Penguin

Yeah I’m still going for full sets for NeS and Gameboy, but with how prices are right now I’m just taking my time and only buying good deals.  The way I see it I’m in no rush.  If it takes me another 30 years to complete them no biggie.  Maybe by then nobody will care about this stuff anymore and it will be a lot cheaper.

2 hours ago, re4mat said:

That's a great find! Were there only boxes, or did they also have some systems/games/inserts/etc. down there?

They had all the games but we left them there to play when we visit, I just took the boxes and manuals, I have a few of the games already just have to pick up some of the others.  They have a few systems too, N64, 2 GBC’s, GBA, DS, Cube, Wii, 360 and a ps2.

So this past weekend I went to my wife’s parents house in Virginia. My father in law is the type of person who keeps almost everything, and l lucky for me we were going through some of my wife’s and her brothers stuff from when they were kids. We stumbled upon a bunch of their old game collection boxes and Pokémon cards.  I was only able to fit a few things to bring back in my suitcase. Most of the game boxes are empty with the exception of heart gold and yellow, but I have most of the games loose so it worked out great!  I’m excited to see what else we can find next time I’m up there.  Who knows what else could be hiding!

RIP NA, welcome back 

On 4/19/2023 at 9:50 PM, Tulpa said:

The other thing to remember in terms of units surviving is that these things were never seen by the general public. M82s? That was often people's first NES experience, and I'm sure a bunch of those were spirited away by store employees or given to people who asked once the SNES was in full swing, especially since M82s could play games.

Test stations were only used by techs, and while I'm sure some were Nintendo enthusiasts who hung onto them (and are probably the source of the ones still out there), most were electronics repair dudes who just saw Nintendo repair as a paycheck and probably disposed of the stations after the NES ran its course.

Yeah I’ve talked to a few service centers over the years where they literally had the stuff sitting in a warehouse, and got rid of it or even just threw it in the trash. Those were the saddest places I talked to

I know for all the test stations I’ve seen over the years the highest serial number I’ve ever seen was in the 500’s.  My estimate was 1000 or under of these were made. Most service centers I think were required to buy one at the start of their contract, some even had more than  1 of them.  One of the centers in Cali I bought out had 2 of the nes ones.  As far as how many of these are still in existence, probably a few hundred.  I’ve had about 7 of them pass through my hands over the years, these were always undervalued I thought and I knew after a while the price would increase on these.  Conservatively I’d say they are probably with around $5000 for a nice one nowadays.

PM’d

On 1/3/2023 at 3:06 PM, ThePhleo said:

Oh, and @Penguin long time no chat.

Have you ever seen any SNES Test carts with the "slot" style cartridge shell instead of the slide?

I have a few of both styles, I’ve seen both styles as well, not sure if all the carts came in both variants. 

Just now, Penguin said:

The only yellow cart that ever had a back label was Zelda, and there should be no production code stamp on it.  The greys carts should not have labels, but I have seen a couple directly from centers that had them, they were probably a reshell thou. 

6 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Well that's good to know.  Just out of curiosity, do any of them have back labels?  The ones on ebay lack them so it'd be good to know.  

The only yellow cart that ever had a back label was Zelda, and there should be no production code stamp on it.  The greys carts should not have labels, but I have seen a couple directly from centers that had them, we’re probably a reshell thou. 

6 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

Do yours have security screws, or flatheads?

All the test carts should have security screws,  even the 5 screw ones.  Never seen the flatheads on any of them.

Here’s a closer of my 5 screw one

Yeah I can tell you with 100% certainty this one is legit.  I’ve had several 5 screw test carts over the years.  For the port test cartridges, they did a revision to fix a bug with the original release and all the revisions had 5 screw cartridges. I’ve also seen Zelda and the joystick cartridges in 5 screw as well.  In fact my joystick cartridge is 5 screw as well.  The label ware on the one on eBay is consistent with all the used ones I’ve gotten from service centers in the past.  So def legit. 

I think the things I miss most from NA is the expansive collection tool and database, I liked the list format and multitude of variants that would be tracked . I was lucky to be there in the beginning and loved the site, met so many great people over there years there.  Sadly I think a lot of us outgrew the site, it got too big and then died out.  Sign of the times I guess.   I feel like forums in general are not used nearly as much as they used to be.  I’m glad we still have a place to congregate here.

34 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I don't think that's allowed on VGS (and you spelled it wrong)...

haha those are only in the old MOD threads

41 minutes ago, RH said:

@Penguin Thanks for posting those. Do you have any Genesis games with a barcode sticker on the cartridge?  Mind posting photos of any of those games with the barcodes?

I couldn’t find any Sega ones with barcodes only an nes game I have.

Here are come pics, I collect rental cases and have a few Sega ones. Let me know if you need any other pictures.

To the top!

Yeah def the Atari 2600 set would be the hardest to complete, so many low print games that nobody has. 

Bumpage!

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

The most impressive thing there is the not often as much seen play it loud system entirely intact with the hard to come by plastic case it shipped in.  Nintendo didn't do those for long, same with the Pocket when it arrived too.

Yeah it’s in beautiful shape too, reg card in still attached as well!

Other pic