Franmotard | 79 Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 (edited) Just seen my grades have been updated at Wata website and in my pokemon red and yellow got a grader note added saying: *Factory sealed, Box opened at factory prior to sealing They both are defined as a first party seam and sealed with seal rating A and A+, but got that extra note added. None of my other Pokémon games have it. have you seen that note before? Edited December 17, 2021 by iLikePssys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tidaldreams | 654 Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 I saw this note on the mega man and bass on HA this week, thought it was kinda weird. does it have an H-Seam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franmotard | 79 Posted December 17, 2021 Author Share Posted December 17, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, tidaldreams said: I saw this note on the mega man and bass on HA this week, thought it was kinda weird. does it have an H-Seam? Nope, it is first party LRB seam but not H. On the other hand, my pokemon gold has H steam and doesnt have that Edited December 17, 2021 by iLikePssys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franmotard | 79 Posted December 17, 2021 Author Share Posted December 17, 2021 Found these games sold on HA with that description too : https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/nintendo/final-fantasy-wata-94-a-sealed-oval-soq-r-nes-nintendo-1990-usa/a/7263-28021.s https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/nintendo/the-legend-of-zelda-majora-s-mask-wata-75-a-sealed-n64-nintendo-2000-usa/a/312145-67039.s https://comics.ha.com/itm/video-games/nintendo/pokemon-blue-version-wata-92-a-sealed-sandshrew-blue-text-early-production-gameboy-nintendo-1998-usa/a/7263-28138.s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blarky | 42 Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 (edited) Best guess as to what "*Factory sealed, Box opened at factory prior to sealing": I'm assuming here that WATA has detected some type of spine or flap wear, indicating that the box has been opened. But the seal is determined to be factory. How can this be? If we assume humans were boxing these games up, perhaps what happened was that the contents were incorrectly loaded (and the flap closed), but later realized this and they had to re-open the flap to finish packing properly. There's been a few sealed NES black box games noted in the past with spine wear, but with otherwise legit factory seals. Perhaps a similar story here. Edited December 17, 2021 by blarky 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdStrongestMole | 433 Posted December 17, 2021 Share Posted December 17, 2021 3 minutes ago, blarky said: Best guess as to what "*Factory sealed, Box opened at factory prior to sealing": I'm assuming here that WATA has detected some type of spine or flap wear, indicating that the box has been opened. But the seal is determined to be factory. How can this be? If we assume humans were boxing these games up, perhaps what happened was that the contents were incorrectly loaded (and the flap closed), but later realized this and they had to re-open the flap to finish packing properly. There's been a few sealed NES black box games noted in the past with spine wear, but with otherwise legit factory seals. Perhaps a similar story here. This! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tidaldreams | 654 Posted December 18, 2021 Share Posted December 18, 2021 3 hours ago, iLikePssys said: Nope, it is first party LRB seam but not H. On the other hand, my pokemon gold has H steam and doesnt have that This a US version? i've never seen a pokemon game that doesn't have either an H-seam (either horizontal or vertical) or a V-overlap seam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RH | 5,121 Posted December 18, 2021 Share Posted December 18, 2021 2 hours ago, blarky said: Best guess as to what "*Factory sealed, Box opened at factory prior to sealing": I'm assuming here that WATA has detected some type of spine or flap wear, indicating that the box has been opened. But the seal is determined to be factory. How can this be? If we assume humans were boxing these games up, perhaps what happened was that the contents were incorrectly loaded (and the flap closed), but later realized this and they had to re-open the flap to finish packing properly. There's been a few sealed NES black box games noted in the past with spine wear, but with otherwise legit factory seals. Perhaps a similar story here. It could be simpler than that. I've worked in manufacturing with packers. Nintendo takes quality control rather seriously. I bet as the packed games come down the line, but before they were shrink wrapped, checkers take a box or two out of 20 and checks that they are boxed correctly and with all ephemera. This way thet can quickly catch problems and fix them. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franmotard | 79 Posted December 18, 2021 Author Share Posted December 18, 2021 7 hours ago, tidaldreams said: This a US version? i've never seen a pokemon game that doesn't have either an H-seam (either horizontal or vertical) or a V-overlap seam. no! they are the spanish version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inasuma | 1,221 Posted December 18, 2021 Share Posted December 18, 2021 (edited) 23 hours ago, blarky said: Best guess as to what "*Factory sealed, Box opened at factory prior to sealing": I'm assuming here that WATA has detected some type of spine or flap wear, indicating that the box has been opened. But the seal is determined to be factory. How can this be? If we assume humans were boxing these games up, perhaps what happened was that the contents were incorrectly loaded (and the flap closed), but later realized this and they had to re-open the flap to finish packing properly. There's been a few sealed NES black box games noted in the past with spine wear, but with otherwise legit factory seals. Perhaps a similar story here. Yep, my guess as well. It should be possible based on their experience to know when a seal is "factory" or not. vent holes, seal quality/texture, seam type matches known variants, etc etc. Edited December 18, 2021 by inasuma Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_wizard_666 | 1,329 Posted December 18, 2021 Share Posted December 18, 2021 21 hours ago, RH said: It could be simpler than that. I've worked in manufacturing with packers. Nintendo takes quality control rather seriously. I bet as the packed games come down the line, but before they were shrink wrapped, checkers take a box or two out of 20 and checks that they are boxed correctly and with all ephemera. This way thet can quickly catch problems and fix them. Yeah, I've always assumed that was the way they did their quality control...like damn near every other form of manufacturing. There's no way they 're gonna be able to check every game that comes off the line, but taking a look at randomly selected copies off the line can help identify a bad batch. That's likely what happened - QA opened the box, checked everything was the way it should be, and sent it on it's merry way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CodysGameRoom | 2,009 Posted December 19, 2021 Share Posted December 19, 2021 Such a shame, knowing the contents of the box have been ruined by the oils of human hands. its probably a festering mess of bacteria inside by now. sorry for your loss! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franmotard | 79 Posted December 29, 2021 Author Share Posted December 29, 2021 Got a reply from wata customer service regarding this topic, if it can be useful for someone searching for it in the future Box opened at factory just indicates that although it looks like the box has been opened and it should be graded as CIB, the games have the correct seals on them, meaning the game has never been opened or tampered with by a consumer, and still counts as a sealed game. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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