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Drilled holes in sealed games


Gulag Joe

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6 hours ago, Gloves said:

They're promo, demo, or won through a contest. This was done primarily to prevent people from taking them to stores to return them for refund.

I believe they can still be graded as sealed, but I think they ding you on condition.

I don't think they count the drill holes against the grade. It seems like they just note it on the back of the label.

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41 minutes ago, Gulag Joe said:

I've come across a few with the hole through the barcode, but have seen many more with the hole drilled through the top left corner of the PS1 case or bottom right corner of the PS2 case.

I was about to mention this.  There are some holes that look like a saw cut them and they have a square shape to them.  I've only seen these on the top-left, hinge side.  I've never seen them at the bottom.  Drilled holes into the bard code, or even have the barcode punched on the paper insert, before being placed in the case, are other variations I've seen of making standard released, demo copies.

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6 hours ago, Sumez said:

If promo copies suddenly end up being worth more than retail releases (and given the collector landscape I wouldn't even be surprised at this point), I sure have a bunch of crap I'm gonna dump on you guys XD

With the exception of games with special labels or stickers, I doubt that will happen if it's just a bunch of hole punches because that can be replicated. I still wouldn't get my hopes up, but these are basically untagged NFRs, so who knows.  The NFR market is crazy, so I guess it's not impossible.  It also depends on how common this practice was.  Nintendo was very explicit about their NFRs with different front-labels, and slapping tracking labels on the back if their carts, so they are quite distinguishable.  A cut in a jewel case isn't anything special though.

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Personally I wouldn´t waste time with promo copies of PS1 and PS2 games, much less grading them. Most collectors don´t like them (me included) and I really doubt they will ever sell for more than sealed retail copies. Despite being rarer, it is like other users mentioned, the manual or inserts inside may be damaged, as well as the horrible hole on the outside sticking out like a sore thumb.

The purpose of having sealed games in the first place is to own them in the best condition possible, so a promo game with a hole in it goes against that idea. Anyway, just my my 2¢.

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On 10/23/2020 at 2:23 PM, RH said:

With the exception of games with special labels or stickers, I doubt that will happen if it's just a bunch of hole punches because that can be replicated.

I worked as a reviewer during the PS2 gen, so almost all of them are either the super-thin jewel cases with a disc print similar to budget re-releases, or the ones that have that yellow "promotional copy not for resale" banner printed across the corner of the box art.

It's "unique", but it really shouldn't be worth anything.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/15/2020 at 1:31 PM, oracleoflosangeles said:

Hi All,

So, they aren't all promos. When buying games through employee stores the games are often drilled. This is common with Sony and EA games but the games are absolutely no different than retail. I know, I worked in the industry and bought several games like these.

Thanks!

This is where most of them come from. A while back I bought a few hundred sealed ps1/ps2 games from a sony employee. All were bought from employee store. 
 

All had holes punched through insert, not the entire case. 
 

Sold them all for normal “eBay” value sealed games. 

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  • 2 months later...

Sorry for the bump but I’ve gotten a few sealed PS3 games recently and instead of the normal hole punch, they have a cut in the barcode that goes all the way through to the artwork. Are these also promo copies, giveaways, etc... or something else? I don’t believe it’s normal damage.

I see mentioned above that those with hole punches are noted when graded and doesn’t harm the grade. I assume that games where they are cut like this would affect the grade since it’s damaged, even if it was intentionally done by the Publisher, retailer, etc...

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Edited by DeuceGamer
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