I have a 5 screw gyromite without an id and the Nintendo seal isn't at the far right.  It's about half an inch into the label.  The 3 screw can gyromite I've seen had the seal on the far right.  Is that a way to tell the CAN from the US from the label or is that something that moves around depending on the label printing?

I assume that the back label doesn't have french?  Does one of the other carts have a canadian back label and a usa front?  Wait, that's stupid of me--the rest of the carts are five screw... 

It is definately NSTC by the CIC chip being one of the north america versions.

I also have two three screw 10-yard fight black box version with normal screws and one has a ID and the other doesn't.  Both US carts and I can see not the slightest inclination of there ever being an ID on the one. 

**EDIT** from an ebay search it looks like the 5 screw carts that have the more centered seal do not have the ID while the 5 screw gyromites that do have the seal more toward the left do have an ID.  Take it with a grain of salt because I only looked at about 10 auctions.

I haven't, and I am pretty sure Dain hasn't either or I would have heard about it.  I do wish I could find me a 5 screw Star Force though

Bronty-2 wrote on 26. Jun 2006 at 23:19:

Looks like he's very dedicated to finding those black box variations

Bronty-2 wrote on 26. Jun 2006 at 23:34:


From what I've been able to gather in my black box variations quest (hence the 100 Gyromites which, BTW, there are 3 different versions, of which the "Made in Japan" one is the rarest), some games have more box variations than others. For example, the more popular games like Golf tended to have the full gamut of box variations:

hangtab, no code, sticker seal, black/gold seal of quality
hangtab, no code, no sticker seal, black/gold seal of quality
non-hangtab, no code, black/gold seal of quality
Rev-a, non-hangtab, no code, black/gold seal of quality
Rev-a, non-hangtab, code, black/gold seal of quality
Rev-a, non-hangtab, code, white/gold seal of quality

Games that were re-released as Rev-A games, there appears to be most of those box variations. Games that didn't make it to Rev-A got the first 3 of those variations. There are even more minor box variations that aren't listed there, such as the code in the upper left corner of hangtab boxes -- some came with it, some didn't. From what I can tell, games that came in non-rev-a non-hangtab boxes can be either 3 or 5 screws -- I think this may have been a transitional period.

-Dain

Well I'll be damned -- I think you just solved a mystery and didn't realize it!

Remember in our private conversation that I said I came across a single lot of several sticker sealed USA black box games? Well, every single sticker seal black box game I have does NOT have the code. I can confirm a slew of them:

Clu Clu Land (sticker seal)
10-Yard Fight (sticker seal)
Hogan's Alley (sticker seal)
Gyromite (sticker seal)
Golf (sticker seal)
Gumshoe (sticker seal)
Kung Fu (sticker seal)
Wild Gunman (sticker seal)
Wrecking Crew (sticker seal)
Duck Hunt (sticker seal)

Super Mario Bros (no sticker seal)
Donkey Kong (no sticker seal)
Ice Climber (no sticker seal)

Every one of the above games has a hangtab box as well. So it looks like every one of my sticker seal games does not have the code, and I've verified 3 additional non-sticker-seal ones as well. My DK Jr. Math has the code on it, BTW. This takes me back to my original opinion that the USA sticker seal games were the absolute earliest releases (and possibly not shrinkwrapped).

-Dain

BTW, the variations search is up and running on NintendoAGE. The direct search for the 3 vs. 5 screws is at:

http://www.nintendoage.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Search.Results&Variation_ID=2

We're still filling in some of the images, but the data is there now.

-Dain

Thanks, I appreciate that. I can say, without question, that this is the most time-consuming project I've yet to work on, and it's really only in the beginning stages. There's so much to do, so I've been trying to just widdle away at things piece by piece, and hope that it will eventually get to a point where it's truly useful.

-Dain