Black Super Mario Bros. Cart

[senseiman]

Not sure if anyone has written about this here before, but a black Super Mario Bros. cart went for 50,000 yen on Yahoo Auctions a couple days ago.  You can see the auction result here:

http://page12.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/p240437425

Anyone ever heard of or seen one of these before?  The seller states that he believes it is genuine and not a counterfeit (and obviously at least one person believed him).  I've never seen one in anything but the yellow-orange color before. 

[L___E___T]

Ooooh - I dunno, looks suspiciously like a repro to me...

[ericj]

Looks fake to me, too, since it appears to be unused--the labels and pins look perfect. Of course, it could very well be an original label and original board inside a non-original cart shell.

[UglyJoe]

Black carts are the new Gold carts

[senseiman]

LOL....the new gold carts

I'd be very reluctant to pay real money for this too. Even if it is legit, it would be pretty easy for someone to produce a fake so it would be really risky (and probably difficult to sell later on).

[Xious]

I'm not sure, even if this is legitimate, why it exists. Unless NCL made promo carts to send to magazines with black shells, or gave black carts to employees, it doesn't appear to have a purpose.

While I agree that it would be possible to fake it with a reproduction label, it's nearly impossible to remove a FC front-label and re-adhere it without damaging or marring it in some way, and I see no evidence of that here.

The back label could be from a sheet... I don't know about the stock number, nor am I sure about the rubber-stamp number in the corner. I don't remember that being on normal carts, so it may be an industrial sample. na6urally, i can only guess, and there is no information given in the listing that's helpful. If someone has a YAJ account, it'd be nice if they could contact the seller and ask him what it was and why it was special, aside from case colour.

If I had more to go on I'd research it for the boo, but as for now, I can mark it as a curiosity.

P.S. Here's a JP blog about it...with some additional goodies.

[senseiman]

Its a good point.  There must be some Chinese company somewhere capable of mass producing knock offs of this thing that would be very hard to distinguish from the real thing.

In the description of the item at the bottom of the page the seller says  that he purchased it in a lot of 100 games from a single seller. The other games in the lot all had a mark on them "editor's division" (not sure if that is an accurate translation) and he believes they were all either sample items or leftover prizes from a competition or something. He states that none of the other games looked like counterfeits. The back has the number 851224 on it and it is a loose cart without the box.


I love that Famicom no Neta blog, BTW.  It is the number one Japanese source for Famicom news out there!

[Xious]

'851224' is the stock number for that warning label. I think the rubber-stamped number is more important.

[linkzpikachu]

it looks like it could be real IF the picture was differant, if you ask me its a fake

[mrdomino]

Its a good point.  There must be some Chinese company somewhere capable of mass producing knock offs of this thing that would be very hard to distinguish from the real thing.

Hard, but not impossible - 99% of all fakes of anything are fairly easy to distinguish if you compare it side by side with the real thing. If someone wanted to fake it, unless they somehow got access to an unused original Nintendo SMB label, they'd have to make a copy of the label from an original cart, and that's where quality drops and little imperfections can sneak in. i suppose only the owner will be able to tell for sure though.

The other games in the lot all had a mark on them "editor's division" (not sure if that is an accurate translation) and he believes they were all either sample items or leftover prizes from a competition or something.

Maybe a review sample given to a magazine? Nintendo might have used different colour carts for review copies so it'd be obvious if any of the magazine staff tried to sell them on. (edit: oh yeah, Xious already mentioned that possibility. ahem. )

[L___E___T]

Press samples weren't black - there is nothing legit about these.  I might make 100 myself.  Just nonsense.

[Xious]

I have a pirate of 'SMB' with a nearly 100% accurate front label in a brown shell. Other than the listing on YAJ, I've never heard of or seen any legit 'SMB' in a case other than Yellow, and although I can speculate on an internal sample, there is no clear evidence of this (either way).

I have back-shell stickers on sheets, NOS, so it's also plausible that NOS cart labels are out there in the wild even if the front label was original.

I should note that industrial samples did come in black shells, and in white shells, but with plain-white labels, with plain-black text. I don't know what NCL gave to magazines or partner companies (e.g. Hudson), but I wouldn't be so bold as to automatically assume this black cart is in any way legitimate or intentional. In collecting, when dealing with an unknown variety type, the rule of thumb is to always keep on the side of scrutiny, and to require some sort of pedigree on the item in question.

That the listing itself has no mention of its background, or indeed any details about it (and in fact states that it was in a crate of bulk games), yet people went nuts to get it either reveals either that two people know a great deal more about this than I do, or that two people wanted it really badly for some amusement factor and had a lot to spend on a curio.

If there is anything more behind it than either a pirate cart or a mislabel (which is possible), then I'd certainly like to know. I'm happy to define it as an original error label as well: I've seen my share of mislabeled games, or games with upside-down labels, etc., right out of the box, so that is always a possibility here.  Just another fluke: A quirk of the manufacturing and assembly practice. Somebody went to their lunch break while they were labeling 'SMB' carts, had a sheet of the game stickers on his workbench, and when he came back to work (where in his absence  they had geared up another game on the line), one or ten got the wrong decal because he had three too many pours of sake and didn't get the addendum.

I'll get my sharpies and black plastic dye ready though, in case any demand creeps up on this oddity...

[L___E___T]

In terms of preview versions, there's absolutely no legit reason that they would have used a different shell.

All promo, preview, beta and demo versions used to have a standard shell with code on / number or similar.  Nowadays all code is 'finger-printed' in various ways.

What makes it odd is the label.  If NOA wanted the magazine reviewers to have a game with the correct art etc. for various reasons like photos of game, or game in machine - then they would have used the yellow shell as well.

To me this is just a pirate version, with hype because it's SMB.  Think about it, would SMB be the only game to do this?  Or is it SMB because they choose SMB to do it with?  This whole thing just screams pirate or repro - nothing special at all.

The seller says he has 100 - it's just a batch out of Shenzhen in my opinion, certainly nothing to get excited about.  The label doesn't even look metallic.

[RegalSin]

I imagine a Chinese family man making pirates using his fathers tools from 25 years ago. I have an odd black Bubble Bobble 2 black cart that gives me 99+ lives. The blackness smears off, in consideration of the building material.