Stormarov.45

On 2/25/2024 at 3:10 PM, longclaw said:

i am the seller of the Blades of Steel on ebay. if i can post any more pics if that helps, just let me know. im not an expert on these but it looks legit to me. peeling end labels are fairly common there was probably dirt stuck to it and someone pushed it back on to make those bumps. the rest of the label looks good.  the scratches on the back look like just from normal wear of a decades old game. one would think that area would actually be mint if it had been protected by a label all this time.  also i got it in a goodwill lot with 6 other games for cheap money. i doubt goodwill would have bothered faking it for the small amount they got.

No one is saying that Goodwill faked it, and we aren't saying you did either. We are only saying that it is a fake. It was faked with the express intention of posing as a Konami replacement shell. Who is to blame is irrelevant.

1 hour ago, DK said:

 

The end label has peeling on both edges and possible bumps of dirt to the right of the title:

 

Despite the peel I'm still leaning towards legit.

Here's the link if anyone wants to check it out: https://www.ebay.com/itm/176253080779

I'm totally leaning at NOT legit. That's a label swap if I ever saw one. 

That back label section also seems like an obvious scrape job. There are scratches all over that section. 

Both of these copies are a bit sketchy.

The first one is the wrong label (Way too late) and the board as well is a little too late to be a factory 5 screw. However this may be a repair shell for a hand repair for a 90 warranty replacement. (Sometimes these were cracked in packaging or sometimes a user had broken the shell but the board was fine. At this time in first quarter through 3rd quarter 1988 the repair depots used extra 5 screw shells to replace NES 1st party game shells when they were sent in.) The label is probably too late to even be a repair shell I think, but the repair depots always had weird label variations, and the repair could have occurred anywhere within 1988 reasonably due to game hitting shelves in February likely, and then shelf time, plus up to 3 months after purchase. I am most likely to think this one is legit due to the crisp label, label corners, and perfect alignment.

The second copy has a board from the right era, but it still has the wrong label for a factory 5 screw. (orange bullets and not white ones). However, it is possible that this is an early repair cart of the 2nd label version. The 2nd label could have easily been placed buy a repair depot on a copy with the first board version sent in for repair. But this repair would likely have to happen within that short period between early November 1987 and late December 1987 or early Jan 1988 based on the label version. The label corner on the front gives me pause in claiming this is a legit repair cart instead of a label peel, because that is the tell tale corner that is usually messed up when people try that. However I will give it this, there is no glue ticking out of the sides like other examples and the corner isn't curled like it often is with label peels. Also the repair depots were notorious for having less than perfect glue jobs, usually with the top label being mostly unglued due to a light application by hand. This corner raise could be due to a gluing issue, it looks right anyways. But without having the copy in my hand I would be less likely to trust this one, myself.

On 11/11/2023 at 2:16 PM, Khromak said:

Just went to play Lunar Pool and couldn't get it running so I opened it up to clean it. Notice it's a 5-screw and wondered if it was commonly known. NES Cart DB has it as 3 screw and it's not on this list that I see. What gives?

Edit: Found some more examples online, maybe it's just a common 5-screw so it's not on this list because this is only rare ones? Is there a list of all known 3-screw and 5-screw variants?

Yup this one is common

On 12/17/2022 at 4:44 AM, wyansas said:

Divingninja having one TM and one R TMNT 5 screw has inspired me, and I'm looking for a few pointless one-to-one trades out of the goodness of your hearts...

Would anyone with a Super C 5 screw with an R seal be willing to trade for one that has a TM seal?
Anyone with a Donkey Kong Jr. 3 screw System TM want to trade for one that has System R?
Anyone with a TMNT 5 screw with a TM seal want to trade for one that has an R seal?

Here's the pics of the ones I have for trade: https://imgur.com/a/VYPaj35

There shouldn't be a TMNT 5 screw with an (R) oval seal. I don't know about the other two though.

21 hours ago, CrowTRobot said:

Long time, No post. Just looking at my NES game recently and found this. Guess I didn't look too closely at my Gyromite 3-Screws but one has "Made in Japan" and one does not. The "Made in Japan" is also has a Rev-A backing.

The  right one (without the MiJ) looks extremely sketch to me.

On 3/4/2022 at 9:16 AM, DK said:

Spoiler

Holy cow, is that the highest 5 screw sold price yet?

 

Nah, I bet that went for best offer.

Although I did offer 400 and it auto rejected it, so it might not be that far off.

1 minute ago, Gloves said:

Main site seems fine, but the collection tracker is dead.

Ya that's what I'm talking about. I don't need/trust the pricing side of the house.

Is it just me or has GVN been down for two days now?

  Sorry for the late reply:

On 8/5/2021 at 1:26 PM, Ferris Bueller said:

Do you know this as fact, or just making a guess? It sounds like you may have firsthand knowledge. Did you use to work at a repair center or NoA? Would love to have this settled once and for all.

I do not know this first hand, I was too young to work in a fab facility, (I am 41). However I understand this is the case from word of mouth and I am an Electrical Engineer with a VLSI/D background, so I know how this kind (or any kind really) of manufacturing industry operates. 

One the machines are retrofitted for the 3 screw shell, the 5 screw shells cant be used. You don't hold up a 100k retrofit over a few thousand plastic shells that are worth 1 penny each. Then in order to save on cost, instead of just throwing the shells away, you just ship them to a repair facility, since they will be operating by hand anyway. The costs is slightly less than shipping them new shells. And repair facilities aren't putting out all that many repairs, they probably had 5 screw shells for years. (All of that part is speculation, but a well informed one) 

However, I have had a former repair tech claim to me that they had 5 screw shells available for them. How they got them, why they still had them, was the part for speculation. 

So I can't say for sure that the machine retrofit was the reason for there being extra shells available, but I'd say it's likely a very good bet. 

 

On 8/5/2021 at 6:34 PM, guitarzombie said:

Oh I wasn't, but I didn't know that was the case.  Totally plausible.  My only question is how did they get the label?  They printed only one label?  Were extra labels printed just in case?

Labels are printed in bulk, they already had stacks of printed labels. Because remember, large industrial printers are used here. There was no such thing as a photo printer yet.  I don't know what they did if they didn't have a label already. Perhaps they had to order a one off print? That would require a down printer day (a day where no orders are being printed) and a days work of replacing the plates and ink canisters, and run and adjusting that machine until a good print occurs, only to put it back the way it was, or fit it for the next order.

On 7/17/2021 at 10:03 PM, Goodvibes said:

Thank you for the picture, I’m just trying to see why I have a 3 screw with the same dates or earlier on some chips. Seems pretty weird to me, what do you guys think?

This is due to bulk purchases. These chips are universal across any title for NES.  Very rarely they would use an updated chip (had more functions but still compatible).

They would buy these chips by the truckload. When they assembled a board they would just use what chips they had.  If 86 chips are left over, those go on the board.

The only time this becomes a problem is when the chip date is later than the game fabrication dates, which means it was a counterfeit chip placed on an NES board, (Very rarely this happens because this takes expertise and effort and startup money for a PRG chip programmer. Most of the time when a forgery is made it uses and entirely different board because of the cost effectiveness of newer technology chips versus finding old stock compatible chips with lower demand) 

In micro chips more demand equals lower costs because they can be fabricated in bulk.

On 7/16/2021 at 10:05 PM, guitarzombie said:

I saw a 5 screw Gotcha with an 88 date.  Makes me think, maybe it's possible they put the shells together but then ran out of chips and needed to wait for a new batch?  

When Nintendo fab facilities switch from the 3 screw to 5 screw clamshell design they had left over 5 screw stock. The the machines that assemble them literally have to be refitted they could not use the 5 screw in the machines anymore. So they moved all remaining 5 screw clamshell stock to the repair department.

Back then you could pay Nintendo to replace a broken clamshell (or they would replace them for free from broken sealed stock and etc...) and often they would switch these on damaged or broken clamshells on games that came in for board repair/defects.  When they did this, they had the 5 screw clamshells available. And because of this sometimes you see a 5 screw cart with the star shaped security screws in it.

So when you see this, if you don't suspect forgery or board swapping, then it was likely sent to a repair facility.

I had no idea I could record my concert poster collection there.

I meant like this one

Wow! 7 posts wasted on this oval v round thing. It's OVAL. The angle is only even slightly making an optical illusion.

However, if this cart were to have the print shift error, then we'd be talking... 

On 3/16/2021 at 10:41 AM, guitarzombie said:

The process of burning a Mask ROM is different from an EPROM?  I thought they were identical except EPROMs are obviously erasable.  I thought they were like blank CDs.  Also how do you know how much that process cost in the early 90s?

NES chips, specifically the PRG chip was not an EEPROM (electronically erasable). They are burned in. But good point. I may have my cost model wrong.

I have been meaning to send a letter to Nintendo America about this for a while. I will try to do that this week.

On 3/10/2021 at 8:18 PM, guitarzombie said:

Yeah this is exactly what I was going for, which is why MM5 is rarer than MM6.

In fact, I was at my friends house yesterday (I showed him Mega Man V for GB and we played it on the Super Game Boy).  His wife was telling me a story that they had Mega Man 1 - 4 but then they saw Mega Man 6.  They never saw 5.  Only years later they saw it, but at the time they didn't see or they would have bought it.  

Theres no doubt to me Capcom decided the game wouldn't be worth it for them if they had to pay the tab to print an NES game in the states on a dying system.  Theres no 'test run' or anything.  Either you release the game or you dont.  Companies distributing the game shell out the price to get their carts made (what was it like $8 a game?) and base the amount to print on how much it would sell.  If it sells really well, they'll make another print run.  Its been speculated that the minimum print run was 10k carts.  Id say thats feasible.  AFAIK one of the only games that has a known print run is Maniac Mansion, the first run is 250k carts and then I think they added another 100k.  So 350k carts and take into consideration how often you see that game.  Not often, but not rare.

Lets get some things straight.  The size of the print run is a variable based on market research. But the minimum first print run is 100K to see equitable profit from the cost of burning in the chip with the video game software, (Nintendo may have had business rules for a larger amount).  This is because the real cost of a chip is in building the masks. Fabrication facilities charge to build these masks (a series of maps in software that tell the fabrication machine where to apply material for each stage, a series of chemical and photolithograph masks, order of operations for masking, etching and impregnation of materials, and the rules for deconflicting steps in the process), for this chip process the cost was around $500,000. (its more for smaller scale chip processes). But once you have the masks, the cost of the chips are pennies, and a second run is much less. (so 10k could be a minimum run afterwards, who knows). Keep in mind that there were 33 million NES systems sold in the US. A minimum run game like blockbuster exclusives or Little Sampson, means there would be little over three for every thousand Nintendo players out there, (give or take).

Because the cost to distribute these is so great, that is why many games get enough production to test market acceptance. For instance since the NES was going strong in Brazil some games near the end came out there first (MM6) and later expanded into the greater US markets.

Also Mega Man 5 is not all that rare, but it is less common than MM4 or MM6. But still every toy store in the Midwest received a copy.  At the time every store I was in had one. But it's possible that this game did not see much in the way of further prints with the advent of other gaming systems, which might account for the unique distribution of MM6.

On 3/7/2021 at 1:57 PM, phart010 said:

@Stormarov.45 @Dr. Morbis
What do you make of the fact that all Mega Man games starting from MM3 forward were launched in US within 1 month of Japan, but MM6 launched in US 4 months after the Japan launch

It's simple really. Nintendo USA didn't expect to distribute MM6 here due to lower MM5 sales. Capcom said "Fine, we will fund a market test batch", it took a little longer, and then Nintendo like the results.

So I got one of these in this week. Excuse the low res pic taken with my PC. My phone is charging and I'm lazy.

On 3/5/2021 at 4:50 PM, phart010 said:

I’m confused. Why would one attempt to remove the label on the uncommon variant? I could see the motive for attempting to label swap off a 3 screw onto a 5 screw shell... but if you already have the uncommon variant, why screw it up? The label looks good as does the shell?

That's why I think its a fake label. More likely they screwed it up putting it on.

On 3/6/2021 at 10:59 AM, guitarzombie said:

Nice.  So as I always re-iterate, my hypothesis is that:

The "USA" Capcom MM6 was actually released in NTSC countries outside the US.  (First print late 93)

 

The -1 Nintendo MM6 was for the US (Early 94, after Capcom gave Nintendo the rights for distribution after saying they were not going to release it in the US)

 

The Playtronics MM6 is Brazilian and was printed in 1996!

I beleive yes, the MM6 Capcom version was released in Mexico and some Central American countries with distribution funded directly by Capcom before coming to the US and then being picked up by Nintendo America's distributors. (Its still had a USA serial number because they didn't differentiate in NA releases. I believe all of the South American releases were the Brazilian release being distributed.)

Little Samson also shows signs of tampering with the price, or at least an algorithm issue. 

I'd say you have a problem....

(Notice that multiple records of the same sales?)

On 2/26/2021 at 11:25 AM, Funky_brewsta said:

@Stormarov.45someone tried to do a label swap on the mm before I got it. They got about halfway up and called it a day. The top half is almost perfect. The guy I got it from is trustworthy and deals with a lot with Brazilian games. Can’t see someone faking the rc pro am than selling it for $6. One has been authenticated by wata and also matches the other two known copies. I have nothing to gain by faking games and hope that’s not what you were suggesting. 

I was suggesting that you might have been swindled.

16 hours ago, Goodvibes said:

Spoiler

 

Nice, what’s the story behind rc pro am? That goes for anyone here. It was released in 1988 so is it a refurb? Is that the general consensus?

@Funky_brewsta can you open it up and take a picture of the board so we can see the dates?

 

 

On 2/24/2021 at 5:47 PM, Funky_brewsta said:

 

Spoiler

 

’ve read through this post so many times...(Thanks by the way) Guess it’s the perfect time to post my variants. Just picked up Rc pro am from eBay the other day. Also found the Tecmo n7 on eBay back in November. The MM6 came from a reliable guy in 2017. 

 

 

I don't trust either the R.C. Pro-Am or the Capcom Mega Man 6 to be legitimate considering how those labels are pulling off.

The price of Armored Core (PS1) is way out of whack. Currently 9n GVN there are 4 entries of the same exact eBay lot at $113 that also never sold on eBay. I checked.

Maybe your algorithm is counting posts with "unavailable" as "sold" for some reason.  This seems like a case of someone correcting a mistake eBay listing, but it looks like foul play. 

Hell, just knowing you can easily manipulate your algorithm is foul play enough. 

See this photo

So I've been lax lately in getting you new pics of some pickups. (I used spoiler screens to make this easier on the eyes for scrollers, open them up)

We will start with the N7 basketball variant

Here is Tiger Heli, an uncommon 5 screw but I also have a misprint copy with color print shift error (black)
The manual surprisingly also had a seal print shift error for the gold ink. (see pics)

Some Uncommon 3 screws, 2 variants of DK3 and an Urban Champion
 

And finally a Nintendo Switch Game! This Black Variant of Darksiders is the only real NSw variant I have seen other than the collectors editions and limited art covers devs/producers have don on purpose.