I recently had the opportunity to read Classic 80’s Home Video hot and cold all the time for no apparent reason. It‘s hard to keep
Games Identification and Value guide. This 400 page, 8 ½‖ x11‖ up with the price fluctuations we see on eBAY and various gaming
full color paperback by Robert Wicker and Jason Brassard focuses web sites. Trust me, I do this full time myself.
entirely on these 7 systems: Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Colecovision, If you are looking mainly for a price guide, stick with guides that
Odyssey 2, Intellivision and Vectrex. It has a cover price of print often, like Video Game Trader. There are also several other
$24.95. collector guides released that offer rarity ratings and price values.
[Editors Note: In the next issue of VGTrader, we will be featuring This book does not include any rarity ratings and I never agree with
some excerpts from the book] many of the prices in any of the big guides anyway.
The first thing that catches your eyes when you open the book is all However, I do highly recommend this book to all the classic video
of the pictures. This is by far the most comprehensive catalog of game collectors as a way to organize their collection. It is also very
games and hardware I have ever seen. It contains beautiful color useful to the collector to strategize what and how they want to
photos of every game and/or every box. I have been an Atari collect for the systems that interest them. None of the other
collector since 1980, and a full time video game dealer now over guides on the market have such great color pictures and compre-
12 years. I have bought and sold countless thousands of games. hensive details and data which is what makes this book standout
Some of the games listed are so rare I have never seen them, let above the competition.
alone the boxes for them. I am amazed that Robert and Jason - Michael Chassin
were able to gather so many quality photos of so many games. I
can also tell you that the photos are from someone‘s personal
collection rather than from other catalogs, as some of the boxes
have minor imperfections or vintage store price stickers on them.
Most of the boxes are mint condition with beautiful color. It‘s a very
impressive collection and hard to imagine how much work went
into gathering and sorting all
these photos to include in the
book.
If you are a collector working on
label variations then you definitely
need this book. There are pic-
tures showing each label varia-
tion. And Everything is clearly
detailed. For example, a game
like Atari 2600 Taz has 3 varia-
tions... with a scan of each one.
Plus, scans of the various game
catalogs from even the most
obscure manufacturers are in-
cluded. Scans of the overlays,
pictures of the hardware, sys-
tems, controllers... the list goes
on and on.
Alongside the pictures is a com-
prehensive list of every game
ever made for these systems and
its value. Next to each game is a
circle to check off what you own
as you attempt the near impossi-
ble task of gathering everything in
the whole book. Another innova-
tion is that the games are sorted
alphabetical by manufacturer
rather than just straight alphabeti-
cal order. No other book that I
have seen catalogs them this
way. It‘s fun to see pictures of all
the Xonox or Panda games on
one page. There are also sec-
tions listing all of the variations
and issues of the vintage video
game magazines and manufac-
turers game catalogs and adver-
tisements. Price values listed
may be a bit high but putting
accurate values on video games
is still a difficult task. Things get Excerpt from Classic 80’s Home Video Games Identification and Value Guide
6 | Video Game Trader Magazine | July 2008 | www.VideoGameTrader.com
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