One of the things I like about collecting old videogames is the sense of holding a piece of history in my hands.
That's why I think the most fascinating thing about this copy of Frogger for the Intellivision above is that the original owner kept the receipt in the box. So now I know that on June 16, 1983, a copy of Intellivision Frogger would have run you about $30. That's about $65 in 2010 dollars, just to let you know how good you actually have it today.
Anyway, on to more of my recent finds from the thrift stores of San Francisco.
Frogger was part of a largish collection of Intellivision stuff that I came across. At $2 each, the price was right, but I already owned most of the common games on the shelves. So I just stuck with games I didn't have and those that were harder to find.
The interesting thing about Intellivision games is that the boxes were meant to be kept – they had a flap on the front that opened to reveal slots for the game, instruction manual and most importantly the acetate controller overlays that were practically required to play any of the games. This means that you often find Intellivision games in complete condition, if not mint.
Activision's games for Mattel's platform had a stylish box design, which deliberately looked quite different from its Atari 2600 game boxes. Pitfall! and Stampede aren't that hard to find – not nearly as rare as the Beamrider and River Raid I picked up a year ago. Frogger, as you might imagine, is also a relatively common third-party game on the system.
Mattel's Tron Solar Sailer is missing the instructions and overlays, but I didn't have the box for this anyway.
The rarest game in the pile is White Water!, a late-release game from Imagic that is a little harder to track down than its other games like Swords and Serpents. That game would be worth a little more if the thrift store didn't think it was a good idea to fold its instruction manual in half and secure it to the cartridge with a giant loop of clear shipping tape. I didn't even bother trying to remove it from the manual. I just cut around it.
Mission X, I don't know. Again, $2 each is a low bar. Had these been $4 each I probably would have skipped half of them or more.
And here's everything that's not for the Intellivision. Phalanx for the Super Nintendo ($3.50) is notorious for having some of the most ridiculous box art ever: What on earth does an old man with a banjo have to do with a Gradius-style shooting game? All I can figure is that UFOs are usually spotted by old coots a-settin' out on the back porch.
Is that it? I don't know. Anyway, this is an old rental copy, which is why it's surprising that the instruction booklet is still there and in halfway decent condition. And why it's so surprising that the box is all dinged up. I really just bought it for the ironic box humor potential.
These Sega Master System games are sealed, which is the only reason I paid $9 each for them. They're probably worth between $20-30 each. Rambo's probably on the low side versus Space Harrier, although neither are particularly hard to find.
Shinobi for the Game Gear was $3.50. I have nothing else to say.
Finally, I got a decent copy of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain for PlayStation 1 for $2. Then I probably overspent on Puzzle Bobble 3 DX, a Japanese PlayStation game. I bet you can find this for a dollar anywhere in Japan. But I actually don't know. I'll have to investigate this during Tokyo Game Show to even see whether or not I got a deal.
Images: Chris Kohler/Wired.com
