Amermoe

1 hour ago, 0xDEAFC0DE said:

There's a lot more than that. Just for USA there are around 16 known CIB variants (and 10 box variants). The Rev-A circle seal is variants 4-6 (variant 5 adds a "NES-GP" on the back, variant 6 adds a code on the inside flap).

 

Thanks 0xDEAFC0DE, great knowledge to have. I'll be sure to check out your post. I didn't know there were 3 known non Rev-A prints of this game. So my takeaway from all this, is that there were 3 sub-variants of the first print (non Rev-A), and 3 subsequent sub-variants of the second print (circle silver seal), and the first print had TM next to both Zelda title text and Nintendo text. Hopefully I got that right. Do you know if we know this for a fact, or is this just speculation at this point?

As for my comment on the Latin version, please forgive me for not clarifying, I was referring to the Brazilian/Spanish versions - of which now I know there were actually 2 types . As you can tell, NES is not exactly my Forte.

Someone please correct me as I'm not huge on NES collecting, but I believe there's at least 3 North American variants of NES Legend of Zelda; the silver seal non-Rev A (1st print), Silver seal Rev-A, White Seal Rev-A, and then there's the Latin version, and the French/PAL version, not sure if there's anymore. The one shown here is the 2nd NA print (Rev-A), is this correct?

More sega. This time a classic for the Dreamcast.

11 minutes ago, SealedWholesale said:

graded recently -- looking for a new home

 

Yeah, that's something right there...wow!

18 minutes ago, Maertens29 said:

I can attest first hand to sending in what was basically a case fresh Dk64 that had a stress crease along the top side.  It came back 90.  

That's interesting, it does lead me back to the point of inconsistency and for a 90 it also raises some red flags for me. But out of curiosity, was it a very light crease, or a pronounced one like in the photos on this thread?

More Saturn love. This is one of my favorite RPGs on the system next to Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Albert Odyssey. 

This one's for JoneBone because I know he'd appreciate it. His 90 is damn near impossible to find, probably one of a kind.

Here's one you don't see too often. Very glad to have this one in this grade. Not enough Sega love I think, so I'll post a couple more.

Definitely my favorite Batman movie, and a classic in my opinion. Very nice grade.

2 minutes ago, Bronty said:

Jone beat me to it, but you don't get creased games from a case.    Conversely, there are lots of minty games that have a creased.    Alll that needs to happen is for a minty game to have too much weight put on it at some point in its history.    Its not some kind of white whale, it does happen.   

Ok, I trust your opinion on this Bronty. All I'm saying is the majority of my 85s, and I probably have 12 or so SNES examples of this, don't have those creases - except 1 or 2 and in those instances while visible the crease is very light. My 80s, and 80+ on the other hand generally do have creases. 

3 hours ago, jonebone said:

You misread Bronty's post then. 

Your game isn't flawless.  It has more than just corner pokes too, it has corner dents (more damage) and whitened corners (more damage than just a tiny corner poke).  

I think Bronty was slightly too generous saying the game in question could be 85 if flawless otherwise... I think the amount of creasing looks more like 80+ or perhaps 80+/85 borderline "if the rest was flawless".  A VGA 75 game has a LOT of wear, a LOT.  Corners matter a lot and your Breath of Fire has signfiicant corner wear on almost all of the visible corners. 

Fair enough. I never said my game was flawless - just the seal - the grade is what I was expecting in the 75-80 range - the sticker also brings down the score. The real question for me is how do you weigh a large crease - which is a very significant flaw, vs. the box puncturing through the seal at some corners - roughly 1-2 mm in diameter. Visually, the crease draws much more negative attention than something that needs very close inspection. I have many 85s, and they are generally in very nice condition - not mint but generally no clear visible flaws and certainly no creasing - although one game I have is an exception and so I agree with Bronty on the lack of consistency. It's been my experience that creasing like that is a very heavy deduction from VGA. To take PS1 cases for example, any crack is an automatic 25 point deduction regardless of condition - I've tested this with them many many times. 

To Jonebone's and Bronty's point, I can see if a game is truly flawless (no scuffing, corner pokes, dents, stickers, seal damage, etc.), could in theory score an 85, but I don't think it's realistic - unless say it was opened freshly from a case.

5 hours ago, Bronty said:

I mean, I've seen lots of 75s and they usually are pretty beat.    And I've seen otherwise minty games with those creases, if light enough, get 85 no problem.

Its not 100% consistent at either company.

You might be right, but I think VGA has been very strict in the past year or so. I thought I'd add some pictures just so you can get a better look yourself.

In the below example, the creasing is there, and one corner has a small dent, there's a few corner pokes - I think about 3 of the 8 corners, but overall the box is in good shape, and the seal is almost flawless - but gets a 75... 

On 3/16/2020 at 11:32 AM, Bronty said:

I think if the rest of the game is flawless it would get 85 no problem.

Now, chances are there are other small flaws, so I think the likely result is 80+ or lower I agree, but not just because of that side creasing.

As for wata, probably 8.5?

Hi Bronty, always respect your opinion, but I recently sent in 2 games that I was sure would grade ok, that ended up 75 on the VGA scale because of similar creases. Yes, granted it was not flawless, but one of them was in much better condition than the other. One of them had the crease in the bottom front edge, and the other to the back top left corner. The only other flaws I could find were corner pokes. The seal itself was flawless.

On 4/8/2020 at 9:59 PM, Startyde said:

Could indeed be a later print or perhaps a third party reprint? Zone of Enders 2, the Yakuza games on PS2, they've all had semi official third party reprints made with official cases etc, but sans the holostrips they originally had. Maybe a similar sitch.

I'm very curious about your statement on the Yakuza games. I bought mine at lauch preorder for PS2 and still have them sealed, and am aware of the Rosenqueen reprints Vs the originals. But both Yakuza 1 and 2 did not come with the security seal or at least I've never seen one, and not the ones I bought anyways. The difference between the 2 prints is still noticable though, and you can tell by the size of the font of the title on the edge of the case. The originals have the smaller font if I remember correctly.

I would be very interested to see any pictures of a Yakuza 1 or 2 with security seal.

I want to add, yes, absolutely agree with Zone of the enders, and many other games that got reprints 8 or so years after original print run. Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne comes to mind, and the price of that plummeted after the reprint. Hell, I think I've even seen a Final Fantasy X reprint without the holo seal, and have a hard time believe it's not fake.