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What started you collecting?
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Dan
Atari Cosmos


Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 14 May 2023
Posts: 576
Location: Neenah, WI

PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 8:59 am    Post subject: What started you collecting? Reply with quote

I thought it might be interesting to hear what started other collectors collecting.

I indeed have fond memories of playing Coleco Electronic Quarterback and Merlin and Wildfire by Parker Brothers when I was a kid, but it wasn't until a good 20 years later that I started collecting.

What set me off was, one day I was at a rummage sale and I bought a remarkably clean Bambino UFO Master Blaster Station for, get this, 10 cents! I had a lot of fun with it, and I wondered what other games were out there, so I looked on eBay of course. And that opened the floodgates! Wink
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blue6demon
Adventure Vision


Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 01 Feb 2024
Posts: 442
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada

PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 2:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well for me, i started 2 months ago after i saw on e-bay coleco alien attack, that was a game i loved so much as a teenager (too much in fact my parents destroyed it because i wasn't studying !).

So for me it's like a kids dream that i now realize. Now i see that there is a lot of collectors out there, Rik as an impressive collection !!!

I have about 30 games now but i'm sure i'll have a lot more !!!
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Peter Pie
Coleco Pac Man


Joined: 23 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 27 Oct 2007
Posts: 36
Location: Worcestershire uk.

PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 3:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My first game was CGL Galaxy Invader back in 1981. This was followed by Entex Pacman 2. I did not buy any more games then until coming across them in car boot sales around 1994. I think it was girls that led me astray which put a grinding halt on what might have been a premiere collection today. Laughing Laughing (well i have to blame somebody Wink ) I am pleased that even after moving house four times i still have the original two games i started with.

Peter Pie.
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spacemonsterviras
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 26 Feb 2007
Posts: 78
Location: Sydney, New South Wales

PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 4:20 pm    Post subject: Re: What started you collecting? Reply with quote

Dan wrote:
What set me off was, one day I was at a rummage sale and I bought a remarkably clean Bambino UFO Master Blaster Station for, get this, 10 cents!


Snap! Except mine cost $10, back in May. As a kid I had a few games, which my mother gave away when I left home. I was as anal then as I am now so they were MIB. I could weep to think how much they'd be worth now. Crying or Very sad

I always wanted a Bambino as a kid because one of the boys at school had one but would never let me play with it. Though I had a Gakken Galaxy Invader 1000 I thought the Master Blaster was the best looking toy I'd ever seen, even though the gameplay leaves a lot to be desired.

Anyway, 5 months later and I'm a drooling addict. If the collector websites didn't exist I'd probably still be collecting robots and Godzilla toys - and have a bank balance. Embarassed
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Rik
Site Admin


Joined: 07 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 25 Mar 2024
Posts: 1932
Location: California

PostPosted: Wed Nov 02, 2005 7:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Back in the early 80's my brother had the Mattel Football, Football II and Basketball as they came out. The first game I remember having myself was Microvision (got it in 1979 for Xmas, and over the next two years I bought every cartridge. I still have the original set, and they still work, all boxed from 1979!). Then I got Entex Pac Man 2 (my Mom was a Pac Man addict herself). Played that game a LOT. A friend of mine had a game watch that I now know to be the GCE Game Time watch, and he also had Coleco Donkey Kong. I always wanted the Coleco arcade games!

Fast-forward to about 1999. A co-worker reminded me about the Coleco games, and already being an Ebay addict, I started looking for them. That's all it was going to be- 5 or 6 games, the Coleco Arcades! I started finding more and more handhelds (the Mattels, foreign arcade versions like Dig Dug, etc, etc), and it just snowballed from there. When I couldn't really find a website that talked about ALL handheld games (not just the ones in the site owners possession), I decided to start my own somewhere around mid-2000.

A year or two later I went back to my parents house to get my Microvision stuff, and started rummaging around the attic, and I found my brother's Mattel games, my Pac Man 2 and a Tomy Blip! I couldn't believe we still had them! I even carved my name in the bottom of the Pac Man 2 (like so many used handhelds I've had over the years with random people's names on them... Mr. Green ).

6 years later I'm still going strong... I think this is the longest I've actively collected anything, so it must be something I really care about! (Someday I'll activate that link on the main page to the other stuff I collect, my old room in my parents house was actually featured in my college newspaper because it's kind of a world of it's own (and dating a reporter probably didn't hurt... Cool ).

That's the 'little' story of the creation of the Handheld Museum...

Rik
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Doc Kaotic
Coleco Pac Man


Joined: 10 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 09 Feb 2007
Posts: 31
Location: Canada

PostPosted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I started collecting console games in 1996 and made my little website: http://www.games.kaotic.ca

Then about a month ago I stumpled upon a good find of the old handhelds. It's a perfect match to the 80's consoles so away I go ....
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Goldie
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 02 Nov 2005
Last Visit: 21 Mar 2024
Posts: 50
Location: Toronto

PostPosted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:44 pm    Post subject: Start...... Reply with quote

Entex space invaders baby,(1980/81)...... next significant one was coleco galaxian(1983)....but didn't do much more until about five years ago..
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FinEngineer
Kenner Red Line


Joined: 07 Dec 2005
Last Visit: 03 Nov 2009
Posts: 43

PostPosted: Wed Dec 07, 2005 5:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My handheld-game collection career (to be more precise, handheld playing career, since back there was no concept of collecting things as expensive as electronic games) started when I received my first electronic game as a child back in 1980. Back then my family was still residing in my native country Taiwan. This was in the late 70's I still remember vividly going to my friend's house just to play his Tomy Hit and Missile mechanical game. I would not stop playing with it until my mom would drag me house for dinner.

Then I received a present from my dad, who has purchased it in a duty-free shop in Japan on his way back from one of his overseas business trips. And it was the Bandai Gunfighter (Japanese version, white case). It was the most beautiful, fun and awesome electronic game I had ever seen, this was 1980 and vaccum fluorescent diplay handheld game just made their first appearances (Remember, my friends were still playing the Tomy pocket size and mechanical games). I took it with me wherever I visit my friends or cousins. I had eventually really good at it: hide behind the wagon, swelve out in the open, fire a quick shot and, sneak back behind the moving wagon just as quickly. Whenever I pulled that trick, it was inevitably deadly for my enemies Wink.

Unfortunately, there was not a happy ending for that game. One day I loaned it (very reluctantly) to one of my classmates, who in term, without my permission, loaned to one of his street friends, needlessly to say I never got it back Sad Soon after that my family relocated overseas.
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NE146
Entex Crazy Climber


Joined: 16 Nov 2005
Last Visit: 30 Dec 2022
Posts: 56

PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2005 12:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't collect. I'm just a packrat Very Happy.

I just like handheld games and have a whole bunch of them from my childhood since I basically throw nothing videogame related I own away Smile

Basically it started off with Space Invaders and hearing playground rumors at school about a "tiny version" you could play. To be truthful.. as I know now, they were just rumors as there were no handheld versions at that time. However as a 9 year old I didnt know that, so I bugged my mom constantly for one. We went looking everywhere and after many months of looking we found Attack Invader. It was TOTALLY not what I was thinking about (I had imagined a real mini Space Invaders machine with the same graphics) but I took it anyway. Later on the flood of Space Invader handhelds finally began and Bandai Missile Invader and it's more expensive follow-up came out. They still were far from what I imagined. Only when Entex Space Invader came out did I realize I'd never find a miniature Space Invaders machine with arcade graphics and became content with what it was. And to this day, Entex Space Invader still gets my vote as the best Smile
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number6
Microvision


Joined: 19 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 28 Apr 2020
Posts: 26
Location: The Village

PostPosted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 4:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

FinEngineer wrote:

Then I received a present from my dad, who has purchased it in a duty-free shop in Japan on his way back from one of his overseas business trips. And it was the Bandai Gunfighter (Japanese version, white case). It was the most beautiful, fun and awesome electronic game I had ever seen, this was 1980 and vaccum fluorescent diplay handheld game just made their first appearances (Remember, my friends were still playing the Tomy pocket size and mechanical games). I took it with me wherever I visit my friends or cousins. I had eventually really good at it: hide behind the wagon, swelve out in the open, fire a quick shot and, sneak back behind the moving wagon just as quickly. Whenever I pulled that trick, it was inevitably deadly for my enemies Wink.

Unfortunately, there was not a happy ending for that game. One day I loaned it (very reluctantly) to one of my classmates, who in term, without my permission, loaned to one of his street friends, needlessly to say I never got it back Sad Soon after that my family relocated overseas.


I too owned Gunfighter as a child, but I had the US version. I thought it was the neatest game I had ever seen since I had never played a VFD game at that point. I think this game is was got me into handhelds. Everyone I played this game against I could beat. It got to the point that no one wanted to play with me.

I too lost my original when my mother decided to do some spring cleaning and she donated all my handhelds to goodwill. When I confronted her about it she said that since I no longer played them that she assumed I no longer wanted them. Oh Well thanks to Ebay I got another copy.
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Dan
Atari Cosmos


Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 14 May 2023
Posts: 576
Location: Neenah, WI

PostPosted: Sun Feb 26, 2006 8:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

bump - we haven't heard from a lot of you! Very Happy


(edit 3 weeks later)

What are you guys, shy? Confused
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elepla
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 22 Dec 2005
Last Visit: 20 Mar 2024
Posts: 103
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I remember looking at a tiny shiny Snoopy panorama handheld game (amongst others) displayed in our local toy store shop window!

I had an Atari 2600 and a Colecovision with most expansion sets etc. but no handhelds... The only game I played back then was Epochs Galaxy 2. But I can't remember if it was mine, or if a friend borrowed it to me.

Video games and cartridges just made so much more sense back then, both with value for money and the better gameplay on the tv with real joysticks.

Should have known better : P

Jaro
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phitter
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Last Visit: 17 Oct 2023
Posts: 108
Location: LaGrange, IL

PostPosted: Mon Mar 27, 2006 11:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I love baseball and as a kid, my favorite game was Entex Baseball. Later down the road, I got the Starting Line Up Talking Baseball game by Parker Brothers which had all the major league players on cartridges, its own set of baseball cards complete with stats and a baseball dork factor that was unprecedented in any electronic baseball game (although I am still bothered by the fact that the playing surface graphic sports a misaligned second base.)

Looking to recapture fond memories of my youth, I searched eBay and was pleased to win an Entex Baseball game in the box with a bunch of unused score sheets. I saw and won the Mattel Baseball and the Coleco Head to Head Baseball games, too. I hung onto my original Starting Line Up game but have since upgraded.

I simply didn't realize how many companies manufactured these handheld baseball games in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Then I stumbled onto Rik's web site...and I guess I was hooked. I wanted them all.

As a novice collector, however, I thought that the games would make great display items. They each had a stylized interpretation of a baseball field/stadium that made them, in my eyes, little works of art. Under this "display item" premises, I plunked down good cash for a loose Tomy Digital Diamond that was missing its battery cover and a Sears Baseball that was listed in non-working condition. Stupid yes, but at this point I have upgraded these items in my collection. If you have a desperate need for a Digital Diamond with a missing battery cover, let me know.

As far as the handheld games are concerned, I love looking at the boxes trying to figure out whether an actual baseball player was used as inspiration for the cheesy box painting. (i.e. that is clearly Rod Carew on the Bandai Baseball box!) I love the game boxes touting "No TV Required" -- which is hilarious and must have blown our parents' minds. I love the fact that some of the games, which were on the cutting edge of electronic gaming technology, did not even contemplate a scorekeeping function. I especially love the memories of epic midwinter Entex baseball battles with my younger brother and cousin Chuck.

I have 50 or so handheld baseball games, a bunch of console-based baseball carts for the Atari 2600 through the SNES and a few mechanical, non-electronic tabletop baseball games (you can see most of my collection in the "Brag" section). I have a few other handhelds (Castle Toy's Kingpin II and the Mattel Basketball game are my non-baseball favorites) but I still love the baseball ones the best.

So that's my story!

-phitter


Last edited by phitter on Mon Nov 06, 2006 2:59 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Lord Thag
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 28 May 2006
Last Visit: 01 May 2009
Posts: 121

PostPosted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 4:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This rich brat down the street when I was a kid had a whole wall full of them. He had like twenty. I used to play them at his house (when he wasn't being a stuck up twit) and constantly wished my parents could have afforded to get me a couple.

As it was I had a broken pac man watch, a G&W DKjr and DK, and a Burgertime. I still have 'em.

I started collecting about a four months ago when I scored a G&W Donkey Kong 2 on ebay (my #1 childhood dream). It's been downhill from there. I ended up liking the VFD games more than the LCD games I started with, so I'm kind of focusing on those.. I'm not so much a collector as a player, and I buy the games to actually play them. Once you get past the more 'jerky' movement dictated by the designs of these games, they are some of the most original and unique games ever invented. Games you can play nowhere else.

Great fun, great hobby. No other collecting hobby allows you to amass a room full of little bitty alternate realities. Beats the hell out of collecting stamps! Smile
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R.O.B.
Bandai FL Burgertime


Joined: 06 Jun 2006
Last Visit: 30 Oct 2011
Posts: 140
Location: tucson, az

PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My first ever system was the nes and I remember when I first got one and my favorite game was R.C. pro-am and first handheld I ever had was the game boy color and my favorite game was super mario bros. deluxe.now I have been collecting systems over the years with my dads help and I have allmost ever nintendo u.s. console except for the small versions ofthe snes and nes. I do have ever u.s. made game boys and the ds.I also have a playstation 2 and psp.I mainly have perfirals from R.O.B. to the super scope. one of my classic handheld/systems is the bandai pair match witch I found in my grandma's closet and she said I could have it and I am very confused how to it use maybe rik can tell me how it works. I have many classic computers also the commodore 64 and 2 apple macs.
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