DK

I see Shining in the Darkness in the preview - does it have more pages with the actual dungeon maps, or is it just an overview of the world map?

Here is an E rated SML 2. If you flip the regular SML included this is a pretty cheap way to get an E rated copy:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/364324073627

4 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Yeah that's not legit, that's a modern board made probably in the last 5 years.  They put the PAL-B Scandinavian release on there which just doesn't work on US hardware.  I just had popped back to put these words I confirmed looking into the ROM itself, found some images right before firing up an everdrive to check and it's the same scramble.

Basically you'll maybe get away with a AVS/HiDefNES kit loaded US system perhaps, but really, it will most likely need a PAL system or you can't see your score/life bar/total lives at all which is a huge issue. 

Thanks!

Post updated - half price sale! lol

6 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

That's a shame about the bottom, is it possible someone just stuffed the PAL copy on there and it just isn't playing nice with NTSC?

I had Parodius some years ago and it was a little glitchy at the bottom and also cut a little bit off as well, playable but a little annoying.  At least yo ucould still make out the score and options selected, here on Gimmick it's like just gone.

I'm tempted to take this, but I want to see if I can google up what's going on here.

@DK Have you ever opened it up?  Also notice the B in the bottom right corner, that is for PAL-B region so it maybe even a legit title or the board, or more likely the PAL game on the chips in there.

The board doesn't look legit to me:

I got this in a lot, I don't see any specific repro-maker mark on it.

I put it in my top loader and played the first level.

The bottom of the screen that shows the score/health is glitched out. Not sure if it just needs more cleaning or anything, but the game itself plays fine.

According to the replies below this is the PAL-B version of the game, so unless you have a European NES you'll get the scrambled bottom like I did.

Price reduced!

$10 shipped.

13 hours ago, acromite53 said:

Woah! This one is the latest one yet!

A question about Playtronic games, were the carts, manuals, and boxes all produced in Japan? I see their labels have more rounded labels. Are these official from Japan or produced in Brazil?

 

I'm 99% sure that Playtronic boxes/manuals/labels were produced in Brazil and not Japan. The tell tale sign being "Made in Japan" on the label of my USA Jackal, but it doesn't have that on my Playtronic Jackal.

Speaking of which, I opened up 2 more Playtronic carts (Jackal and Vice Project Doom) and both also had the 9626 date.

I have a Ninja Gaiden III (Playtronic) that has a 9626 code.

17 hours ago, mdiablo said:

Hi, nice to meet you, 

I am a Nintendo collector, always looking for the rarest Nintendo units

I have two pieces of that, I don't think I can never sell it, but I can send you some pics, and Maybe we can talk about it

You have TWO NES Mah Jongs? Can we all see a pic?

6 hours ago, austin532 said:

10 years ago or so I had one for Robo Warrior on NES but sold it.

Got a picture? That one is really hard to come by.

6 minutes ago, samsamsamsmasmasma said:

I guess we will never know. Someone must have made an offer and they pulled the auction 

It sold for 31+10.65

E rated Super Mario Land auction I saw:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/285226497424

1 hour ago, RH said:

This makes sense.  I bet Nintendo 100% wanted to control the manufacturing and assembly of their cartridges back then for QA reasons, but regarding boxes and manuals, they left it to local regions.  NOA might have had a surplus of these carts and just internally sold and shipped them to Germany for packaging and distribution over there.

All of the boxes and manuals that came with the carts are -USA branded (That's right, even the German manual is USA branded), so I don't think it would make any sense for the carts to be shipped separate and then repackaged with their correct boxes.

Also, Germany got it's own NOE branded B+T release so I think this is one of those things where a certain country had a demand for a game that didn't have a release - so this was just a stop-gap for a while until the NOE release was finalized.

Here is a pic of the progression of German manuals - insert that is USA coded, black and white NOE coded, and the last is the one that came with the real NOE release.

I went through the 6 boxes I have with the German sticker on the front. 5 have a date code of 10709 and only one had 10902 - which had a revised cart in it and the black and white NOE manual.

For reference, my personal copy that I bought at Electronics Boutique back in the day has a 10709 box code.

9 hours ago, samsamsamsmasmasma said:

The USA label with the corrected logo was seemingly only released in Europe. Mine was from Germany and even came with the German manual 

I have 5 of these German manual variants. 3 of them came with the whited-out LJN logo, all purchased from Germany.

My guess is that it was just a very late print of the game, and a large order came in from a company in Europe that repackaged them with that sticker on the box and the German manual.

So, my guess is that it was sold in USA too, but in much fewer quantities than Europe.

The date codes for all of my corrected logo carts are 9139.

2 hours ago, samsamsamsmasmasma said:

Cool find!

I think the bill and Ted corrected label also belongs in this discussion you all are having. It was a label with a USA code that was only released in Europe.

I live pretty close to the border. I wonder if it's worth going over to some game shops.

I have an extra one if you're looking.
 

5 minutes ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

Is the -2 the draw here? Idk much about GB variants

It's the "Rated E" in bold black that is the hard to find part.

Here is a cart only I posted in the GB variants thread: https://www.ebay.com/itm/225482279639

Super Mario Land 2 Rated E from Canada if anyone needs one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225482279639

On 8/22/2021 at 8:28 PM, ThePhleo said:

Does anyone even bother looking for a Oval Seal Castlevania 5-screw with no back label?

I do!

It took a year and a half of looking but I finally was able to get one off of Ebay this week.

Oval seal 5 screw Castlevania should not exist, since they had already transitioned to 3 screw carts during the black circle seal print run.

Does this prove that these Konami/Ultra 5 screw oddballs with no back label are repair carts? I don't think there is any scenario where this came from the factory like this.

You can see in the closeups that there has been a repair to the board.

Is this the first one of these found? ThePhleo's quote there is the only mention I could find of it via a Google search. 

Does anyone have a board pic of a 3 screw oval seal board? I'm curious to see if the repaired chip is different.

16 minutes ago, phart010 said:

So you could do a label swap and technically people can’t say that it is a repro label

They definitely couldn't call it a reproduction label, since these aren't reproductions - they could call it a label swap I suppose.

However, if anyone actually has a roll of original Mega Man NES labels I doubt they are interested in using one to fool/rip off a fellow collector. (I would hope)

8 hours ago, phart010 said:

 I wonder if publishers back then also had extra OEM game labels and a stock of 5 screw shells that could be used to refurbish games with

I wouldn't be surprised if they are out there. 

About 10 years ago I got these RBI Baseball labels from someone who worked at Tengen. Never seen a roll of licensed labels for sale though.

All the ones I see on Ebay also don't have a 93.

Maybe they did that because they weren't planning on making a 94? (Which they didn't)

Genesis does have the 93 though:

6 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Are there (3) Athletic world variants?

 

5 screw

3 screw “family fun fitness” title (round seal)?

3 screw no seal

There is a guy on Facebook claiming he has seen a 'Series 1' 3 screw - but without pics or any other sort of corroboration I'm going to say it ain't true. 

Are you guys talking about that Canadian seller listing tons of them for crazy high prices? I don't see any actual sales yet - he can ask all he wants but that doesn't mean the value is anywhere close to his asking price,

Opened Indiana Jones:

How the heck do you open an INTERATIVE game? This thing has no screws!

If Taiwan was anything like Thailand in the late 80's/90's they didn't really have chain stores that sold electronics and there was little to no regulation as to what was allowed to be sold.

Legit licensed stuff was sold in the same store as hacks/bootlegs and modded systems. 

I think Dave is simply saying that at that time just getting your well-made bootleg on the shelf in multiple places was enough of an accomplishment to be considered 'sold at retail' - even though that same scenario wasn't available in the west.