Rare ZX Spectrum titles fetch a high price on ebay
Tue, Jan 6, 2009
As a collector of all things Sinclair I was interested in a particular auction back in December for the following set of rare Sinclair branded educational/business titles. The photos are from the actual auction listings.
Micro Prolog (L 2/S) – by Logic Programming Associates
Which? Tax Calculator 1983-84 (4332) – by Consumer’s Association
Weathermaster (4325) – by Macmillan
MacMan’s Magic Mirror (4335) – by Macmillan
Disease Dodgers (4327) – by Macmillan
Planet Patrol (4326) – by Macmillan
Oil Strike (4324) – by Macmillan
Now of all the titles above the ones that I was particularly interested in were the Macmillan educational titles and the Which? Tax Calculator. Educational titles were not very popular for the ZX Spectrum, no matter how many times we told Mom and Dad that we needed the Speccy for our education, everyone really knew (including Mom and Dad I suspect) that we only wanted to play JetPac. So it follows that educational titles were not sold in huge numbers and are therefore rarer finds. Add to that, the above titles were not produced in any great numbers anyway and you end up with a set of very rare titles indeed.
It seems that on that night Sinclair collectors with much deeper pockets were ready to spring into action. I didn’t leave empty handed, I managed to bag Micro Prolog, the title I least wanted. The other titles all pushed the boundaries and exceeded the amounts I had ever seen paid for ZX Spectrum titles of this nature with the following winning bids:
As you can see with the one I won, I was way off the mark and as keen as I am, could never afford to (or want to) spend that much on one ZX Spectrum software title let alone six. It would end in divorce. Or castration in my sleep.
There are certain items that remain the holy grail of any collector’s wishlist and whilst these titles are definitely on my list, I won’t be spending this sort of money to acquire them. I’ll just wait until I see them in a box amongst some other stuff at a car boot sale going for a song. In my dreams…
Do you know of any auctions worth mentioning (past or present)? Let us know about them if you think they would be of interest – admin@retrogamescollector.com
Tags: macmans magic mirror, macmillan, rare software, zx spectrum
All I can say is – Flabbergasted! The MacMillan titles could possibly be rarer than most spectrum software titles as they were educational and may not have sold quite so well as some of the million selling games.
theres 1 on ebay now macmillan science i will post how much it sell for