Atari Anti-Aircraft sold for $23.50 on eBay

mclemore

Administrator
Staff member

Donor 15 years: 2010-2024
Joined
Apr 3, 2001
Messages
5,360
Reaction score
1,940
Location
Pasadena, California
Atari Anti-Aircraft sold for $23.50 on eBay back in September... wow that's cheap. The board by itself would have sold for a lot more than that...

Here are about half the photos from the auction...

Seller (saintjamesgames) description:
Original 1975 Atari ANTI-AIRCRAFT upright arcade game (NOT Working). When I got this machine, the floorboard was completely ruined, so I rebuilt and replaced it plus the bottom few inches of the cabinet, with 3/4" birch plywood. No doubt, you can certainly see the where repair is, but it is much more structurally sound now, and I was able to retain most of the original side graphics (see photos). I've done a few other more minor repairs to the cabinet, and also built a replacement back door, which was missing. The rest of the cabinet's exterior has a standard collection of scratches, scars, and patina, including decades of cigarette indentations in the control panel, but overall, it's still a cool-looking and presentable game.

The machine is basically complete otherwise, including matching serial numbers (#1285) on the cabinet, the PCB, and the monitor (which has obvious screen-burn from this game). All the harness wiring, buttons, and other internal components are present, as well as an original service manual. The inside actually looks very nice, but when I test the AC lines going into the machine, they read as if they are shorted together, as if maybe the transformer or something in the wiring is shorted out. I don't know, but I don't want to put power to it, in case it might cause potential damage. I also don't know which other components might be functional, and which might not be, so the next owner should consider this machine to be a NON-functional, NOT-working project. I'd rather pass this machine on to someone with more knowledge about these older games, instead of experimenting on a 49-year-old bronze-age machine that someone else will have to fix later.

PICK-UP in SAINT JAMES, MISSOURI (On I-44 between St. Louis and Springfield).
Buyer will be responsible for picking this machine up (or sending someone to pick it up) within 30 days of sale.

This auction is being run with no reserve. Please see my other auctions for various games and electronics. All used items are sold as-is. Thanks for looking!


1731041023362.png
1731041080409.png
1731041093639.png


1731041105897.png
1731041141246.png
 
Wow. Wonder what it would've went for working? Might have to wait to sell mine till next year.
I think I saw one on Facebook for like $500. I don't think most B&W bronze age arcade games are really in hot demand. Kinda hard to justify when this is one of the few games where the Atari 2600 version is actually superior to the arcade.

 
It was a foreseeable outcome of listing the game that way on a national, non-niche-market marketplace.

- The cost of shipping is close to or outweighs recent market prices, meaning extremely few potential buyers in the collector market
- Limited time of auction means only a subset of those extremely few potential buyers seeing & bidding on the item
- No minimum means those 1 or 2 buyers get to dictate the final price

I'm pretty sure I saw this listed on FB or Craigslist as well, @Texas_Funnyhair . Seller had the cabinet sitting around and couldn't move it.

I'm sure the seller believes this was a rational method of disposing of inventory they needed gone. Maybe they could get lucky, make a nostalgia sale to a non-collector. Otherwise their alternative was what, trashing the game?

Glad someone got a deal on this.

EDIT: P.S.: All I want is the control panel from one of these where someone didn't use it as an ash tray. I'd pay a lot more than $23 just for that piece!
 
Man, that thing is pretty.

I don't want people to lose their shirts on deals, but I'm also kind of excited if these kinds of deals are going to start being available again!!!!!
 
I picked one up locally out for about $75 and it was waterlogged. I figure I will have to totally recreate the cabinet but even the shelf for the power brick was still soaking wet a few days after I got it, so I never wanted to put power to it. Now it is in storage. I saw this one but was too far away for a game I am not extremely interested in. I got the one I have more to preserve it than anything else.
 
You mean that they didn't ship with cigarette burns?
No, it only seemed that way.

Break.

On a different subject, think about how much nicer things are that smoking has been banned in airplanes, restaurants, and most public places.
 
Back
Top Bottom