Got a shipment of games today, including an US 5 screw Excite Bike. When I opened it up to clean i saw that it was a famicom board and a converter in it. Never seen this before, is this usual on the old games?
I have several other 5 screw games here, none of them have converters.

Thanks,

Yeah some have converters in them, i don't have a list of the 5-screws but i'm sure NGD has a list for ya. ;)

Pretty common to find them.  I actually posted a list of all the known games to have them in a thread about 2 weeks ago talking about 5 screw games.  Do a quick search if you want to take a look.
~~NGD

NationalGameDepot wrote on 04. Jan 2007 at 13:13:

Pretty common to find them.  I actually posted a list of all the known games to have them in a thread about 2 weeks ago talking about 5 screw games.  Do a quick search if you want to take a look. ~~NGD

I remeber reading something about it now when you speak off it. I'll look into it.
On the topic, are there any 5 screws that are rare or are all common games like Gradius and the black series?

No real rares ones iirc, i think there's a Stack Up that could be a bitch but i could be wrong as i'm not all into those variants.

I think there's generally a lot more challenge in finding the hangtab box that goes with the five screw game than of finding the game itself..

Im kinda tick off, why? because
not so long after production Nintendo stopped putting in  the famicom converters in they early games, so by 1987 (the year of NES in australia) they were all gone and fixed since then.

I still havnt been able to play my famicom and asian carts.
I do have famicom but cant get the thing to work.

If you take a look at the FC to NES adapter thread on this page, there is a link posted with a fool proof way of finding the adapter without having to guess (the shape of the pins).  Found one in an excite bike cart myself.  I don't use it however, I have a honey bee adapter I find to work much better, and they cost less than $10 usually.

I don't like the fact that there are many people out there looking for these first release carts just so they can take them apart & use them for conversion.

They're all going to be gone! :o

Widar wrote on 04. Jan 2007 at 12:04:

Got a shipment of games today, including an US 5 screw Excite Bike. When I opened it up to clean i saw that it was a famicom board and a converter in it. Never seen this before, is this usual on the old games? I have several other 5 screw games here, none of them have converters. Thanks,

Wow, gongrats bro! I'd probably shit myself if I was able to come across one. Every 5 screw I've taken apart had the converter already ripped from them  >:(

Enjoy.

ThaDuke wrote on 05. Jan 2007 at 04:13:

Widar wrote on 04. Jan 2007 at 12:04: Got a shipment of games today, including an US 5 screw Excite Bike. When I opened it up to clean i saw that it was a famicom board and a converter in it. Never seen this before, is this usual on the old games? I have several other 5 screw games here, none of them have converters. Thanks, Wow, gongrats bro! I'd probably shit myself if I was able to come across one. Every 5 screw I've taken apart had the converter already ripped from them  >:( Enjoy.

They aren't THAT rare, are they?
It was just a cool thing to find one, didn't know it was an US cart untill i got it home and saw the 5 screwes. Or are there European 5 screw games with converters....?
The only thing that makes me think US is the USA print on the manual i got with it and the fact that several other games from the same guy was US.

I think they are harder to find than most people think.  I check every cart (that could possibly have a converter) that comes through my hands.  Aside from Stack Up, which all have converters, I have only had one Gyromite cart with a converter.  I have had many 1000's of carts come through me.  Maybe it's bad luck, my area, or something else, all I know is I am looking to find these varients and they're tough to find in the wild.

Michiganfan2 wrote on 05. Jan 2007 at 10:31:

I think they are harder to find than most people think.  I check every cart (that could possibly have a converter) that comes through my hands.  Aside from Stack Up, which all have converters, I have only had one Gyromite cart with a converter.  I have had many 1000's of carts come through me.  Maybe it's bad luck, my area, or something else, all I know is I am looking to find these varients and they're tough to find in the wild.

Wow, so they are a bit rare?

Cool find for me then. :)

I have never had any problems finding them at all.  I was looking for some a while back and went to a flea market.  In one day I got like 10 of them and didn't even search through all the guys games.  Another time I bought out a local collector and almost every game he had had one in it, his parents bought his games the day they came out back then so he had orignal copies of every game that first came out.  Maybe it is regional like Michiganfan mentioned, that or I am lucky.
~~NGD

Do you have any extras to trade or sell NGD?  

I went to a flea market about a month ago.  He had around 500 carts and I didn't find a single one.

Anyways, if anyone has any to trade or sell, let me know.  Right now I only have Gyromite and Stack Up.

Sorry Mike, all the dup ones I had I sold long ago on ebay.  I regret selling the Mike Tysons Punchout one cause I still to this day can't figure why it had one in it.  I have several of them in my collection but don't really plan to sale them cause I don't want to have to track them down again.
~~NGD

Do you include those in your variants, NGD?

Not really.  I just keep them when I find them when I get games in.  I have them added on the game list.  I haven't really started collecting all the black box varaints yet, seals, converters, 3 screw vs 5 screw, made in japan, TM, and ID codes, handtab boxes.......I haven't decided how nuts I plan to go with all of that stuff yet.  I still have a lot of other stuff to get first PAL wise so the answer is nope not yet.
~~NGD

There are 5 screw European games as well.
Got a 5 screw Pro Wrestling FRA/FRA today. No converter though (are there any european with at all?).

I don't think the PAL games have the adapters, but I am not 100% sure cause I don't have that many PAL games yet.  The reason I don't think they do is because the PAL market came in to popularity later than the US market did and most games don't get released over there until after they do here.  So they prob had enough boards by then to make the normal games.  Nesaholic or jajaja might know a little more on the subject than me on PAL stuff.  I am just getting my feet wet in that market.
~~NGD