Video Game Collections

[Xentorians]

originally I was going to post this question on songbird's "Ready to sell my NUON collection" thread, since it made me think about why a person involved in some Nuon developement and obviously once a big fan would want to sell his collection, but then I though naah he's trying to sell it my post would be like spam on his thread.

Ive been a video gamer since age 4 I think. For the last 6-7 years I made it a priority to track down almost every major video gaming console and computer I can get my hands on. Once I get them, I'll tinker around with them for a while. Find out what the homebrew/hack scene is like and possibly apply it, check out if theres even an active community still supporting the console or computer, buy some software and possibly even bootleg alot of the software associated with it. Even track down add-ons and peripherals. All this I love. My only programming skills are in Basic, html, javascript and i am familiar with various graphic programs. So, I can never get involved in the development scene but I dont mind lol.

Just a little story here. I once saw an ad on craigslist.com of a coleco Adam computer with peripherals and software for sale at a great price. I of course jumped on it. It led me to a house in a rather suburb-like area of Brooklyn I had never been to before. A middle aged man came out the house and immediately asked me to follow him to his basement, when he opened his basement door I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I SAW. The man had a massive Atari collection in what I would say was about a 500sq feet basement. Wall to wall there were computers, consoles and software all over the place. This was the most massive collection I had ever seen in person (thats not saying much). He said he thinks he has the most massive atari collection worldwide and I wouldn't doubt it, anyone to ever step into his basement wouldnt doubt it either.. He said aside from a few prototypes he thinks he has every single variation of consoles and computers Atari released worldwide. It was insane there was software all over the place, tapes, floppies, cartridges, peripherals and everything you can think of. I though WOW what a madman!
After he showed me around he led me to my Coleco Adam and also threw in a small Timex computer with a tiny printer which now I found out was an American variation of the Sinclaire Spectrum an uber popular micro computer released in Britain. I left out of there just thinking about that man and his collection AND his family the entire night hehehehehe.

Anyhow my questions are the following:

When does one get too old to give a dam about their collection; ball park figure?
Anybody ever had a sizable collection of video game equipment and software and systematically got rid of everything?
Why would someone sell off their entire video game collection that took them years to make? (aside from financial reasons)
Has it ever been worth it to own so much equiptment?
Has anyone ever passed their collections onto their child?
Has the child continued the collection?

 

[Skah T]

Great story about your Craig's List find. Wonder why the guy chose to sell that one item and keep the rest.

When does one get too old to give a dam about their collection; ball park figure?

Dunno, I haven't hit it yet I will say that getting married speeds the process a bit. ("We need more room. Why don't you get rid of all those old systems/comics/games.") Although having kids slows it down again when you realize that when they get older you can show them all this cool old vintage gaming stuff. And they will likely give you a big in response.

Anybody ever had a sizable collection of video game equipment and software and systematically got rid of everything?

Somewhat the opposite for me. As I got older I got nostalgic and regretted having gotten rid of my old Atari 800 and hundreds of floppies. I eventually bought another 800 on eBay. However, without all the games I had on floppy (some of which included stuff *I* made) it just wasn't the same and I sold it.

Why would someone sell off their entire video game collection that took them years to make? (aside from financial reasons)

Eventually you come to realize that you will probably *never* power up all those old systems again so what's the point in having them. You'd rather have the money, especially since you can run emulators if you really want to play those old systems. Naturally some people will always want the real thing, of course.

Has it ever been worth it to own so much equiptment?

That's a personal thing. For me, no, but different people get joy out of different things. For some it's collecting vintage gear. My wife can't understand how I can spend hours playing Eye of Judgment. I don't understand how people can spend so much time fixing up cars. Different strokes.

Has anyone ever passed their collections onto their child?
Has the child continued the collection?

Not yet, and frankly I don't know if I will. They won't have all the memories and nostalgia attached to the old systems like I do. It won't mean as much for them so I doubt they'll want to keep them. Who knows, though. It might still happen. I plan to give my oldest his first Gameboy this year. He's 4 and I'll be starting him off with the original B/W Gameboy with Tetris.

 

[midnight8]

I sold all mine off one time. I actually sold mine to get a down payment on our first house. It was probably in the neighborhood of 1500 to 1800 games. I don't regret doing it because of the reason I did it, but I always missed it. I will probably never have the amount of games I once did again. I don't think one gets too old for it. People loose interest for various reasons maybe new hobbies, less time or whatever. I actually have a couple hobbies with cars being one of my others but I always go back to my games in the end. Space does restrict me some, but it really just makes me collect loose games and not worry about boxes. I have never really collected new stuff because when I buy it I have intentions of playing it. As far as the married thing my wife is very understanding of the space my games take up and would never ask me to sell it and she didn't even want me to when we got the house. She was even understanding when I bought a 32 inch lcd for nothing but games. Noone has ever even watched a tv show on it.

 

[Xentorians]

He told me he grabbed a hold of the items he sold me through an Ebay lot he won which included alot of other Atari stuff that he was mainly interested in. I tell ya, just me talking about it doesn't do what I saw justice, it was big. Im sorry to hear you had to sell off your collection midnight8, but I have to agree you did put it to good use. To me is a sad thing when someone sells off their collection, it makes me feel like im the only dunce still hanging on to these seemingly useless things lol. However, im glad to hear your wife is so understanding and even supporting. If and when I get married I would never ask my wife to do anything as silly as get rid of a buncha things she's spent years on. Im a big supporter anything memorabilia. Infact, I once had a huge argument with a girlfriend of mine because she wanted to sell of some of her vintage dresses off on Ebay because we needed money to buy something there I forget whatever it was hehehehe I remember being all pissed off and sad when I took the bus home that night because I tried to convince her of what she had and why she should keep it and how unimportant the money was, silly me :nuts:
thx for your replies.

 

[midnight8]

I remember I was living in an apartment in houston at the time and I had a 10 x 6 walkin closet that looked like a library of games and boxed systems. The only time my wife go a little irritated was I bought a table tob game at a flea market in east houston. She said you don't even collect those. It was a crazy climber by entex. I didn't know it was worth anything I bought it for 3 bucks. I started to give it to my 6 yr old at the time(he's 14 now or getting ready to be anyway) and then I looked for it on ebay and couldn't find any past auctions for it. I listed it and 7 days later it had fetched 380 bucks plus shipping. needless to say she got over that small irritation pretty quick. My jaguar and atari 5200 collections are arctually better now than they were but I don't collect intellivision, coleco, pong systems anymore. I do want to get another 3do. I just narrowed down what I buy this time. Now I collect for all atari systems, and sega systems mainly. I don't go for the things I don't play anymore. My wife is also understanding of time I spend modifying controllers and things like that. Right now I am building an atari 5200 controller out of a jaguar pad and an analog thumbstick fitted into it. I hope to finish the first 1 this weekend.