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New Mexico's Exhumed Collection Of Trashed Atari Cartridges Up For Grabs On eBay
The assorted Atari cartridges discovered during the filming of the Atari: Game Over documentary are up for sale on eBay, as promised by the city of Alamogordo, New Mexico.
There are 99 listings online selling titles like Asteroids, Missile Command, Warlords, Defender, Star Raiders (with key pad!), Swordquest, Phoenix, Centipede, and of course E.T., both with and without a box. Most of the auctions start at $50, but the E.T. cartridges are already climbing. The auctions end in about eight days and you can take a look at them here. Of the approximately 1,300 uncovered cartridges, about 100 were given to the documentary crew that uncovered them, and many more were donated to assorted museums. When Alamogordo, New Mexico revealed its intentions to sell the cartridges, it said about 700 were left over to sell, so this eBay auction does not represent the entire collection.
For more on the dig that uncovered the fabled cache of cartridges, head here. For more pictures from the event care of Microsoft, head here. The documentary, Atari: Game Over, premieres this month on Xbox Live.
Our Take
I'm glad to learn many of the uncovered cartridges were donated to museums, etc., and I'm glad that the average video game fan has the opportunity to grab one of these. I can't imagine any other eBay auctions selling trash will be considered as valuable as this.
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