I posed this question at JL's forum and I'll pose it here: Does anyone know anything about the Famicom "Holy Grails" -- the four prizes given out at competitions in Japan? 4 tournaments = 4 prizes. So far I know there were two gold disks, the Game & Watch Super Mario Bros. and stationary. All came in a yellow Disk-kun case. Anyone got any other info: dates, names of tournaments, format of touraments (read they were by Famicom fax), number of each given out, worth, etc.  

They made one for Golf in 1986, one for Punch-Out in...1989?

Well, from what I've seen, there were only two gold disks: one called "Golf Japan" and the other "Golf US". Then there were two other prizes for other competitions: one was the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch and the other was the Nintendo stationary.

The Golf prizes were given out, as I understand, through competitions where Japan's Famicoms were linked together by an amateur internet, and gamers could play their Golf game and have their high score "faxed" into Nintendo headquarters. The scores would be placed on a leaders' board.

The Game & Watch was given out at through an F-1 competition. Don't know more than that. The stationary is a big question mark.

That's all I know -- help fill in the blanks!

(plus there were other comps, like the Summer Carnival, etc.)

Now this is cool. A cart that potentially could be a grail. I don't have much info on it, but I haven't seen any before this one:

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I think I read on DP a while back that those sell for 4-6K a piece.  I could be wrong, though.

Hey Speedy. How sure are you of that worth? Like totally unsure; it might only be worth $100? Or it's for sure worth over $1,000?

What I want to know is how in the blue hell JC got that...

wrote on 06. Sep 2006 at 15:12:

Hey Speedy. How sure are you of that worth? Like totally unsure; it might only be worth $100? Or it's for sure worth over $1,000?

Pretty sure over 1K ;)


FamicomJL wrote on 07. Sep 2006 at 04:11:

What I want to know is how in the blue hell JC got that...

Maybe it's just a picture from the internet? ;)

That's got to be the most awesome looking Punch Out I've ever seen! Imagine picking that up in a pawn shop? lol Anyone know how many exist?

That's what we've been trying to figure out, Hounder. We don't know how many exist. It's fair to call it rare, and if what Speedy is saying is true, it's fair to call it very nice to own. ;)

BTW: I found a new piece of info about the stationary set. It was given to 10,000 people. The first 6,000 were given to people who acheived a high score on one of three tracks in 3D Hot Rally (FDS). The other 4,000 were given away through a raffle. That's what one of the 3D Hot Rally promotion posters says.

EDIT: Here's a better picture of that Punch-Out!!

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g2/jerahcordova/punchout2.jpg

I have the gold punchout :)

Cool. Do you have any idea what it's worth? And why it was released?

There was a Punch-Out contest, If I remember correctly.

The only thing I've ever read about it is that it has some link to the Golf tournaments. But I don't know that for sure.

I know it was for a contest, but I also believe there's a gold Golf FDS or cart somewhere.

Of course there is a gold Golf disk. I've posted about this everywhere. There's actually two different ones: gold Golf Japan and gold Golf US. Each given out at different tournaments.

But I've only read about four tournaments with four prizes. the Punch-Out is the strange one here. I don't know where is comes from because I've never read anywhere about it being the prize for it's own tournament. I did read once that it was given out at one of the Golf tournaments...but that's not confirmed.

That version of Punch-Out is pre-release too, it has a bunch of differences.

TheRedEye wrote on 15. Sep 2006 at 19:27:

That version of Punch-Out is pre-release too, it has a bunch of differences.

Oooo, do you know what the differences are?

Ok. I just finished playing all the way through the gold Punch-Out!! Special. You beat Super Macho Man for the World Circuit title and that's the end of the game. There's a newspaper that says "World Champion," etc. and then the game scrolls through each of the fighters that you beat, and then the final screen shows Mac, his wins/losses/KOs and "THE END". That's it.

Everything else about it seems pretty normal, including the difficulty level of each fighter. There are slight color variations from the other versions and the music on the screen that flashes TITLE BOUT is different.