Ideas for fair price on my old Commodore?

[Elusive]

Hi there. I'm new to this forum, and I'm trying to make my first post useful. Bear with me folks =)

I was given an old Commodore VIC-20 system about a month ago by a friend who was about to bin it. Here's a picture of what it came with:

http://img209.exs.cx/img209/7480/p10100182iy.jpg

As you can see, it's in fairly good nick for a unit of its age. The box, however, leaves something to be desired.

The real problem is getting the thing to work. After plugging it in, attaching it to my TV, I find that the little box that connects the unit to the TV is faulty, albeit in good consmetic shape. I know the unit itself is fine, as I can load programs correctly from the tape, and during the brief period I was able to get sound to work I heard the 'TESTCARD' program in all its waltzy glory.

As a result of much frustration, I want the system to go to a more deserving owner, at a fair price. I've no idea how rare this stuff is, whether it's even worth selling in the first place, and so on. And so I ask; how much would be a fair price to ask for the full set?

Quick edit - Games that were included:

(cart)
AVENGER
MENAGERIE
MOLE ATTACK
OMEGA RACE

(tape)
AWARI
MAX
CHAMP
FROG
SPACE JOUST
CRAZY KONG
PARATROOPERS
CATCHA SNATCHA
BEWITCHED

Most of these have no cases(save Catcha Snatcha and Bewitched), so I've plundered my old cassette stash for cases

[Mayhem]

You might get twenty quid for it, depends if you want to keep it or not :)

Can you provide pics of the tape games Awari, Max, Champ and Frog as they may not be in Gamebase20, and if not, I'd want them to transfer over for use in emulators.

[Griking]

I hate to say it but the games are probably more valuable then the hardware is.

[Mayhem]

For MOST systems, the software is more valuable than the hardware ;)

[chaoticjelly]

Sell some of the games seperately - do a search for a few of the titles on completed listings on ebay

This way you'll get an idea of the games which are really common / wont sell if you auction seperately.

Early games and full-price original release cassettes are usually worth more, and will often sell, even if its only 99p each.

You can tell the full price releases, they look "sweet" compared to the budget releases which have terrible gaudy sleeves, e.g. Kixx, Microvalue blah blah blah

You might get more if you auction the whole package, and advertised everything as fully tested etc etc, and took e.g. 3-4 pictures of everything!

Good luck !

[Elusive]

You might get twenty quid for it, depends if you want to keep it or not :)

Can you provide pics of the tape games Awari, Max, Champ and Frog as they may not be in Gamebase20, and if not, I'd want them to transfer over for use in emulators.

http://img223.echo.cx/img223/9668/dscf00849ba.th.jpg (http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf00849ba.jpg)
^ Champ, front

http://img223.echo.cx/img223/6245/dscf00853rw.th.jpg (http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf00853rw.jpg)
^Champ, back


http://img223.echo.cx/img223/524/dscf00867py.th.jpg (http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf00867py.jpg)
^Awari, front & back are identical


http://img223.echo.cx/img223/9625/dscf00874jz.th.jpg (http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf00874jz.jpg)
^Max, front

http://img223.echo.cx/img223/6205/dscf00886fv.th.jpg (http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf00886fv.jpg)
^ Max, back


http://img223.echo.cx/img223/2654/dscf00897li.th.jpg (http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf00897li.jpg)
^ Frog, front

http://img223.echo.cx/img223/4861/dscf00907nx.th.jpg (http://img223.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf00907nx.jpg)
^ Frog, back (blank =P)

[Mayhem]

Cheers for that. Max and Frog are in GB20, but the other two are not.

Well actually Champ is for C64 only, there's no Vic20 version listed there. But it doesn't seem to be in GB64 either (which I'm on the team also) so I'd still want it :)

So if you're interested in passing on Awari and Champ tapes, then I'd be grateful to receive them. Send me a PM and we can discuss things...

[Elusive]

Okay, give me a mo and I'll see if I can find a Jiffy bag =)

While I'm here, I've heard the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis model one console has the same A/V port as the Vic-20 - is this true? If so, I could shell out for a proper A/V cable and save me the trouble of finding a replacement RF box (apparently a faulty RF box is a pretty common fault with the VIC-20, shame) and plugging/unplugging the antenna every time I want to use the thing.

EDIT:
http://img184.echo.cx/img184/8315/dscf01135zo.th.jpg (http://img184.echo.cx/my.php?image=dscf01135zo.jpg)

Here's the video-out port, in case this helps

[Mayhem]

Can't help there sadly, never had a Megadrive (I was a SNES man!) so I don't know what the AV looks like.

Let me know when you're set up to mail and I'll give you my address to post the tapes to.

[Ze_ro]

I've heard the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis model one console has the same A/V port as the Vic-20 - is this true?
No. The VIC-20 uses a 5-pin connector while the Genesis 1 uses an 8-pin connector. However, this is the same connector that the C64 uses, so maybe this is where you got the idea. I doubt that you can just swap cords between the two though. I haven't actually checked, but I'd guess that the pinouts are different.


The real problem is getting the thing to work. After plugging it in, attaching it to my TV, I find that the little box that connects the unit to the TV is faulty, albeit in good consmetic shape.
Sadly, the VIC-20 RF modulators seem to fail rather often. Many of them will look like they're in great shape, and turn out to be completely faulty (I have a couple bad ones, and had a hard time figuring out whether it was the VIC that was broken or the modulator). Another crappy thing here is that these RF modulators are somewhat hard to find, and your only other alternative is to find a monitor cable (which isn't terribly common either). I don't suppose anyone has ever investigated how to repair these faulty RF modulators? I'm guessing it's probably a similar flaw that causes them to fail, and it might be a relatively simple fix......

--Zero