Expert: Joseph - 7/3/2007

Question
I have an original atari 7800 with all of the hookups and also many games. I would like to sell this but don't really know how much it would be worth plus how much the games would be worth.Thanks a lot.

Answer
If it were me, I'd keep it, being a collector and all.  If you want to sell it, the trick is you have to find someone willing to buy it, which shouldn't be a problem.  The trick to pricing these things is to get a baseline price.  A good place to start is checking out ebay.  Look to see what a going rate would be on a working atari 7800.  This would also be a good place to put up an auction to sell it.  I have used ebay before to buy/sell games and such, and it's good tool to use to atleast look more deeply into it.  For the games it's a different story.  Some games are way more valuable than others (rarity and so forth).  Check ebay to see if individual games are listed, but chances are it might be better to sell everything as one big package, with the exception of possibly valuable games you may have, some might even be worth more than the system.  Look everything up, and see what you may reasonably be able to sell everything as.  Don't expect to make a fortune, but if you stay competitive you may walk away with some cash.

Also, if you know of any gaming stores that buy and sell older gaming systems, call them, tell them what you have, and they would be able to tell you what they would pay to buy these things from you.  Granted, you'll more than likely make more selling them off of ebay, but the retailer will be able to tell you which games are more valuable than others, and give you possibly a good place to start the price of your auction.  But you may find that they're willing to pay you a good amount of money, it all depends.  Just make sure you do your homework.