Unique 1st Print Zelda CIB…Need Some Help

[RetroCole | 1]

Hello everyone,

First time here on the forums however I was recommended here by a friend because I was told there are a lot of older collectors here that have been collecting a long time vs the Facebook groups. So let me start off with how the item was obtained.

I originally purchased this 1st Print Casette Zelda from Catawiki. Had never seen a 1st print US version with a Nintendo Sticker Seal. Obviously I knew the risks when doing so but decided to take the leap of faith anyways since it was such a nice CIB figured it would grade around 8.0-8.5. I reached out to the seller who was based in France. He had been collecting for many years. When I asked about the item he said it was purchased from an Nintendo Employees collection who lived in Great Britain who had games he was selling between $1k-$30k. He has had it for many years and decided to part with it to try to chase a grail of his he had been after a long time.

So there is the background story. Here is what happened next. Well I received it and checked it over and was legit obviously that was a worry of mine however everything checked out all the way down to the Casette manual. The sticker was the only thing I obviously I could not verify.
 

So first I sent it to a friend of mine to clean and prep everything for WATA submission. He pressed and cleaned the inserts as well as the manual and cleaned the cartridge for me just so I had a chance at the best grade possible. Anyways it’s been about a month roughly I would say WATA has had the game at this point and I just received it back along with an email when it arrived today. Email stated that they were unable to authenticate the sticker seal (keep in mind it was submitted as CIB Plus bc seal is broken) and they were unwilling to authenticate because there were no other examples and I could call their customer service for any concerns I might have. So I picked up the phone and called them long story short they said sorry we aren’t gonna authenticate it because we haven’t seen that before and can’t tell.

So I made a follow up post on FB and I plan on sending it in to CGC for Kenneth Thrower to look at. However I wanted to reach out here and see if anyone might have any clear cut information on this piece. So far I’ve heard it’s a fake sticker, it’s a US print with a CAD sticker, it was potentially a early Canadian release where they used US print boxes and used Nintendo seals, it was returned like some games were that were thought to be defective and were actually fine and resealed with a sticker, it was an employee copy and that’s why it has the sticker since it came from the guys collection. As you can see I’ve heard it all and just wanted some other people’s opinions before I submit it to CGC and they potentially say sticker is not legit and don’t get it right and they remove it. I am attaching all the photos I can from original listing and a few I have before I shipped it off. 
 

Thanks everyone for any help provided in advance!

Edited March 6 by RetroColeCollects
Typos

[RH | 4,903]

I'm not the expert you're looking for, but as soon as I saw the title and the sticker, I thought "Oh wow, that has to be from Canada".  I'm not sure we have a list of Canadian games that were released with stickers seals, but I'm guessing the reason why that happened is that these were unwrapped and stacked so that they could put French inserts in them as needed.  (Canadian's/CIB experts, verify?)

So I am willing to generally trust the full story.  There is the option that someone put the sticker from one box, onto this one but considering your context, I don't understand why.  I do find it odd that the guy who bought this in the UK had it, assuming he was using it.  PAL NESs can't play NTSC games.  Have you tried to play it?  Maybe this was an internal item within the UK in an American box but that's a PAL Zelda?  I don't know about PAL Zelda titles.  I assume they too were gold.

[RetroCole | 1]

I have not tried to play it however cart and all inserts all check out. My understanding is the guy who previously owned it is a collector like myself so he did not either. I also forgot to mention not sure if this is pertinent that the original owner said the little bit of info he was able to find on it is it might come from a NESI distribution which was stopped in a few months for this one.

[a3quit4s | 4,097]

Didn’t Mattel release the early games in Canada? Would make sense since I’ve seen an early SMB with a sticker seal but that box had French on it as well. I’d be on team Canada release on this one and it’s not sealed but still probably has value as a very very early Zelda release. 
 

All speculation of course

maybe the keeper of odd variants knows? @ThePhleo

Edited March 6 by a3quit4s

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

Thanks for the mention @a3quit4s

I briefly spoke with Dan Gomen (Wata) and Kenneth Thrower (CGC) about this particular copy and both them and I agree that it doesn't make sense for it to have a sticker.

My only theory I can vaguely come up with is that it possibly might be similar to the known games that come with double-stickers. Meaning, it's possible that whatever caused those few known instances to have double stickers, might be what's causing this to have one sticker. Even then, it's a very long shot since the US phased out stickers in Mid to Late-1986 and the earliest copies of Legend of Zelda (which coincidentally is this one) was released over a full year later.

It simply makes no sense for it to possibly have a sticker. I don't think there's enough consensus in collector circles to accurately authenticate it. Though, you can probably ask them to just grade it as a TM Zelda since it's a really freaking nice copy.

[RetroCole | 1]

@ThePhleo I actually spoke with Kenneth and plan to send it in to CGC for him to take a look. I have already had manual and inserts pressed/cleaned and cart cleaned as well. Was expecting at a minimum an 8.0 CIB 1st print. These photos I posted were taken before it went to be cleaned and pressed. I also plan to add the cleaning service + w/ CGC for my submission. If they think the sticker is a repro then they’ll have my permission to remove it and at least we will know people are now starting to add repro stickers to things. However with that said I will say I’ve looked it over for a good while and it appears to be aged on there and a legit sticker. Just my humble opinion though. It was shipped back to me in an Inconclusive baggy from WATA. 

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

On 3/6/2024 at 12:47 PM, RetroCole said:

@ThePhleo I actually spoke with Kenneth and plan to send it in to CGC for him to take a look. I have already had manual and inserts pressed/cleaned and cart cleaned as well. Was expecting at a minimum an 8.0 CIB 1st print. These photos I posted were taken before it went to be cleaned and pressed. I also plan to add the cleaning service + w/ CGC for my submission. If they think the sticker is a repro then they’ll have my permission to remove it and at least we will know people are now starting to add repro stickers to things. However with that said I will say I’ve looked it over for a good while and it appears to be aged on there and a legit sticker. Just my humble opinion though. It was shipped back to me in an Inconclusive baggy from WATA. 

It wouldn't really make sense for someone to put a fake sticker on this game. I mean, they'd have to know enough about early NES releases to know sticker seals existed, but not enough to know Zelda never came with one in US.

Keep us updated on CGC input. I'm super curious.