I treasure hunt NES games. What I mean by that, is a year and a half ago I decided to try to collect every NES game…but without using the internet. This is no easy task, as im only up to 222 titles. I’ve done this by frequenting thrift stores, pawn shops, used book and music stores, and the occasional flea market and garage sale. I’ve come across a lot of information on the entire library of NES titles while currently on my journey, and I thought id share some things that have helped me understand what to look for.
First off, if you are interested in collecting all the games ever made for the NES, forget it. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that it will probably never happen. Oh, I’ll get close maybe, but there are at least two games that sell for tens of thousands of dollars, and usually they are in private auctions. One is the Nintendo World Championship cartridge, made for a contest of the same name in 1990. There are 116 of these cartridges. 90 of them are in the “gray” cartridge and are numbered. 26 of them are in the “gold” cartridge (think legend of Zelda), and are not numbered, making them hard to validate as authentic. Ok, well that’s not too bad…116 copies, maybe that would pop up somewhere. Then we come to Stadium Events (NTSC). Long story short, it was a limited holiday release, estimated that only 2000 copies went to retail stores. Nintendo bought the rights to what is known today as the “Power Pad” from Bandai shortly after, ordered a recall of Stadium Events, then repackaged it as “World Class Track Meet”. Of the 200 copies of Stadium Events estimated sold before the recall, fewer than 20 copies are known to exist. There is one copy on Ebay right now, and its listed for sale for $500,000, verified factory sealed.
Determining what is valuable and why
Well now that I’ve burst your collecting bubble, here is some stuff to look out for while collecting.
Understand that having the box and the manual USUALLY triples the value of the game. Most kids, like me, threw away at LEAST the box, and sometimes the manual too. When you do come across an NES game with the box, manual, or either, snatch it up, its valuable, and somewhat rare. It’s important that the labels are in good condition, not necessarily for collection sake, but for value sake. A torn label, depending on the game can reduce the value. Look at my copy of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:
Pay attention to the artwork on the cartridge. For example, I grabbed Metroid from a thrift store with the traditional artwork I remembered when I was a kid. Later, I bought a box of NES games from a guy and came across Metroid with DIFFERENT artwork. I don’t know if you’d need both artwork styles to have a technically “complete” collection, but I think it’s a must have.
Variations in cartridges
There are a many variations of cartridge style, colors, and designs other than the tradition gray cartridge. These are unlicensed games and can be particularly rare.
There are 20
Tengen cartridges. These say “Tengen” on the bottom or side of the label and were unlicensed. Oddly enough, a lot of these games then later became licensed and were rereleased on gray cartridges, some with different artwork. Again, in my opinion, to have a complete collection, I think you must have both.
There are 15
Camerica cartridges. They are either gold or silver and have ridiculous dip switches (see pic) on the back.
THEN the same company developed the
Aladdin Deck Enhancer. There are 7 games released for that. It requires a game-genie style adapter to play these games. Interestingly enough, it seems that these 7 titles are all available in the regular Camerica cartridge, so I don’t understand why the company released them, but none the less, they are playable titles and I think should be included in the pursuit of a complete collection.
- photo courtesy of Wikipedia
Lastly, there are 4 carts made by a company called
Wisdom Tree to sell at religious bookstores. These usually are light blue or black, and are a different style than all of the previous carts mentioned. These games contain partial conversions of other titles and use biblical themes.
Ok this should help you on your way to a respectable NES collection!
Glad to see I’m not alone in spending endless weekends searching for classics. Punch out special edition is my claim to fame.
Very cool! Punch out is one of the best titles for the NES for sure.