The 5 and 3 screw carts

SivakSivak
in Collector's Corner
I don't know why, but I have this little...  "thing" that makes me want a few of the 3 and 5 screw variants.  I don't know what it is.  I mean, I know they're both the same game within, but I just wondered if any of the folks here had that same desire to own the variation carts.

The black label games are the prime example.  Whenever I got those, nowadays I try to get the 5 screw versions because I just consider those to be neater.  I do have a few 3 screw versions of the black label games, but I kinda want the 5 screw versions too.

I'm not looking to own the complete set of both 3 and 5 screws, but I thought it would be neat to own both versions of a few carts.  I've got the 5 screw 10 Yard and Slalom coming my way and I already have the 3 screw versions.  I really want a nice condition 5 screw Pinball too as I have the 3 screw.

It seems some black label games almost always have 5 screws...  Ice Climber, Urban Champion, and Wrecking Crew...

Anyway, is there a charm to the 5 screw versions or am I just crazy?  Do any of the users here have a full set of the variation carts?

Comments

  • ParpunkParpunk
    i know some guys are pretty close to having them all and some might. It is pretty neat to get them all. i haveent started yet but probably will before too long. :-) be sweet if there is a big list of all of em. Is there?
  • NationalGameDepotNationalGameDepot
    I just started picking these up not to long ago, same with seal variants. I think they are really cool to collection and show the history of how nintendo evolved into a game company.



    There of course is a list of them all silly, this is a Nintendo database site, go do a search, lol.

    ~~NGD
  • SivakSivak
    Originally posted by: NationalGameDepot

    I just started picking these up not to long ago, same with seal variants. I think they are really cool to collection and show the history of how nintendo evolved into a game company. There of course is a list of them all silly, this is a Nintendo database site, go do a search, lol. ~~NGD


    Yeah, I know of some games.  A few of the non-black label ones I have are Ghosts 'n Goblins, Gradius, Section Z, and Solomon's Key.
  • DainDain
    http://www.nintendoage.com/ind...Results&Variation_ID=2
  • dangevindangevin
    Yep, I have 60 out of 83 by my list, but my list doesn't include some of the "possible but unverifieds" such as Mega Man, MTPO, Side Pocket, Gotcha, Jaws, Karate Kid, and Karnov (although I'm to understand this exists by good reference?) so some collectors may consider the subset to be as large as 90.



    I have a nice pocket checklist that I keep with me for whenever I come across a big box of cheap commons, it's taken a lot of the luck and happenstance out of adding these to my collection. It's about the size of a dollar bill image

  • the_wizard_666the_wizard_666
    I collect these and other variants rather passively. If I come across them, I snag them, but I don't go hunting for them.
  • Dr. MorbisDr. Morbis
    I don't collect screw variants per se, but I do swap out 3 screws whenever I find nice minty 5 screw copies to replace them with. Just the other day I spent $5 on a loose SMB cart for the sole reason that it was 5 screw, and I'd never seen a 5 screw -USA of that cart up here in Canada before.
  • ParpunkParpunk
    so wait a minute??? is 5 screws rarer than 3 screws??? or vise versa?? also why are some made with 5 screw and some with 3 screw???
  • NationalGameDepotNationalGameDepot
    I would think most 5 screw games are harder to find, but there are some 3 screws that are much harder to find. Just depends on when the game was released and how many of them were made I suppose. Try finding a 5 screw Alpha Mission or a Star Force, freaking impossible.



    We assume they switched from 5 to 3 to save on production costs. Those 2 extra screws would be expensive times a few million. Would be much cheaper to just revape there molding process once than use all those screws for the next 10-15 years.

    ~~NGD
  • DainDain
    It depends on the game, really. 5 screw Alpha Mission, Star Force, Pitfall II and a few others are tough to find. 3 screw Ninja Kid, Urban Champion, Balloon Fight and a few others are tough to find. I think I have the variation rarities on some of these set up correctly, but I'd have to check.
  • dangevindangevin
    From a logical standpoint the majority of 5 screws would either be easier to find, or exactly the same scarcity as 3-screws.



    Initial releases are almost always larger production runs than re-releases. Just as storefront initial orders are almost always larger that reorders. (except with the most wildly popular, sickeningly overprinted and long-lived games like LOZ).



    Where this breaks down:



    Carts produced right on the dividing line when Nintendo was switching over to Rev-A carts. This is wildly different between games and production facilities. I think some factories with lower output would up having some left over late into the switchover, leading to some of the really rare 5-screw carts like Alpha Mission and Super Pitfall.



    Inversely, some 3-screwy's from higher-output facilities that blew through their 5-screw remainders wound up only making a few flat-tops of titles that appear mostly in Rev-A cases, then finally switching over.



    These two reasons IMO cause the wierd anomolous hyper-scarce variants. So that said, what about the rest.



    Earlier I mentioned LOZ. While the flat-top is vastly outnumbered by the Rev-A case, the flat top isn't necessarily scarce, but it is in the minority by as much as 1:8 ratio (logically because there's about 8 different cart variants, all separate production runs). While there's probably some LOZ variants that got multiple production runs ordered with no change to the physical cart, that still doesn't make the 5-screw any more scarce numerically (they still made a shitton), just statistically if you take a random sample blindly of LOZ carts, your chances of getting the flat-top are tough. I didn't randomly get mine until I think I had 6 or 7 go through my hands. Wasn't seeking it, but if I wanted to find it right now, it wouldn't take long looking closely at eBay pictures.



    But still, any run of LOZ was titanic so even though the 3-screw is "more common" than the massively-produced early runs, you can't really get "more common than common..." there is no "R0."



    I think LOZ, Rad Racer, Metroid, Excitebike, and maybe Castlevania, Gradius and Kung Fu are the only ones to have so many reprints that the Rev-A's finally outnumber the original 5-screws...but they're all commons nonetheless. Most of the others (as is correctly listed in the database) would get more scarce as production went on. I don't even think SMB fits into this category since later releases were SMB/DH dual cart.
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