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Robert P. Wicker

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Classic 80s Home Video Games Identification & Value Guide: Featuring Atari 2600, Atari 5200 Atari 7800, Coleco Vision, Odyssey, Intellivision, Victrex Paperback – Illustrated, March 18, 2008

by Robert P. Wicker (Author), Jason W. Brassard (Author)

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The early 80s was a pioneering time for home video games. Consoles from Atari, Mattel, Coleco, and others dominated many American living rooms. This guide takes an in-depth look at the classic consoles, games, accessories, and related merchandise manufactured between the introduction of the Atari VCS in 1977 and the great video game crash of 1984. The great consoles from Atari--the 2600 VCS, 5200 SuperSystem, and 7800 ProSystem are all covered in depth, as well as the amazing Coleco Vision, Intellivision, Odyssey-2-, and Vectrex gaming systems. More than 2,000 full-color photographs complement detailed listings for loose and boxed items. Consoles, cartridges, manuals, accessories, and related merchandise are listed and priced in an easy-to-use, checklist format. Products are listed by console and manufacturer for easy reference. See Donkey Kong, Frogger, Asteroids, Centipede, Pac-Man, and many other famous stars from the 1980s systems in this must-have title on classic video games. 2008 values.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Collector Books
Publication date

March 18, 2008
Dimensions

8.5 x 0.75 x 11 inches
ISBN-10

1574325736
ISBN-13

978-1574325737
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Among the hottest collectibles appealing to the people who were kids in the early 1980s are the early video games. Parents of those kids will also remember the begging for, first, and Atari, and then more and bore games to play on it. The Atari was introduced in 1980, In 1984 the video game market crashed, and no one in the market fell harder than Atari. In fact the market began to fall right after the Christmas season of 1982.

About the Author

Jason Brassard got his first Atari games Christmas 1981, and later in his twenties he became interested in Atari video games again. His first purchases in restarting his collection were the same games he got for Christmas years earlier, this time taking extreme care in preserving the boxes. Soon the collection outgrew his home, and it did not stop with Atari. He soon knew his destiny would be to open his own video game store. In 2001, Trade-N-Games was born and has been his profession ever since

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Collector Books; First Edition (March 18, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1574325736
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1574325737
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.85 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.75 x 11 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,779,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #799 in Antique & Collectible Toys (Books)
- #1,332 in Antique & Collectible Reference (Books)
- #5,517 in Antiques & Collectibles Encyclopedias

Customer Reviews:
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Herb Schaltegger

If You Want One Reference Guide For 8-bit Videogame Collecting, This Is It

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2016

Verified Purchase

Excellent photography and very good to excellent text descriptions of game cartridges, label art and command variants help make this an invaluable guide to collecting for the various systems covered. While internet resources have supplanted some of the info, and of course the pricing data is wildly out of date, this book remains a classic reference and very useful for the collector once he or she gets "serious" about the hobby. Well worth tracking down a copy.

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Dispatch911

If you collect 1980s Video Games this book is a must have!

Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2011

Verified Purchase

As an avid collector of all things Atari i find myself using this excellent book over and over again, of course we all know that there are some excellent sources of information on the internet, but sometimes you just need a book to hold in your hands, and as an old school guy i actually like to read from a printed book once in awhile, this book is very nice quality with great photos, it is about as complete as any book can be, covers the Atari systems very well, and for all of you Intellavision and Colleco fans your systems and games are well covered also., the Vectrex and other 70/80s systems are in here as well. i have yet to find any Atari 2600 game that is not in this book (not counting Promos or Homebrews of course) I give this book 5 stars.

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M. Mitchell

Nice nostalgic book but with many flaws

Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2011

Verified Purchase

This book was neat to see cartridges and box covers but falls short in many aspects. I would not pay full price for this book, but definitely worth buying used.

The short-falls:
1) Pricing for each cartridge seems so arbitrary, for example the common version of ET for Atari, is listed at one dollar. Now this game has value, considering it is considered on of the worst games ever created(and some consider it one of the main reasons for the video game crash) and it has value for any ET or 80's collector.
2) The although there are many picture, they take allot of room, they could have easily added 3x's the amount of games. Plus it would be nice to have a screenshot of the actual game.

Overall is it a very nice book to have with all the pages are full color. It also add a little history behind the consoles and games. I definitely would like to see a volume 2, with some changes.

Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2013

Verified Purchase

This is a great visual reference for classic home videogames. Sure, the prices are outdated, but I still love the book as a visual reference. I don't collect games, but I love trying new games on emulators, and this guide has inspired me to try many games that I would have ignored based on title alone. I have had it a few months and still flip through it on at least a weekly basis. The quality of images and print is professional, and it is definitely a "keeper" for my bookshelf ... but just hasn't made it yet to the bookshelf since I keep referring to it. In summary, if you enjoy retro games and aren't buying the book for the game values, then I highly recommend you pick up a copy!

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Elvis Lewis

great for classic gamers

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2011

Verified Purchase

this book is awesome, a great guide to collecting classic games. mostly atari games. its a great coffee table book to bring back old memories.

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2014

Verified Purchase

Book features pictures of common and hard to find collectible items from Atari, Intellivison, Coleco, Imagc, and many (if not all) of the gaming companies from that time period when home gaming consoles were in their early days. I Love this book!

Helpful

Gene Simmons

This is basically a price guide with nice color photos.

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2008

Verified Purchase

I really liked the large color photos in this book. The actual prices listed are something to be debated, but overall this book delivers. It does not include alot of lesser known 80s systems like the Vectrex

One person found this helpful

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D. harshbarger

Great price guide

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2008

Verified Purchase

This is the only book being sold as of October 2008 that has prices listed with the descriptions of the classic era vidio games.

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