Chuckbiii

On 4/27/2020 at 8:06 AM, Speedy_NES said:

Did you pay with PayPal? If so, you can ignore the eBay turnaround and file a claim on the PayPal transaction; you have 180 days for this, so plenty of time.

Is the strip seal type mentioned above also suspicious on a Game of the Year (non-reflective text, no "Only for Xbox", non-NFR) edition?

I was able to work with the sell and get a refund on mine.  Thanks for the tip though!!!

As far as the variant you mention.  Yes, that is suspicious.  I’ve seen many sealed copies of all variants, and the one you mention should be the older security seal. Even now on eBay all of those have the older seal except one copy.....that variant has a manufacture date on the back of 2003.  From everything I have found and personal experience, everything with a manufacturer date of 2001-2003 has the older security seal.  This includes black label, promo NFR, system pack-in NFR, and foil.  

The platinum hits variant is always the newer security seal and was manufactured in 2004.  Halo 2 has the same 2004 manufactured date and also always has the newer seal.  
 

So for all the Combat Evolved copies (and maybe all Xbox games?):

2001-2003 - older security seal

2004-Present - newer seal. 
 

Any other observations are welcome!!!

And now another raw copy just went up on eBay for auction with this later security seal.....something strange going on now all of a sudden these showing up..

He did change his item description and said multiple people have told him about the seal.  I asked him twice where he obtained the game and will not answer.  Just talks around it.

1 hour ago, kell said:

Is anyone sure on the dates of the seals? 

I took a quick look at some of my Xbox games and there seems to be some overlap between the seals and dates.  I'm not an expect on Xbox seals, but I have quite a few sealed games and can to some research if it helps.

What year are your games from?  I’ve never seen anything from Xbox launch (2001) that had the later security seal.  If you have a lot of sealed Xbox games maybe check the seal types and years the games were released?  I am willing to bet only the one earlier seal type is present from the first couple years of Xbox games.  Interested to see what you come up with!

The seal is legit.  I’ve seen them particularly on Sonic 2s (not sure why that game is so prone to it) and right out of factory sealed cases of that game.  Back in the day I had 2 of them graded at VGA.  They both graded 85+ with similar enlarged vent holes.  Totally normal for that title anyway.

1 hour ago, jonebone said:

Did you ask the seller about his source?  Is he a former Microsoft employee or located near any of their distribution centers?

Yes I asked him where he got these as soon as WATA notified me they cannot guarantee authenticity.  He said he acquired them from another eBay retailer.

1 hour ago, jonebone said:

I'm confused on that one.  If you thought it was a reseal, why would you pay for grading... and then when you got it back as "authentic", why would you tell everyone it's a reseal?

I don't think reseal is the right word, I think "inconclusive" makes more sense.  I assume that Wata noticed the security seal was different and didn't want to risk their brand name on a questionable game.  I assume VGA probably missed this detail and just thought the game was authentic off of the seal type. 

And to be fair, there are a lot of resealed Halos out there that get rejected.  So if it passed the VGA authenticity check, then the wrap is either legit or much better than the typical DVD style reseals that hit market.  The sticker is confusing though.  Maybe this was overstock resealed at factory?  Who knows that the theory would be.

This also isn't the first time two grading companies haven't agreed on something.  I can give a specific example myself on a baseball card.  I bought a Ripken minor league rookie card from a minor league collector, knew it was legit.  Paid about $1k but it was after the grading scandal when apparently too many trimmed cards were being passed as legit.  I sent to PSA and they returned it (and my grading fees) saying card did not meet minimum size requirements.  I had to return it but PSA didn't say fake, they said indeterminable. I told another Cal collector the story, he bought it and sent to BGS (the other big card company).  They graded it an 8.5, the highest graded copy of it on record, and he's got himself a 7 or 8 thousand dollar card now.  I'm still not happy about that one.

Point being, grading companies are just expert opinion and expert opinions can disagree.  Personally, I think Wata did a better job with this game but I'm not sure any one can definitively say it's a reseal.  At best you could say it is a questionable variant that cannot be confirmed or refuted at this point of time. 

I agree 100% with your statements.  I’d say inconclusive is a better description.  The seal likely is a legit Microsoft/Xbox security seal.  It was just likely not the original seal and at some point, opened and resealed at a factory.  The thing that makes the whole thing strange is that the there are 3 of these copies (as mentioned before, the 2 copies being auctioned and my raw copy) all came from the same seller and looking back I’ve never seen any other black labels with that security seal (and I’ve seen many of them).  That being said shame on me for not noticing though.  But the seal looks like a legit factory seal, just not the right one.  

8 minutes ago, Startyde said:

Oooooh, I see, it's not the presence of the seal but the type. Oooph, looks like a potential VGA mega fail, especially for such a sought after game.

Correct, it’s the seal type that’s the issue.  This is a fail all around.  VGA grading fail, and WATA fail for taking so damn long to get me my game that I may not be able to return based on the item not being authentic, which will really piss me off......

Fails all around!

Yeah I have had horrible wata response times.  Yes hopefully that gets straightened out.  I think all the garbage CIB grading is bottlenecking the process.  But anyway.....

Here is a pic I received from the guy selling the VGA copies.  Hopefully he doesn’t mind.  The top 2 games are the combat evolved (with the later security seal).  The bottom 2 games have the correct seal.  The game you pictured has the earlier security seal.  The top 2 games with the later security seals were never present in 2001.   They didn’t show up until 2004 at the earliest to my knowledge and are present on everything Xbox 360 and newer.

I’m going to chime in here.  This came up because of me.  This seller and myself bought 3 black label halo copies from another particular seller on eBay.  I sent mine to WATA and they will not grade these as they cannot confirm authenticity. The security seal on these did not exist in 2001.  They are only on the “greatest hits” variants of combat evolved.  I checked with the seller selling the VGA copies and confirmed he did indeed buy these from the same person I did.  We both believe VGA messed up and he does not want his seller rep tarnished for selling non-authentic items (even though VGA graded otherwise).

Now the more maddening part.  I paid for 10 day speed run on the copy I sent to WATA.  It took them almost 5 weeks to tell me this was not authentic and only after I emailed them a bunch asking where it was!! It took so long that I am outside of the ebay money back guarantee window of 30 days......the person we bought these from says he has no money to refund us.....