What does *Factory sealed, Box opened at factory prior to sealing exactly mean?

[Franmotard | 79]

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

[tidaldreams | 654]

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?

[Franmotard | 79]

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

[Franmotard | 79]

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
 

 

 

[blarky | 42]

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

[3rdStrongestMole | 485]

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!

[tidaldreams | 654]

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.

[RH | 5,542]

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.

[Franmotard | 79]

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

[inasuma | 1,228]

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

[the_wizard_666 | 1,412]

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.

[CodysGameRoom | 2,014]

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!

[Franmotard | 79]

 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.