[game_preservation] Authenticating factory sealed games

[Martin Goldberg]

I see that these have a protective plastic reinforcement inside the
wrap. With regards to archiving NOS boxed games that don't have that:
take off the sealing/saran-wrap.  It shrinks over time and will start
to constrict the box, warping it and in some cases actual crushing
edges of the cardboard (a common problem with NOS
Atari/Intellivision/Colecovision/etc. era sealed boxes).

Marty


On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 11:18 PM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was just kabitzing around e-bay looking up some factory sealed games I had

> and was pretty amazed at some of the prices there. Unfortunately, when I

> went to verify, I was not convinced that they were authentic. One of my

> games (Link to the Past Player's Choice) has the 'H-Seal'. The other two,

> 7th Saga and Super Castlevania 4, look doubtful, particularly 7th Saga.

> Here's an example of an 'h-seal':

> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&Item=380177972686&Category=139973&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26its%3DI%26otn%3D2

> I picked these up from Gamestop/Funcoland back in 2001/2002-ish. They have

> plastic seals on them, but they aren't the h-seal. I've become convinced now

> that 7th Saga is not sealed because there is actually wear on the box. I

> don't know why the retailer would have gone through the trouble of resealing

> it, but I highly doubt a factory copy would have wear (and it's quite a

> bit). Has anyone here heard of this happening? Makes me pretty bummed that

> this isn't authentic! Thankfully my Super Mario Land GB is original :)

> Then there's Video Game Authority:

> http://cgi.ebay.com/Super-Turrican-2-SNES-Super-NES-NEW-SEALED-VGA-80_W0QQitemZ380183166693QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_Games_Games?hash=item5884aebee5

>

> The VGA cases look pretty neat, but it seems like an easy way of making

> money off of people (i.e. ripping them off). Check their pricings - it's

> like $80 plus shipping to get something authenticated:

> http://www.vggrader.com/default.aspx

> They're located in Georgia. Yeah, mine are going to remain in my closet.

> -DM

> --

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

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