EarlyWorm

Here are a couple of pix. I cant add much to the discussion, other than the black mario existing.... the OP has covered way more than I could offer.

Samurai for sure had a black Mario cartridge. I sold one to a guy on NA years ago, and had a second request for another from someone else. I may even still have pictures of it if NA has those pictures stored from PMs. I sent him pictures of three different marios... one black cart and two grey carts with different style labels. The labels had the same art, but were on different paper and of different print quality. I too have about a dozen Samurai consoles and a box of games.... from about twenty years ago. Plus another different 72-pin console from India. I collected 72-pin NES consoles and NESclones from around the world, and India was the toughest nut to crack. And that country didnt take paypal then.