Old Atari 2600 Game Fetches $31,600 on Ebay!
Talk about an unexpected pay day. Tanner Sandlin of Austin, Texas raked in $31,600 on Ebay for an old Atari 2600 game that was tucked away in his garage. It's the second highest ever paid for a videogame, and much more than the $5 or $10 Sandlin said he paid for it when he was about 10 years old.
So why did it fetch so much? The game, called Air Raid, is extremely rare. Counting the one Sandlin sold, there are only 13 known copies, and his was the only one that came in its original box. It also didn't hurt matters that Sandlin was the original owner and had the foresight to enlist an Atari expert to confirm the game's authenticity.
"I clearly remember buying this game back in 1984 or 1985," Sandlin wrote in his auction. "My mother had taken me to a Tuesday Morning store in Arlington Texas. It was near the corner of Arkansas Lane and Medline Drive. Not too long after I purchased it, I got an Atari 800 and stopped playing the 2600. Since then, the Air Raid cartridge has been boxed up in my garage along with my 2600 and other games for over 20 years. The game box was stored separately and I just found it. "
View the auction page here, and then go rummage around in your own garage. You might walk away $31,600 richer for having done so.
So why did it fetch so much? The game, called Air Raid, is extremely rare. Counting the one Sandlin sold, there are only 13 known copies, and his was the only one that came in its original box. It also didn't hurt matters that Sandlin was the original owner and had the foresight to enlist an Atari expert to confirm the game's authenticity.
"I clearly remember buying this game back in 1984 or 1985," Sandlin wrote in his auction. "My mother had taken me to a Tuesday Morning store in Arlington Texas. It was near the corner of Arkansas Lane and Medline Drive. Not too long after I purchased it, I got an Atari 800 and stopped playing the 2600. Since then, the Air Raid cartridge has been boxed up in my garage along with my 2600 and other games for over 20 years. The game box was stored separately and I just found it. "
View the auction page here, and then go rummage around in your own garage. You might walk away $31,600 richer for having done so.
