How do grading companies detect rusted staples in manuals of sealed games?

[imthomas | 43]

Hey all!

I am interested to know if there is a way to ascertain if a sealed game has rusted staples in the manual?

I've seen a few WATA graded games that have details/been ticked for rusted staples and I was just curious if I could detect them myself without opening the game itself.

Much appreciated!

[AdamW | 713]

Are you sure they were graded sealed? Did they have a seal grade? WATA does grade CIB.

[imthomas | 43]

Yeah, here are two examples I found:

[Gloves | 11,800]

Well shit, now I'm curious too lol. Besides that, how does a game with an A+ seal end up with rusted staples?

[Tanooki | 4,940]

I have an idea, stupid as it is, it comes from a tool I've seen used of all things on Pawn Stars when they want to authenticate various hundreds of not 1000+ years old objects as being original and not a modern knockoff.  They have this guy come in with this scanning gun, and all you have to do is hold it like a little radar gun towards the object, don't even have to make contact, and it can give you down to like the hundredth of a percent the chemical breakdown of every piece of metal found in the object in question.

Maybe they have one of those hand tools and can run it over the sealed game and if they hit a percentage of X over tolerances, they know that the metal has rusted.

[Hammerfestus | 3,864]

4 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I have an idea, stupid as it is, it comes from a tool I've seen used of all things on Pawn Stars when they want to authenticate various hundreds of not 1000+ years old objects as being original and not a modern knockoff.  They have this guy come in with this scanning gun, and all you have to do is hold it like a little radar gun towards the object, don't even have to make contact, and it can give you down to like the hundredth of a percent the chemical breakdown of every piece of metal found in the object in question.

Maybe they have one of those hand tools and can run it over the sealed game and if they hit a percentage of X over tolerances, they know that the metal has rusted.

Is it tricorders?  Cuz I want it to be tricorders.

[Tanooki | 4,940]

8 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

Is it tricorders?  Cuz I want it to be tricorders.

Silly as that is, yes, yes I think it is, or at least the 21st early century version of what one would be.

I did a search with a few words to fish for it, seems the Olympus company is pretty proud their device got used on the show by an expert.  Here ya go: https://www.olympus-ims.com/en/landing/explore-vanta/

That's what I was talking about.  You can scan for a metal breakdown with this device, to see inside what you can't see on the surface.  Or potentially in this case, to see the rust on the staples hiding behind a thin wall of plastic and cardboard.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Tanooki

[Abelardo | 154]

@imthomas have you seen examples for other consoles? You can just look at the staples in Playstation games since the case is transparent, the same goes for Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games.

[Gloves | 11,800]

4 minutes ago, Abelardo said:

@imthomas have you seen examples for other consoles? You can just look at the staples in Playstation games since the case is transparent, the same goes for Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games.

Oh yeah; lol.

[imthomas | 43]

7 minutes ago, Abelardo said:

@imthomas have you seen examples for other consoles? You can just look at the staples in Playstation games since the case is transparent, the same goes for Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games.

Oh.... uhh.... yeah that's right.... Hahaha Well, uhh... how do I delete a post? 

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

1 hour ago, imthomas said:

Yeah, here are two examples I found:

I hate this so much.

[phart010 | 1,708]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I have an idea, stupid as it is, it comes from a tool I've seen used of all things on Pawn Stars when they want to authenticate various hundreds of not 1000+ years old objects as being original and not a modern knockoff.  They have this guy come in with this scanning gun, and all you have to do is hold it like a little radar gun towards the object, don't even have to make contact, and it can give you down to like the hundredth of a percent the chemical breakdown of every piece of metal found in the object in question.

Maybe they have one of those hand tools and can run it over the sealed game and if they hit a percentage of X over tolerances, they know that the metal has rusted.

It called a mass spectrometer. Usually they use them to test the alloy composition of metals. It is a surface test.

If they are detecting it inside of the box, they are probably using a different method. Maybe a radiograph test (RT) to see under the surface. The RT test isn’t done with a handheld tool though, you have to put it inside of a machine.

[imthomas | 43]

10 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

I hate this so much.

Yup. At that point, open the game up and replace the staples.

[jonebone | 1,307]

Yeah post a picture of the fronts and it would be obvious in this case.

[Gulag Joe | 584]

I can see the actual staples on the manual through the front cover of all my sealed PS1 games, so therefore I can conclude that they use their eyes and not a Rust-O-Meter

[AdamW | 713]

6 hours ago, imthomas said:

Oh.... uhh.... yeah that's right.... Hahaha Well, uhh... how do I delete a post? 

Don't feel bad, three of us didn't think about that either

[ThePhleo | 2,185]

I used to own an XRF gun. They are only accurate on a surface level up to a few microns thick...

rust and clean steel will both only come up as Iron and carbon with traces of Maganese, Silicon, and Copper.

 The simplest solution is usually easiest. You can see the staples of a PlayStation game through the case