After collecting SNES for so long wouldn't you say that Whirlo CIB is the rarest PAL SNES title?
Anyways I don't have any gems aside from my N-Gage rares
Everyone who says whirlo is the rarest snes game, he has no idea what "rare" means. Its one of the rarest, indeed but I have seen much more copies around that Harvest Moon UKV or Zelda Big Box. I have seen more copies even than Soul Blazer SCN or Lufia ESP. Just take a look at ebay right now, you will see at least 2 copies of Whirlo copmlete to buy.
After collecting SNES for so long wouldn't you say that Whirlo CIB is the rarest PAL SNES title?
Anyways I don't have any gems aside from my N-Gage rares
Everyone who says whirlo is the rarest snes game, he has no idea what "rare" means. Its one of the rarest, indeed but I have seen much more copies around that Harvest Moon UKV or Zelda Big Box. I have seen more copies even than Soul Blazer SCN or Lufia ESP. Just take a look at ebay right now, you will see at least 2 copies of Whirlo copmlete to buy.
There are? I've just checked yesterday and only saw one. Also when people say rarest game I usually assume they mean rarest game. Though it looks like people talk about rarest version of any random games.
What would you say then is the most hard to find SNES game for PAL covering all the different versions?
There are? I've just checked yesterday and only saw one. Also when people say rarest game I usually assume they mean rarest game. Though it looks like people talk about rarest version of any random games.
What would you say then is the most hard to find SNES game for PAL covering all the different versions?
PAL market is really strange as some games came out to different countries in Europe and some games came out only at one Country, like Whirlo for example, the pal version came only at Spain. Or Super Widget in France, Brawl Brothes in Germany, Beethoven in germany etc.
I want to say that the games that came out at only one european country have less copies out there today, so they are really hard to find and they are becoming rare.
For answering to your question, I think X-Zone PAL version is the rarest one.
Mine would have to be my Deluxe Set. I got it on Christmas of 1986 and some how still have it. It is missing some paperwork but considering it has moved from Indiana to Georgia back to Indiana then to Ohio then back to Indiana to finally make it back to Georgia is amazing. Not to mention that my cousin had it for a short time and he is the one who lost whatever is missing. I still don't care for him that much and it is not because the missing Nintendo stuff. My mom gave him all my childhood toys also.
My Pac-Man arcade cabinet. The real gem is having a wife who puts up with all of it. In addition to arcade alley here in our family theatre I also have my toy/comic/game room. Not bad on a teacher's salary.
You know I couldn't decide at first. I thought I was going to say some of my prototype stuff, but then I remembered this:
YS I & II Complete for PC
I had this imported many many years ago. I remember always playing the Sega Master one, and loving it. Then I discovered there was a PC version that the USA never got, and it looked amazing. The only problem was not only was it impossible to find, but when I did finally find a copy it was very expensive. I remember saving up for a long time to be able to get this. This was when the patches to play this in English required a lot of computer ninjutsu, and you couldn't just get the Steam version or download some ISO or something. To this day I have never seen a copy of this thing for sale anywhere. Heck even searching google images comes up with nothing. I'm not sure how rare it is, but it's one of my favorite items in my collection!
PS: If you haven't played this version of YS I or YS II you should! ;D
After all these years Super Metroid is still my personal gem. It's not worth a lot and it's not even exclusive to the Super NES anymore, but I don't care. As far as single player games go Super Metroid is king.
I love to brag to people that I have both Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. in their own carts, not the dual cart NES pack-in.
I have those games on dedicated cartridges too, I went out of my way to do so. I already had the SMB/DH cartridge, as well as a SMB/DH/WCTM cartridge, but I looked for and bought SMB and DH on separate cartridges because that's what I remember most as a kid. My cousin Mike was the first person I knew to have an NES; he got it in '86 very shortly after we first saw TV commercials for it. He got the set that came with Gyromite and Duck Hunt, and bought SMB separately.
Anyway, here's my "gem", Nintendo Super Punch-Out, which is my all-time favorite video game, and one that I was addicted to from '87 to '88 when I was 12-13 years old:
And I'll include this email with it:
I am an engineer working for Mr. Takeda at Nintendo. Generally speaking,
the manufacturing companies are not able to support technically and do the
maintenance of too old products out of warranty, because there would be no
spare components to replace or fix, even if we locate the problems. Anyway
Mr. Takeda assigned me to help you, as much as possible, fix the problem of
your Super Punch-Out hardware. However please keep it in your mind that I
do my best to locate the problem, but you should not expect excessively,
because I would not like to make you be disappointed finally.
For your information, I found the pdf file of the Punch-Out’s circuit
What an amazing history you have with that cabinet. Most of them were converted over to PlayChoice-10 cabinets by the late 80s, so it is particularly impressive that it survived. I'm glad you managed to get it restored and I hope it continues to bring you joy.
The gem of my collection...? That's a very difficult question. Thinking on it... it would have to be an item that I have the greatest emotional connection to. Something that brings a rush of memories from but a simple glance.
It can be none other than one of the first games I ever played, Goof Troop for the SNES. It is among one of the few games that I brought over from Sweden when I moved to the United States in the mid 90s. These are the cartridges that I think of when I think Super Nintendo; and this game, this very cartridge is what made me and my brother gamers. While my PAL SNES didn't stand the test of time, it is something that I am now actively seeking. One day, I will hook one up to my old PAL CRT, sit down with my brother, and just bathe in the nostalgia.
I love to brag to people that I have both Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. in their own carts, not the dual cart NES pack-in.
I have those games on dedicated cartridges too, I went out of my way to do so. I already had the SMB/DH cartridge, as well as a SMB/DH/WCTM cartridge, but I looked for and bought SMB and DH on separate cartridges because that's what I remember most as a kid. My cousin Mike was the first person I knew to have an NES; he got it in '86 very shortly after we first saw TV commercials for it. He got the set that came with Gyromite and Duck Hunt, and bought SMB separately.
Anyway, here's my "gem", Nintendo Super Punch-Out, which is my all-time favorite video game, and one that I was addicted to from '87 to '88 when I was 12-13 years old:
And I'll include this email with it:
I am an engineer working for Mr. Takeda at Nintendo. Generally speaking,
the manufacturing companies are not able to support technically and do the
maintenance of too old products out of warranty, because there would be no
spare components to replace or fix, even if we locate the problems. Anyway
Mr. Takeda assigned me to help you, as much as possible, fix the problem of
your Super Punch-Out hardware. However please keep it in your mind that I
do my best to locate the problem, but you should not expect excessively,
because I would not like to make you be disappointed finally.
For your information, I found the pdf file of the Punch-Out’s circuit
What an amazing history you have with that cabinet. Most of them were converted over to PlayChoice-10 cabinets by the late 80s, so it is particularly impressive that it survived. I'm glad you managed to get it restored and I hope it continues to bring you joy.
Thanks. Yes, many Punch-Out, Super Punch-Out, and Arm Wrestling machines were converted to PC-10 machines. In my case, it was even worse, as it had been converted to "Time Killers", a 1992 JAMMA game that tried to cash in on the success of Mortal Kombat. In doing so, they had made Swiss cheese out of the original control panel in order to add extra buttons, and had replaced the original wiring harnesses and power supply with a JAMMA harness and standard JAMMA-style switching power supply.
Fortunately the cabinet itself was still in great shape, including its original smooth satin black finish, which is a finish unique to Nintendo cabinets, and as far as I know, no one knows how exactly it was done or how to duplicate it (there are a few theories, such as it was baked on). Its original flat-contour white T-molding, which is also unique to Nintendo cabinets, was still in great shape too, which is extremely rare (nearly all old Nintendo cabinets are missing chunks of T-molding if it has never been replaced). It also still had its original Sanyo 20-Z2AW monitors, which was nice.
So it became a parts hunt, with the hardest part to find being the Super Punch-Out boardset itself. While Punch-Out boardsets are common (best selling arcade game of 1984), the "Nintendo-Pak" Super Punch-Out kit came out later in the same year and never sold well, because Punch-Out was still a top money-maker, thus little incentive for arcade operators to spend ~$1,000 to convert their Punch-Out machines to Super Punch-Out. By the time Punch-Out machines stopped being big earners, most opted to convert them to PC-10 machines, as you mentioned.
While searching for an SPO boardset, I came across a for-sale listing on a newsgroup that was a few years old. He was selling not only the boardset, but a nearly complete Nintendo-Pak kit, which included the marquee and the hard-to-find unique-to-SPO 5-way joystick (like a standard/common PO joystick but with a 5th microswitch to enable the pull-to-duck function in SPO). It also included the conversion manual and one unapplied "Super" sideart decal (there were two identical "Super" sideart decals originally, one for each side of the cabinet). In addition to missing one of the sideart decals, it was also missing the small "DUCKING PULL" sticker that is applied to the control panel around the base of the joystick.
I contacted him on the off chance that he still had it, and he did. I thought the price was a little high at the time, but these things don't grow on trees, so I bought it. As it turned out, the price I paid was very low compared to what I've seen SPO boardsets by themselves sell for since.
The rest of the parts such as the original wiring harnesses and an original power supply were relatively easy to find, though it took me a while to find a nice original control panel with an original overlay that was still in good condition. I also had to rebuild the monitors, i.e., replace all of the electrolytic capacitors, and in this case, they both needed new flyback transformers, and I also replaced the screen-burned picture tubes with some like-new burn-free tubes.
Then there was the sideart. Since all Super Punch-Out machines were conversions of Punch-Out machines, they retained the large Punch-Out sideart and added the "Super" decals to it. My cabinet had no sideart at all when I got it. The Punch-Out sideart was easy, as high-quality silk screened (the same printing method used for the originals) reproductions were readily available from QuarterArcade.com. As for SPO-specific reproductions, there was nothing available anywhere, not even inkjet-printed reproductions. So I went without the "DUCKING PULL" sticker and the "Super" sideart for a while (I didn't want to apply my original "Super" decal, resulting in having sideart on only one side).
Then one day out of the blue I received an email from a guy in California who was an arcade artwork collector. He'd been contacting every Super Punch-Out owner listed on KLOV's VAPS site, which was about a dozen of us at the time, trying to find someone with unapplied original "Super" sideart. I was the only person he found that had one, and he offered me $300 for it. I told him that was a very generous offer, but I didn't want to sell. Then he decided to put up the funds to get silk screened reproductions made, if I was willing to have my decal scanned. I thought that was a great idea, as I could get a set of reproduction pieces for myself and keep the original decal in its unapplied state (which, as far as anyone knows, is the last one left in existence). He originally had someone in mind to vectorize the scan, but that person backed out after seeing how difficult it would be to vectorize specific curved gradients in the "horn" shaped sections of the art. So I took on the vectorization project myself, this not being my first rodeo when it comes to vectorization.
The specific curved gradients turned out to be quite a challenge, but after a lengthy thread on the Adobe Illustrator forums, a perfect method was found, which involved creating a gradient brush, making a stroke with it, manually applying the curve, and then applying a clipping mask to match the outer shape of each horn.
The first run was silk screen-printed by a sign shop local to me, and I loaned them the original for color matching. It came out beautiful, practically indistinguishable from the original. We had 12 sets made (24 pieces), and those sold out before the first one was even printed. I then released the vector file to Rich at ThisOldGame.com, and he silk screen-printed additional runs.
The guy from California happened to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker, which is also possibly the only one left in existence, so I asked him to scan that in at 600 DPI for me, and I embarked on another reproduction project. Rich from ThisOldGame.com silk screen-printed those from my file as well, and they were perfect. When the guy from California got his copy, he took a picture of it alongside his original, and they were practically indistinguishable. Later, I also scanned and vectorized my original SPO marquee. I didn't need a reproduction, as I had an original installed (and still do), but there were other people that could use a high quality reverse-screen-printed-directly-to-plexi reproduction. Rich also did the manufacturing/printing of those.
It is nice seeing other people online from around the country post pictures of their Super Punch-Out machines and seeing the "Super" sideart and "DUCKING PULL" stickers (and in some cases, the marquee, though original marquees are actually still out there) on them that came from my vector files, reproductions that still wouldn't exist today if I wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "Super" decal, and the guy from California wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker.
I don't know how many people will actually read this overly long post, but that's the complete story behind my "gem".
I have a lot of cool stuff, but this would be my gem. Interestingly enough, it is (mostly) not even for the Nintendo, but for Game Boy.
About a dozen different pages of information for some unlicensed Game Boy games made by a game company known as Gowin Tech. IMO, these are easily some of the best unlicensed Game Boy games ever made. This was a package of promo docs sent to potential distributors, so I doubt many exist.
Also shown is a catalogue from Whirlwind Manu, a maker of about 500 different bootleg Famicom game cartridges. Very interesting reading the descriptions of the games, and seeing what all they had released.
I also have a small catalogue from Honey Bee, the same company that had made the infamous Famicom --> NES Honey bee adapters, but it is not with me at this time.
To me, these are some very interesting pieces, and I doubt many are in existence. These are things I doubt I will ever sell.
As far as games, these:
A set of nine different Super A'can game cartridges, all CIB (and two are sealed). The Super A'can was a 16 bit videogame machine released in Taiwan during 1995, and it was a major flop, for several different reasons. The games are terribly difficult to find. I really like this collection for its unique part in history. There are only 12 games in the Super A'can library, and I have 3/4ths, but I doubt I will ever find those last three, at least not for a loooong time.
A big part to this being my gem is it's rarity, but there's more to it than that. The Super Nintendo is my favourite console ever. Also, I can play this on my Snes without an adaptor. I think this is the only Competition cart the UK got. Not to mention the history of the game itself. Add all that and the decent price I got for it and That's why its my gem.
Hm...I don't really have anything I'm proud of...just the usual crap.
But I did finally get a CIB Majora's Mask. The normal one, not the collectors edition but still...I've wanted that game since I was a kid. It also has a box protector so even though the box isn't in great shape...it looks nice. So yeah I guess that is my gem right now.
-I would say my childhood copy of Goof Troop for SNES. I use to play the hell out of it with my mom. I never wanted to be Goofy since he was the adult. I'm glad it still works.
-My Misadventures of Tron Bonne CIB for ps1. Took me several months to get a complete copy. All of the games for sale were all missing the demo disc so I finally found one on ebay after watching it slowly go down in price to complete my copy.
-My Santa Lilio Sangre artbook by Ayami Kojima. I love this book. It has most of the major art from the Catlevania games with the rest of her works. I love her art style. I wanted it so bad I had to imported it.
These 2 pictures are the gem of my video game picture collection! That kitty passed away a few weeks after the picture of him with those sega saturn games was taken. He was my best friend and I miss him sooooo much. He would always sit by, or on top of my stuff!
He passed away last June around 9 months ago.
As for the gem of my collection? I'll have to think about that one for a while lolol
There are? I've just checked yesterday and only saw one. Also when people say rarest game I usually assume they mean rarest game. Though it looks like people talk about rarest version of any random games.
What would you say then is the most hard to find SNES game for PAL covering all the different versions?
PAL market is really strange as some games came out to different countries in Europe and some games came out only at one Country, like Whirlo for example, the pal version came only at Spain. Or Super Widget in France, Brawl Brothes in Germany, Beethoven in germany etc.
I want to say that the games that came out at only one european country have less copies out there today, so they are really hard to find and they are becoming rare.
For answering to your question, I think X-Zone PAL version is the rarest one.
I love to brag to people that I have both Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. in their own carts, not the dual cart NES pack-in.
I have those games on dedicated cartridges too, I went out of my way to do so. I already had the SMB/DH cartridge, as well as a SMB/DH/WCTM cartridge, but I looked for and bought SMB and DH on separate cartridges because that's what I remember most as a kid. My cousin Mike was the first person I knew to have an NES; he got it in '86 very shortly after we first saw TV commercials for it. He got the set that came with Gyromite and Duck Hunt, and bought SMB separately.
Anyway, here's my "gem", Nintendo Super Punch-Out, which is my all-time favorite video game, and one that I was addicted to from '87 to '88 when I was 12-13 years old:
And I'll include this email with it:
I am an engineer working for Mr. Takeda at Nintendo. Generally speaking,
the manufacturing companies are not able to support technically and do the
maintenance of too old products out of warranty, because there would be no
spare components to replace or fix, even if we locate the problems. Anyway
Mr. Takeda assigned me to help you, as much as possible, fix the problem of
your Super Punch-Out hardware. However please keep it in your mind that I
do my best to locate the problem, but you should not expect excessively,
because I would not like to make you be disappointed finally.
For your information, I found the pdf file of the Punch-Out’s circuit
What an amazing history you have with that cabinet. Most of them were converted over to PlayChoice-10 cabinets by the late 80s, so it is particularly impressive that it survived. I'm glad you managed to get it restored and I hope it continues to bring you joy.
Thanks. Yes, many Punch-Out, Super Punch-Out, and Arm Wrestling machines were converted to PC-10 machines. In my case, it was even worse, as it had been converted to "Time Killers", a 1992 JAMMA game that tried to cash in on the success of Mortal Kombat. In doing so, they had made Swiss cheese out of the original control panel in order to add extra buttons, and had replaced the original wiring harnesses and power supply with a JAMMA harness and standard JAMMA-style switching power supply.
Fortunately the cabinet itself was still in great shape, including its original smooth satin black finish, which is a finish unique to Nintendo cabinets, and as far as I know, no one knows how exactly it was done or how to duplicate it (there are a few theories, such as it was baked on). Its original flat-contour white T-molding, which is also unique to Nintendo cabinets, was still in great shape too, which is extremely rare (nearly all old Nintendo cabinets are missing chunks of T-molding if it has never been replaced). It also still had its original Sanyo 20-Z2AW monitors, which was nice.
So it became a parts hunt, with the hardest part to find being the Super Punch-Out boardset itself. While Punch-Out boardsets are common (best selling arcade game of 1984), the "Nintendo-Pak" Super Punch-Out kit came out later in the same year and never sold well, because Punch-Out was still a top money-maker, thus little incentive for arcade operators to spend ~$1,000 to convert their Punch-Out machines to Super Punch-Out. By the time Punch-Out machines stopped being big earners, most opted to convert them to PC-10 machines, as you mentioned.
While searching for an SPO boardset, I came across a for-sale listing on a newsgroup that was a few years old. He was selling not only the boardset, but a nearly complete Nintendo-Pak kit, which included the marquee and the hard-to-find unique-to-SPO 5-way joystick (like a standard/common PO joystick but with a 5th microswitch to enable the pull-to-duck function in SPO). It also included the conversion manual and one unapplied "Super" sideart decal (there were two identical "Super" sideart decals originally, one for each side of the cabinet). In addition to missing one of the sideart decals, it was also missing the small "DUCKING PULL" sticker that is applied to the control panel around the base of the joystick.
I contacted him on the off chance that he still had it, and he did. I thought the price was a little high at the time, but these things don't grow on trees, so I bought it. As it turned out, the price I paid was very low compared to what I've seen SPO boardsets by themselves sell for since.
The rest of the parts such as the original wiring harnesses and an original power supply were relatively easy to find, though it took me a while to find a nice original control panel with an original overlay that was still in good condition. I also had to rebuild the monitors, i.e., replace all of the electrolytic capacitors, and in this case, they both needed new flyback transformers, and I also replaced the screen-burned picture tubes with some like-new burn-free tubes.
Then there was the sideart. Since all Super Punch-Out machines were conversions of Punch-Out machines, they retained the large Punch-Out sideart and added the "Super" decals to it. My cabinet had no sideart at all when I got it. The Punch-Out sideart was easy, as high-quality silk screened (the same printing method used for the originals) reproductions were readily available from QuarterArcade.com. As for SPO-specific reproductions, there was nothing available anywhere, not even inkjet-printed reproductions. So I went without the "DUCKING PULL" sticker and the "Super" sideart for a while (I didn't want to apply my original "Super" decal, resulting in having sideart on only one side).
Then one day out of the blue I received an email from a guy in California who was an arcade artwork collector. He'd been contacting every Super Punch-Out owner listed on KLOV's VAPS site, which was about a dozen of us at the time, trying to find someone with unapplied original "Super" sideart. I was the only person he found that had one, and he offered me $300 for it. I told him that was a very generous offer, but I didn't want to sell. Then he decided to put up the funds to get silk screened reproductions made, if I was willing to have my decal scanned. I thought that was a great idea, as I could get a set of reproduction pieces for myself and keep the original decal in its unapplied state (which, as far as anyone knows, is the last one left in existence). He originally had someone in mind to vectorize the scan, but that person backed out after seeing how difficult it would be to vectorize specific curved gradients in the "horn" shaped sections of the art. So I took on the vectorization project myself, this not being my first rodeo when it comes to vectorization.
The specific curved gradients turned out to be quite a challenge, but after a lengthy thread on the Adobe Illustrator forums, a perfect method was found, which involved creating a gradient brush, making a stroke with it, manually applying the curve, and then applying a clipping mask to match the outer shape of each horn.
The first run was silk screen-printed by a sign shop local to me, and I loaned them the original for color matching. It came out beautiful, practically indistinguishable from the original. We had 12 sets made (24 pieces), and those sold out before the first one was even printed. I then released the vector file to Rich at ThisOldGame.com, and he silk screen-printed additional runs.
The guy from California happened to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker, which is also possibly the only one left in existence, so I asked him to scan that in at 600 DPI for me, and I embarked on another reproduction project. Rich from ThisOldGame.com silk screen-printed those from my file as well, and they were perfect. When the guy from California got his copy, he took a picture of it alongside his original, and they were practically indistinguishable. Later, I also scanned and vectorized my original SPO marquee. I didn't need a reproduction, as I had an original installed (and still do), but there were other people that could use a high quality reverse-screen-printed-directly-to-plexi reproduction. Rich also did the manufacturing/printing of those.
It is nice seeing other people online from around the country post pictures of their Super Punch-Out machines and seeing the "Super" sideart and "DUCKING PULL" stickers (and in some cases, the marquee, though original marquees are actually still out there) on them that came from my vector files, reproductions that still wouldn't exist today if I wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "Super" decal, and the guy from California wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker.
I don't know how many people will actually read this overly long post, but that's the complete story behind my "gem".
I love hearing stories like this! And how you were emailing back and forth with a Nintendo engineer from Japan to solve a problem. Thanks a bunch for sharing!
Since I last posted I've been getting more games so I added a few gems. My original gem was my CIB Majora's Mask, which it still is. One of my new gems is a minty Collector's Edition Legend of Zelda OoT that's CIB.
My other main gem is something near and dear to my heart, my copy of Castlevania Legends. It's not minty, it has some wear on the label but it works and I love it and it's flaws. I spent so much time playing this game on my green Gameboy Pocket back in the day...finally getting a copy after 10+ years was amazing! And I didn't have to pay 50 something bucks for it too!
Sadly I think the most valuable item in my collection is my Lunar Nall plush, pictured above, hanging with his buds. I've seen a couple auctions over the past few years where he's sold for crazy prices from $300 to $1,200. I originally bought mine on ePay from Vic Ireland for $50 bin.
Some great stuff posted guys. Lets try and respect the op's wish and show only one item though For my part Im not sure what mine would be; it changes. Ill take a pic of something tonight.
as I say mine changes all the time, but currently its probably this. Sure, its a common game, common sealed even but you're talking white seal variants. At best you find a gold seal but you're not finding a hangtab. If you're lucky enough to find a hangtab, it sure as heck won't be a sticker sealed. This is the only one I've seen. And high grade as well. And what is really by far the most important game on the NES and the most important game nintendo ever published. IMHO.
Talk about a holy grail, this is the most beautiful sealed game I've seen, a true piece of gaming history. Congrats on finding this gem!
Comments
Originally posted by: Beliskner
After collecting SNES for so long wouldn't you say that Whirlo CIB is the rarest PAL SNES title?
Anyways I don't have any gems aside from my N-Gage rares
Everyone who says whirlo is the rarest snes game, he has no idea what "rare" means. Its one of the rarest, indeed but I have seen much more copies around that Harvest Moon UKV or Zelda Big Box. I have seen more copies even than Soul Blazer SCN or Lufia ESP. Just take a look at ebay right now, you will see at least 2 copies of Whirlo copmlete to buy.
Originally posted by: geobros
Originally posted by: Beliskner
After collecting SNES for so long wouldn't you say that Whirlo CIB is the rarest PAL SNES title?
Anyways I don't have any gems aside from my N-Gage rares
Everyone who says whirlo is the rarest snes game, he has no idea what "rare" means. Its one of the rarest, indeed but I have seen much more copies around that Harvest Moon UKV or Zelda Big Box. I have seen more copies even than Soul Blazer SCN or Lufia ESP. Just take a look at ebay right now, you will see at least 2 copies of Whirlo copmlete to buy.
There are? I've just checked yesterday and only saw one. Also when people say rarest game I usually assume they mean rarest game. Though it looks like people talk about rarest version of any random games.
What would you say then is the most hard to find SNES game for PAL covering all the different versions?
Originally posted by: Beliskner
There are? I've just checked yesterday and only saw one. Also when people say rarest game I usually assume they mean rarest game. Though it looks like people talk about rarest version of any random games.
What would you say then is the most hard to find SNES game for PAL covering all the different versions?
PAL market is really strange as some games came out to different countries in Europe and some games came out only at one Country, like Whirlo for example, the pal version came only at Spain. Or Super Widget in France, Brawl Brothes in Germany, Beethoven in germany etc.
I want to say that the games that came out at only one european country have less copies out there today, so they are really hard to find and they are becoming rare.
For answering to your question, I think X-Zone PAL version is the rarest one.
My Pac-Man arcade cabinet. The real gem is having a wife who puts up with all of it. In addition to arcade alley here in our family theatre I also have my toy/comic/game room. Not bad on a teacher's salary.
YS I & II Complete for PC
I had this imported many many years ago. I remember always playing the Sega Master one, and loving it. Then I discovered there was a PC version that the USA never got, and it looked amazing. The only problem was not only was it impossible to find, but when I did finally find a copy it was very expensive. I remember saving up for a long time to be able to get this. This was when the patches to play this in English required a lot of computer ninjutsu, and you couldn't just get the Steam version or download some ISO or something. To this day I have never seen a copy of this thing for sale anywhere. Heck even searching google images comes up with nothing. I'm not sure how rare it is, but it's one of my favorite items in my collection!
PS: If you haven't played this version of YS I or YS II you should! ;D
Originally posted by: dbtmellis
I love to brag to people that I have both Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. in their own carts, not the dual cart NES pack-in.
I have those games on dedicated cartridges too, I went out of my way to do so. I already had the SMB/DH cartridge, as well as a SMB/DH/WCTM cartridge, but I looked for and bought SMB and DH on separate cartridges because that's what I remember most as a kid. My cousin Mike was the first person I knew to have an NES; he got it in '86 very shortly after we first saw TV commercials for it. He got the set that came with Gyromite and Duck Hunt, and bought SMB separately.
Anyway, here's my "gem", Nintendo Super Punch-Out, which is my all-time favorite video game, and one that I was addicted to from '87 to '88 when I was 12-13 years old:
And I'll include this email with it:
I am an engineer working for Mr. Takeda at Nintendo. Generally speaking,
the manufacturing companies are not able to support technically and do the
maintenance of too old products out of warranty, because there would be no
spare components to replace or fix, even if we locate the problems. Anyway
Mr. Takeda assigned me to help you, as much as possible, fix the problem of
your Super Punch-Out hardware. However please keep it in your mind that I
do my best to locate the problem, but you should not expect excessively,
because I would not like to make you be disappointed finally.
For your information, I found the pdf file of the Punch-Out’s circuit
schematic at
http://arcadeconnection.serverbox.org/arcade machines/english/Punch-Out!! [Operation] (EN).pdf.
I attached the file here for you.
So I have a question about your CPU Printed Circuit Board, at the location
of 4F and 4H, Do you find a pair of the same sound processors of 2A03s?
These 2A03s are the processors with sound frequency-modulation features,
which are the derivative version of Nintendo Entertainment System’s chip.
One 2A03 generates two channels of sounds, so totally four channels of the
sound sources are to be mixed through tie-up by ohmic-resistors. Anyway
could you check two processors of 2A03 (4F and 4H) ? Thank you.
_________________________________________________________________
The gem of my collection...? That's a very difficult question. Thinking on it... it would have to be an item that I have the greatest emotional connection to. Something that brings a rush of memories from but a simple glance.
It can be none other than one of the first games I ever played, Goof Troop for the SNES. It is among one of the few games that I brought over from Sweden when I moved to the United States in the mid 90s. These are the cartridges that I think of when I think Super Nintendo; and this game, this very cartridge is what made me and my brother gamers. While my PAL SNES didn't stand the test of time, it is something that I am now actively seeking. One day, I will hook one up to my old PAL CRT, sit down with my brother, and just bathe in the nostalgia.
Originally posted by: MaximRecoil
Originally posted by: dbtmellis
I love to brag to people that I have both Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. in their own carts, not the dual cart NES pack-in.
I have those games on dedicated cartridges too, I went out of my way to do so. I already had the SMB/DH cartridge, as well as a SMB/DH/WCTM cartridge, but I looked for and bought SMB and DH on separate cartridges because that's what I remember most as a kid. My cousin Mike was the first person I knew to have an NES; he got it in '86 very shortly after we first saw TV commercials for it. He got the set that came with Gyromite and Duck Hunt, and bought SMB separately.
Anyway, here's my "gem", Nintendo Super Punch-Out, which is my all-time favorite video game, and one that I was addicted to from '87 to '88 when I was 12-13 years old:
And I'll include this email with it:
I am an engineer working for Mr. Takeda at Nintendo. Generally speaking,
the manufacturing companies are not able to support technically and do the
maintenance of too old products out of warranty, because there would be no
spare components to replace or fix, even if we locate the problems. Anyway
Mr. Takeda assigned me to help you, as much as possible, fix the problem of
your Super Punch-Out hardware. However please keep it in your mind that I
do my best to locate the problem, but you should not expect excessively,
because I would not like to make you be disappointed finally.
For your information, I found the pdf file of the Punch-Out’s circuit
schematic at
http://arcadeconnection.serverbox.org/arcade%20machines...[Operation]%20(EN).pdf.
I attached the file here for you.
So I have a question about your CPU Printed Circuit Board, at the location
of 4F and 4H, Do you find a pair of the same sound processors of 2A03s?
These 2A03s are the processors with sound frequency-modulation features,
which are the derivative version of Nintendo Entertainment System’s chip.
One 2A03 generates two channels of sounds, so totally four channels of the
sound sources are to be mixed through tie-up by ohmic-resistors. Anyway
could you check two processors of 2A03 (4F and 4H) ? Thank you.
_________________________________________________________________
Originally posted by: Esquire Fox
What an amazing history you have with that cabinet. Most of them were converted over to PlayChoice-10 cabinets by the late 80s, so it is particularly impressive that it survived. I'm glad you managed to get it restored and I hope it continues to bring you joy.
Thanks. Yes, many Punch-Out, Super Punch-Out, and Arm Wrestling machines were converted to PC-10 machines. In my case, it was even worse, as it had been converted to "Time Killers", a 1992 JAMMA game that tried to cash in on the success of Mortal Kombat. In doing so, they had made Swiss cheese out of the original control panel in order to add extra buttons, and had replaced the original wiring harnesses and power supply with a JAMMA harness and standard JAMMA-style switching power supply.
Fortunately the cabinet itself was still in great shape, including its original smooth satin black finish, which is a finish unique to Nintendo cabinets, and as far as I know, no one knows how exactly it was done or how to duplicate it (there are a few theories, such as it was baked on). Its original flat-contour white T-molding, which is also unique to Nintendo cabinets, was still in great shape too, which is extremely rare (nearly all old Nintendo cabinets are missing chunks of T-molding if it has never been replaced). It also still had its original Sanyo 20-Z2AW monitors, which was nice.
So it became a parts hunt, with the hardest part to find being the Super Punch-Out boardset itself. While Punch-Out boardsets are common (best selling arcade game of 1984), the "Nintendo-Pak" Super Punch-Out kit came out later in the same year and never sold well, because Punch-Out was still a top money-maker, thus little incentive for arcade operators to spend ~$1,000 to convert their Punch-Out machines to Super Punch-Out. By the time Punch-Out machines stopped being big earners, most opted to convert them to PC-10 machines, as you mentioned.
While searching for an SPO boardset, I came across a for-sale listing on a newsgroup that was a few years old. He was selling not only the boardset, but a nearly complete Nintendo-Pak kit, which included the marquee and the hard-to-find unique-to-SPO 5-way joystick (like a standard/common PO joystick but with a 5th microswitch to enable the pull-to-duck function in SPO). It also included the conversion manual and one unapplied "Super" sideart decal (there were two identical "Super" sideart decals originally, one for each side of the cabinet). In addition to missing one of the sideart decals, it was also missing the small "DUCKING PULL" sticker that is applied to the control panel around the base of the joystick.
I contacted him on the off chance that he still had it, and he did. I thought the price was a little high at the time, but these things don't grow on trees, so I bought it. As it turned out, the price I paid was very low compared to what I've seen SPO boardsets by themselves sell for since.
The rest of the parts such as the original wiring harnesses and an original power supply were relatively easy to find, though it took me a while to find a nice original control panel with an original overlay that was still in good condition. I also had to rebuild the monitors, i.e., replace all of the electrolytic capacitors, and in this case, they both needed new flyback transformers, and I also replaced the screen-burned picture tubes with some like-new burn-free tubes.
Then there was the sideart. Since all Super Punch-Out machines were conversions of Punch-Out machines, they retained the large Punch-Out sideart and added the "Super" decals to it. My cabinet had no sideart at all when I got it. The Punch-Out sideart was easy, as high-quality silk screened (the same printing method used for the originals) reproductions were readily available from QuarterArcade.com. As for SPO-specific reproductions, there was nothing available anywhere, not even inkjet-printed reproductions. So I went without the "DUCKING PULL" sticker and the "Super" sideart for a while (I didn't want to apply my original "Super" decal, resulting in having sideart on only one side).
Then one day out of the blue I received an email from a guy in California who was an arcade artwork collector. He'd been contacting every Super Punch-Out owner listed on KLOV's VAPS site, which was about a dozen of us at the time, trying to find someone with unapplied original "Super" sideart. I was the only person he found that had one, and he offered me $300 for it. I told him that was a very generous offer, but I didn't want to sell. Then he decided to put up the funds to get silk screened reproductions made, if I was willing to have my decal scanned. I thought that was a great idea, as I could get a set of reproduction pieces for myself and keep the original decal in its unapplied state (which, as far as anyone knows, is the last one left in existence). He originally had someone in mind to vectorize the scan, but that person backed out after seeing how difficult it would be to vectorize specific curved gradients in the "horn" shaped sections of the art. So I took on the vectorization project myself, this not being my first rodeo when it comes to vectorization.
The specific curved gradients turned out to be quite a challenge, but after a lengthy thread on the Adobe Illustrator forums, a perfect method was found, which involved creating a gradient brush, making a stroke with it, manually applying the curve, and then applying a clipping mask to match the outer shape of each horn.
The first run was silk screen-printed by a sign shop local to me, and I loaned them the original for color matching. It came out beautiful, practically indistinguishable from the original. We had 12 sets made (24 pieces), and those sold out before the first one was even printed. I then released the vector file to Rich at ThisOldGame.com, and he silk screen-printed additional runs.
The guy from California happened to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker, which is also possibly the only one left in existence, so I asked him to scan that in at 600 DPI for me, and I embarked on another reproduction project. Rich from ThisOldGame.com silk screen-printed those from my file as well, and they were perfect. When the guy from California got his copy, he took a picture of it alongside his original, and they were practically indistinguishable. Later, I also scanned and vectorized my original SPO marquee. I didn't need a reproduction, as I had an original installed (and still do), but there were other people that could use a high quality reverse-screen-printed-directly-to-plexi reproduction. Rich also did the manufacturing/printing of those.
It is nice seeing other people online from around the country post pictures of their Super Punch-Out machines and seeing the "Super" sideart and "DUCKING PULL" stickers (and in some cases, the marquee, though original marquees are actually still out there) on them that came from my vector files, reproductions that still wouldn't exist today if I wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "Super" decal, and the guy from California wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker.
I don't know how many people will actually read this overly long post, but that's the complete story behind my "gem".
About a dozen different pages of information for some unlicensed Game Boy games made by a game company known as Gowin Tech. IMO, these are easily some of the best unlicensed Game Boy games ever made. This was a package of promo docs sent to potential distributors, so I doubt many exist.
Also shown is a catalogue from Whirlwind Manu, a maker of about 500 different bootleg Famicom game cartridges. Very interesting reading the descriptions of the games, and seeing what all they had released.
I also have a small catalogue from Honey Bee, the same company that had made the infamous Famicom --> NES Honey bee adapters, but it is not with me at this time.
To me, these are some very interesting pieces, and I doubt many are in existence. These are things I doubt I will ever sell.
As far as games, these:
A set of nine different Super A'can game cartridges, all CIB (and two are sealed). The Super A'can was a 16 bit videogame machine released in Taiwan during 1995, and it was a major flop, for several different reasons. The games are terribly difficult to find. I really like this collection for its unique part in history. There are only 12 games in the Super A'can library, and I have 3/4ths, but I doubt I will ever find those last three, at least not for a loooong time.
Originally posted by: DarkTone
Gonna change mine to this:
Forgot to explain.
A big part to this being my gem is it's rarity, but there's more to it than that. The Super Nintendo is my favourite console ever. Also, I can play this on my Snes without an adaptor. I think this is the only Competition cart the UK got. Not to mention the history of the game itself. Add all that and the decent price I got for it and That's why its my gem.
But I did finally get a CIB Majora's Mask. The normal one, not the collectors edition but still...I've wanted that game since I was a kid. It also has a box protector so even though the box isn't in great shape...it looks nice. So yeah I guess that is my gem right now.
-My Misadventures of Tron Bonne CIB for ps1. Took me several months to get a complete copy. All of the games for sale were all missing the demo disc so I finally found one on ebay after watching it slowly go down in price to complete my copy.
-My Santa Lilio Sangre artbook by Ayami Kojima. I love this book. It has most of the major art from the Catlevania games with the rest of her works. I love her art style. I wanted it so bad I had to imported it.
He passed away last June around 9 months ago.
As for the gem of my collection? I'll have to think about that one for a while lolol
Originally posted by: geobros
Originally posted by: Beliskner
There are? I've just checked yesterday and only saw one. Also when people say rarest game I usually assume they mean rarest game. Though it looks like people talk about rarest version of any random games.
What would you say then is the most hard to find SNES game for PAL covering all the different versions?
PAL market is really strange as some games came out to different countries in Europe and some games came out only at one Country, like Whirlo for example, the pal version came only at Spain. Or Super Widget in France, Brawl Brothes in Germany, Beethoven in germany etc.
I want to say that the games that came out at only one european country have less copies out there today, so they are really hard to find and they are becoming rare.
For answering to your question, I think X-Zone PAL version is the rarest one.
Wonder if the UK got anything....
Originally posted by: MaximRecoil
Originally posted by: dbtmellis
I love to brag to people that I have both Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. in their own carts, not the dual cart NES pack-in.
I have those games on dedicated cartridges too, I went out of my way to do so. I already had the SMB/DH cartridge, as well as a SMB/DH/WCTM cartridge, but I looked for and bought SMB and DH on separate cartridges because that's what I remember most as a kid. My cousin Mike was the first person I knew to have an NES; he got it in '86 very shortly after we first saw TV commercials for it. He got the set that came with Gyromite and Duck Hunt, and bought SMB separately.
Anyway, here's my "gem", Nintendo Super Punch-Out, which is my all-time favorite video game, and one that I was addicted to from '87 to '88 when I was 12-13 years old:
And I'll include this email with it:
I am an engineer working for Mr. Takeda at Nintendo. Generally speaking,
the manufacturing companies are not able to support technically and do the
maintenance of too old products out of warranty, because there would be no
spare components to replace or fix, even if we locate the problems. Anyway
Mr. Takeda assigned me to help you, as much as possible, fix the problem of
your Super Punch-Out hardware. However please keep it in your mind that I
do my best to locate the problem, but you should not expect excessively,
because I would not like to make you be disappointed finally.
For your information, I found the pdf file of the Punch-Out’s circuit
schematic at
http://arcadeconnection.serverbox...[Operation]%20(EN).pdf.
I attached the file here for you.
So I have a question about your CPU Printed Circuit Board, at the location
of 4F and 4H, Do you find a pair of the same sound processors of 2A03s?
These 2A03s are the processors with sound frequency-modulation features,
which are the derivative version of Nintendo Entertainment System’s chip.
One 2A03 generates two channels of sounds, so totally four channels of the
sound sources are to be mixed through tie-up by ohmic-resistors. Anyway
could you check two processors of 2A03 (4F and 4H) ? Thank you.
_________________________________________________________________
Originally posted by: MaximRecoil
Originally posted by: Esquire Fox
What an amazing history you have with that cabinet. Most of them were converted over to PlayChoice-10 cabinets by the late 80s, so it is particularly impressive that it survived. I'm glad you managed to get it restored and I hope it continues to bring you joy.
Thanks. Yes, many Punch-Out, Super Punch-Out, and Arm Wrestling machines were converted to PC-10 machines. In my case, it was even worse, as it had been converted to "Time Killers", a 1992 JAMMA game that tried to cash in on the success of Mortal Kombat. In doing so, they had made Swiss cheese out of the original control panel in order to add extra buttons, and had replaced the original wiring harnesses and power supply with a JAMMA harness and standard JAMMA-style switching power supply.
Fortunately the cabinet itself was still in great shape, including its original smooth satin black finish, which is a finish unique to Nintendo cabinets, and as far as I know, no one knows how exactly it was done or how to duplicate it (there are a few theories, such as it was baked on). Its original flat-contour white T-molding, which is also unique to Nintendo cabinets, was still in great shape too, which is extremely rare (nearly all old Nintendo cabinets are missing chunks of T-molding if it has never been replaced). It also still had its original Sanyo 20-Z2AW monitors, which was nice.
So it became a parts hunt, with the hardest part to find being the Super Punch-Out boardset itself. While Punch-Out boardsets are common (best selling arcade game of 1984), the "Nintendo-Pak" Super Punch-Out kit came out later in the same year and never sold well, because Punch-Out was still a top money-maker, thus little incentive for arcade operators to spend ~$1,000 to convert their Punch-Out machines to Super Punch-Out. By the time Punch-Out machines stopped being big earners, most opted to convert them to PC-10 machines, as you mentioned.
While searching for an SPO boardset, I came across a for-sale listing on a newsgroup that was a few years old. He was selling not only the boardset, but a nearly complete Nintendo-Pak kit, which included the marquee and the hard-to-find unique-to-SPO 5-way joystick (like a standard/common PO joystick but with a 5th microswitch to enable the pull-to-duck function in SPO). It also included the conversion manual and one unapplied "Super" sideart decal (there were two identical "Super" sideart decals originally, one for each side of the cabinet). In addition to missing one of the sideart decals, it was also missing the small "DUCKING PULL" sticker that is applied to the control panel around the base of the joystick.
I contacted him on the off chance that he still had it, and he did. I thought the price was a little high at the time, but these things don't grow on trees, so I bought it. As it turned out, the price I paid was very low compared to what I've seen SPO boardsets by themselves sell for since.
The rest of the parts such as the original wiring harnesses and an original power supply were relatively easy to find, though it took me a while to find a nice original control panel with an original overlay that was still in good condition. I also had to rebuild the monitors, i.e., replace all of the electrolytic capacitors, and in this case, they both needed new flyback transformers, and I also replaced the screen-burned picture tubes with some like-new burn-free tubes.
Then there was the sideart. Since all Super Punch-Out machines were conversions of Punch-Out machines, they retained the large Punch-Out sideart and added the "Super" decals to it. My cabinet had no sideart at all when I got it. The Punch-Out sideart was easy, as high-quality silk screened (the same printing method used for the originals) reproductions were readily available from QuarterArcade.com. As for SPO-specific reproductions, there was nothing available anywhere, not even inkjet-printed reproductions. So I went without the "DUCKING PULL" sticker and the "Super" sideart for a while (I didn't want to apply my original "Super" decal, resulting in having sideart on only one side).
Then one day out of the blue I received an email from a guy in California who was an arcade artwork collector. He'd been contacting every Super Punch-Out owner listed on KLOV's VAPS site, which was about a dozen of us at the time, trying to find someone with unapplied original "Super" sideart. I was the only person he found that had one, and he offered me $300 for it. I told him that was a very generous offer, but I didn't want to sell. Then he decided to put up the funds to get silk screened reproductions made, if I was willing to have my decal scanned. I thought that was a great idea, as I could get a set of reproduction pieces for myself and keep the original decal in its unapplied state (which, as far as anyone knows, is the last one left in existence). He originally had someone in mind to vectorize the scan, but that person backed out after seeing how difficult it would be to vectorize specific curved gradients in the "horn" shaped sections of the art. So I took on the vectorization project myself, this not being my first rodeo when it comes to vectorization.
The specific curved gradients turned out to be quite a challenge, but after a lengthy thread on the Adobe Illustrator forums, a perfect method was found, which involved creating a gradient brush, making a stroke with it, manually applying the curve, and then applying a clipping mask to match the outer shape of each horn.
The first run was silk screen-printed by a sign shop local to me, and I loaned them the original for color matching. It came out beautiful, practically indistinguishable from the original. We had 12 sets made (24 pieces), and those sold out before the first one was even printed. I then released the vector file to Rich at ThisOldGame.com, and he silk screen-printed additional runs.
The guy from California happened to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker, which is also possibly the only one left in existence, so I asked him to scan that in at 600 DPI for me, and I embarked on another reproduction project. Rich from ThisOldGame.com silk screen-printed those from my file as well, and they were perfect. When the guy from California got his copy, he took a picture of it alongside his original, and they were practically indistinguishable. Later, I also scanned and vectorized my original SPO marquee. I didn't need a reproduction, as I had an original installed (and still do), but there were other people that could use a high quality reverse-screen-printed-directly-to-plexi reproduction. Rich also did the manufacturing/printing of those.
It is nice seeing other people online from around the country post pictures of their Super Punch-Out machines and seeing the "Super" sideart and "DUCKING PULL" stickers (and in some cases, the marquee, though original marquees are actually still out there) on them that came from my vector files, reproductions that still wouldn't exist today if I wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "Super" decal, and the guy from California wasn't lucky enough to have an original unapplied "DUCKING PULL" sticker.
I don't know how many people will actually read this overly long post, but that's the complete story behind my "gem".
I love hearing stories like this! And how you were emailing back and forth with a Nintendo engineer from Japan to solve a problem. Thanks a bunch for sharing!
My other main gem is something near and dear to my heart, my copy of Castlevania Legends. It's not minty, it has some wear on the label but it works and I love it and it's flaws. I spent so much time playing this game on my green Gameboy Pocket back in the day...finally getting a copy after 10+ years was amazing! And I didn't have to pay 50 something bucks for it too!
Sadly I think the most valuable item in my collection is my Lunar Nall plush, pictured above, hanging with his buds. I've seen a couple auctions over the past few years where he's sold for crazy prices from $300 to $1,200. I originally bought mine on ePay from Vic Ireland for $50 bin.
Originally posted by: Bronty
Originally posted by: Bronty
Some great stuff posted guys. Lets try and respect the op's wish and show only one item though For my part Im not sure what mine would be; it changes. Ill take a pic of something tonight.
as I say mine changes all the time, but currently its probably this. Sure, its a common game, common sealed even but you're talking white seal variants. At best you find a gold seal but you're not finding a hangtab. If you're lucky enough to find a hangtab, it sure as heck won't be a sticker sealed. This is the only one I've seen. And high grade as well. And what is really by far the most important game on the NES and the most important game nintendo ever published. IMHO.
Talk about a holy grail, this is the most beautiful sealed game I've seen, a true piece of gaming history. Congrats on finding this gem!