Extremely rare used original cassette tape of Ronnie by Kolob Software. Early 1980's vintage. PacMan type of game. It has been a long time since I played this game and it is missing its packaging and instructions. From what I recall this game features a Republican elephant "Ronnie" named after then-president Ronald Reagan who chases around (like PacMan) except instead of gobbling up little dots he gobbles up former President Ronald Reagan's favorite candy (Jelly Beans)!
A few days ago I was talking to my wife about some of the collectible computer games we have sold over the past over 40 years. I started thinking about which (if any) of the games we might still have buried around here could possibly be considered as one of the Holy Grail of rare computer games. We started talking about this Ronnie game that we sold some of during the early-to-mid 1980's and wondered if we might have any of them remaining. After digging (somewhat extensively) for quite a while I finally found one! Although it is (unfortunately) missing its documentation and the label on the cassette tape is somewhat faded-looking on the left side (see photos). Even though we do have a couple of used Commodore Vic-20 computers buried in storage here still (and some of the Commodore cassette tape machines) we don't know how well they work and it would take a significant amount of time and effort to dig them out of storage in order to test this cassette-- so we can't say this game has beentested-- at least not for decades. However, many of the old cassette games like this had a copy of the same game on both sides of the tape in case one side was bad. We don't remember if this particular game had a spare copy on the reverse side of the tape or not-- but it is possible.I started thinking about the rare Honus Wagner baseball card which is the Holy Grail of Baseball Cards-- some worth millions of dollars. I started wondering what makes something as simple as a baseball card (or anything else) worth so much as a collector's item. Much obviously has to do with perceived value and subjectivity. However, there are also cultural and social factors, scarcity, condition, etc. involved. Perhaps that is why we (who have been selling rare and collectible software for over 40 years) believe this Ronnie game might fall into this category to a certain degree.
This game has obvious political relevancy and (like one of the more recent "Call of Duty" games) focuses on Ronald Reagan's love of jelly beans! It also has the obvious tie-in with PacMan. From what I recall of this game and its original packaging the quest of Ronnie (the Republican elephant) was to gobble up the jelly beans in order to eventually make it to the White House. These are just vague memories of his game which I still have after not thinking much about it since the mid 1980's-- so some of these recollections may be slightly imperfect.
Just like the Honus Wagner baseball card is just a thin piece of cardboard with some printing on it this Ronnie cassette tape is just an old cassette tape with a slightly faded label on it. Many (if not most) people wouldn't consider it to be of any significant value. However, to those of nostalgic interests who may see the historic and collectible value of such an item it may be that one elusive rare piece which may be of significant interest.
Before searching for this game a couple of days ago I thought that if I could find one in nice and complete condition it may be worth close to $1,000 or more-- possibly as much as $5,000. However, since it doesn't have its original packaging and the front label on it is somewhat faded-looking we are going to list it at around $500 and even consider serious offers of less than that. It is worth quite a bit to us-- just for the nostalgia of owning it (and due to other personal tie-ins which we have with this game and with one of the main developers of the very popular "Call of Duty" game but we are willing to sell it (on an 'as-is' basis) if a serious offer is made. If someone wants us to test this cassette game first and buy it at a guaranteed price we will likely need to revise the listing price closer to $1,000 for it (assuming that it tests ok) due to the extra time and effort involved.