almost campy appeal, and because it's from my childhood, Atari is king.

 

I'm kinda fishy about this auction...the cart has no name and the title screen is non existant, i thought Air-Raid was given to it as a name by collectors? correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

Yeah, some things don't add up.

 

I had not been familiar with the Air Raid hype until the complete copy turned up, but I thought Air Raid was the official name? The box, however, looks quite legit and original for a fake. And it wasn't unusual that Atari games had no title screens, esp. those from small obscure developers that used T-handle carts.

However it sure is hard to tell if it is legit or not if you don't have the information to compare.

 

i think it's legit, don't get me wrong. the art work is too well reproduced for it not to be.

It just struck me as odd, because the game has no title screen, and the name is no where on the cartridge.

I heard Air-Raid was the name given to it by collectors.

 

From what I remember reading a few years ago when one of these turned up was that the name was 'remembered' by someone that had the game (cartridge only)... No one could prove it one way or the other, so they just went with it.

Apparently the guy that owns/runs AtariAge went to the sellers house to inspect the box in person. Various things he noticed (like the obvious age of the box, the fact that the artwork on the box was a higher-resolution image than the cartridge (not just an upscaled scan of the cartridge, in other words), and the custom made tray for the cartridge) led him to believe that it really is the real box for the game.

Mentioned here on GameSniped:
http://www.gamesniped.com/2010/04/03/complete-atari-2600-air-raid-with-box/

I actually used to go to Tuesday Morning in Texas all the time back in the 80's, and immediately recognized the price-sticker. That's definitely an 80's TM price sticker on the box... (I'm not even sure if that chain of stores still exists, but I would imagine they are using different price stickers these days...)

 

Tuesday Morning still exists. Don't believe me ask my mother, she goes there almost religiously. They even have a website: http://tuesdaymorning.com/

They don't carry much in the way of games beyond the odd Xbox or PS2 low rating games that no one buys.

 

This isn't the first box to ever be seen. Perhaps not even the first in a collection as many of the bigger Atari collectors started and stopped (or took a break) collecting pre-ebay.
There are rumors that boxes have been floating around but no one has been able to has been willing to stand up and be counted.

My understanding is that it all started way back with the Digital Press crew in the 90's. One of the DP founders, Kevin insisted he saw one back in the day. The cart was listed in the guide as an R10 with the name he saw on the box.

 

It may have also been reviewed in a game magazine. Not so sure on that one.

 

It's practically always been known that the cart has no name on it, of all the places I've read of this game, none have stated otherwise.

As for the box, it looks pretty cool and nicely made to be a fake.

Only thing I don't like about this, is the fu@$ing news is all over this, so now it'll be even harder for us to ever dream of finding one of these rare carts for cheap, same thing as what happened with Stadium Events.

 

The final price is 31,600$ (approx. 23,000 Euro).

 

you misinterpreted what I was talking about.

wasn't saying the cart is a fake, wasn't even saying the box IS a fake, said it's kinda weird because everywhere I've read Air-Raid was just a nickname given to the otherwise blank cart

 

The name has been known for a long time.