I picked these up this week from a fella who bought them from a guy on Craigslist... Not much of a story I know. They came with an obvious repro of Dark Tower. The guys Craigslist post said something to the effect of "Used to collect Vectrex stuff, and since I didn't have much use for non-originals, these got set aside. Sold my collection years ago but these got left behind"

Opened them up and they don't look nearly as Frankenstein-Monster-Board as Dark Tower... What do you guys think?

Pics!

https://imageshack.com/i/pnbKSUGS...
https://imageshack.com/i/poFZUtwC...
https://imageshack.com/i/plcJQU1l...

These were listed on eBay at one point that I remember.

The two carts look just like most of the Vectrex prototypes I've had over the years, and I'm fairly confident in saying that they're prototypes. The Dark Tower reproduction thrown in is somewhat off putting though. The original CL seller would had to have been a fairly serious collector to have both a DT repro and a set of prototypes.

Intreresting. Thanks for the input! Do you have a rough idea how long ago you saw them one ebay? Were they together or seperate?

It's funny, before I went to meet up with the guy I bought them from, I did a little research on Dark Tower and found this post on Atariage:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/...

I'm pretty sure that's the exact cart that I ended up with...

https://imageshack.com/i/po45kTU3...

As far as the other 2, the date codes all seem to make sense, and the typewriter labels seem right for the era, just hoping someone could confirm one way or the other!

 

They were listed in a lot together, along with the Dark Tower reproduction and a handful of other games. It was within the past few months for sure. I'm in the process of purging the majority of my collection or I would have made a run at the lot. Vectrex prototypes can be hard to come across, and those are two titles I would have loved to have in my hay day.

Ok, thanks. I found it:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-24...

I'm surprised it didn't go for more, sure they're cart only, but theres some pricey titles in there.

I guess that resolves the Craigslist guy's story about selling his collection and these being the leftovers... I should've know that craigslist guy was full of s***.

I'll consider this solved then and enjoy my fancy new prototypes. Now i just need a light pen to play them... Thanks for your help!

 

If the games were more clearly listed as prototypes, it would have sold for a LOT more. I've had a fair number of Vectrex prototypes over the years and each one sold for a good deal more than that entire lot.

Enjoy the score my man.

While the boards and the cart cases appear to be look era correct. You can see some other pictures I made comparing the Original era case to the Sean Kelly reproduction case at the link below. How can I tell? The release marks from the case mold are more distinct on the original era Vectrex cart case. You'll note those marks to be the three rectangular T mark impressions on the inside of the case. Another tell is the cart case top is a snap-fit design. Both of the original style cases (with or without the screw) are snap-fit with five clips  to hold the shell together. The reproduction cart cases do not have that feature and require a screw to be held together.

http://www.vectrex.com/Images/CustomCartShell/Blue/comparison/

Here is a good image showing the release marks on the bottom half of the shell:
http://www.vectrex.com/Images/Cus...



Here is a good image showing the five snap-fit clips on the edges of the top have of the cart shell:
http://www.vectrex.com/Images/CustomCartShell/Blue/compariso...




BTW, if you do not have the capability to determing if the board had alpha/beta prototype software on them, then I would be happy to lend an assist. I can dump the carts for you. The binaries will remain private of course unless you give explicit permission otherwise.