Pokemon Crystal Box Authenticity

[Philosoraptor | 482]

Hey y'all. I recently purchased a complete copy of Pokemon Crystal. I'm 99% sure it's authentic, but I found the foil on the box to be strange. My Gold, Silver, and Emerald boxes have foil on all sides but my Crystal box only has foil on three. I've also noticed that there seem to be two boxes for this game, one with white cardboard and one with gray, but both seem to only have foil on three sides. It just struck me as strange. Is this just how they were made for the NTSC market? Was this done as a cost-saving measure?

Pics for reference:

Top and front have foil:

The spine has foil too:

The back, bottom, and warning information sides do not have foil:

The foil stops in the middle of the main box flap:

The contents and color of the box:

Thanks for your help!

[Tanooki | 5,125]

From memory your 99% is 100% correct, that's a nice example of a clean box too surprising given the age and that it has been opened a few times at least over the years.

[broncofantd793 | 138]

Your box is identical to mine!

[Philosoraptor | 482]

38 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

From memory your 99% is 100% correct, that's a nice example of a clean box too surprising given the age and that it has been opened a few times at least over the years.

Thanks for responding! That's great to hear. Finding one in great shape is the biggest challenge by far, especially the one with white cardboard. That one has the cardboard cartridge holder glued to the inside of the box instead of having the slide-out cardboard insert that holds the cart, so the box has much less support and gets squished really easily.

I plan on at least opening it a few more times to get a run in. We'll see how well the Retron 5 does with the time mechanic in those games, since the battery is probably dead. : )

[Philosoraptor | 482]

2 minutes ago, broncofantd793 said:

Your box is identical to mine!

Awesome! Thank you! 

[Tanooki | 5,125]

I understand.  I had my luck about a year ago with the franchise, not that one, but Red Version.  I got a sealed version of the game locally for just $100 and it's in really good shape.  I've got it on display on my wall in a small shadowbox as I love the Charizard art and always have.