Thrift Store find of the year --- Air Raid for Atari 2600

Thrift Store find of the year - Air Raid for Atari 2600. I have been reading lately in several Atari collector sites that AIR RAID for the Atari 2600 by Men-A-Vision is NOT a real Atari game. You might wonder why I care? Well, I found an Air Raid game for the Atari last year at a Thrift Store in Northern VA for .49cents (pictured right). I found the cartridge in a pile of old cassette tapes. I frequently find Atari and other old video games mixed in with tapes.

At first, I was not sure if this was an Atari or Intellivision cartridge. I tried the Atari first, and it worked (see picture below!). It took several days of searching the web to locate exactly what this cartridge was about. I finally found a great site called, Atari Age, which has a rarity guide for Atari games. It was extremely helpful to me in listing the item on eBay and I even linked back to this site in my auction listing. I played the game before selling it, and it was a real game and had the "MenAVision" tag on the opening screen. It was a little like Space Invaders. One central ship trying to protect the buildings below.

I was surprised to learn recently that several collectors have started questioning whether or not Air Raid was a real game or not! I posted on a site and got several responses that people did not believe that I had sold the game for $2,000 on eBay. Well, I cashed the check a long time ago but I did buy the game for .49cents and sell it for $2,000. That still remains my best return EVER on a thrift store find. I am an Atari collector, but I decided to sell this gem to pay off some debt. I was hoping for a few hundred bucks; I never expected that final bid. I have another rare gem that I found that day. Whoever "L" was, he or she had a heck of an Atari games collection. I found several unopened Atari games that day along with the Air Raid cart.

So, let's put the debate to bed. Air Raid was a REAL game made by a company called MenAVision. The game is lame, so of course they went out of business fast. Keep looking for those rare Thrift Store finds!!!