What is a 'blank UPC sticker'?

[goonhoon | 34]

My SMW2 copy has a 'blank UPC sticker' - what exactly is this? I assume most (if not all) SMW2 copies had a regular barcode printed on the box. 

Is this just a sticker the store decided to put on to write a price on it or is there a deeper, perhaps factory-related, meaning to it?

 

Edited December 15, 2021 by goonhoon

[RH | 5,540]

Generally speaking (since I'm not aware of this specific item) the idea is that this is a soft-NFR copy, or might have been bundled together in a set.  The idea being, if two games were shrink wrapped together, they'd put stickers over each barcode, and then slap a new barcode on the combo of the two.  Alternatively, if this was packed in with a game system, this might have been covered.  In all cases where I have seen something like this, it was usually done by a third party distributor who made the bundle vs. Nintendo themselves.

Now, I don't know that for sure, but that is what I've observed in the past with some bundled games.

[goonhoon | 34]

9 minutes ago, RH said:

Generally speaking (since I'm not aware of this specific item) the idea is that this is a soft-NFR copy, or might have been bundled together in a set.  The idea being, if two games were shrink wrapped together, they'd put stickers over each barcode, and then slap a new barcode on the combo of the two.  Alternatively, if this was packed in with a game system, this might have been covered.  In all cases where I have seen something like this, it was usually done by a third party distributor who made the bundle vs. Nintendo themselves.

Now, I don't know that for sure, but that is what I've observed in the past with some bundled games.

Thanks! That's super helpful. I always assumed the bundles came with just the cartridges.

I found a few bundle boxes on google, great to see some of these:

[RH | 5,540]

2 minutes ago, goonhoon said:

Yes, these are the exact types of bundles I was thinking of.  The guide, system and a game would all have UPCs.  Since you don't want the worker at check-out to scan the wrong UPC, the distributor would put a label over the barcodes, and the correct one was printed on the back of that rainbow-colored insert, or in some cases there would be a UPC sticker stuck on the blister packaging.