For those who snub their noses at thrift stores because they think that there’s nothing good, you might want to rethink that because in a post on Reddit, Redditor L064N revealed that he discovered an Atari 2700 console while shopping at a thrift store. He did not immediately recognize it but a quick Google search told him what he was looking at.According to his post, “I was at the DAV Thrift Store in Oceanside today like 10 minutes before they closed and I saw this sitting on the shelf and it seemed odd to me as i’d never seen an Atari like it. Some quick googling led me to believe it was some cool rare prototype so I bought it.”
Unfortunately the console did not come with wireless controls as they were not donated to the thrift shop by the original owner, however it seems that for $30, he still managed to turn a tidy profit as he managed to sell it for $3,000, earning himself $2,970 in profit in the process. He writes that an Atari employee had reached out to him and let him know that had it come with the wireless controllers, he could have fetched as much as $5,000 for the entire set.
This isn’t the first time we’re seeing vintage games and consoles sell for so much online. In fact even newer and discontinued consoles like the NES Classic Edition are fetching pretty crazy prices on eBay, so if you’re thinking of doing some investing, maybe consoles and video games could be the way to go.