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Post by mpanayiotakis on Jan 31, 2007 1:23:48 GMT 2
Ok guys I've asked the seller of the boxed white spitball about it and he said that he bought it at a local fleamarket. That's as much information as he could offer. It seems that some white sparkys did appear for sale in shops then. The thing is.. where and how many of them ? There are some conflicting findings here. First of all, the serial of the game S1387xxx corresponds to a probable re-release but the seller is american and the leaflets are all in english. As far as we know only NOA released the sparky in the US and they used a colourful box! Furthermore, the patent pending words on the box and game seem to indicate that this isn't really a re-release but an original one!
To sum it up, here we have a white spitball sparky with a late serial found in the US not released by NOA which was probably released in 1984 as the rest of the sparkys!! Strange eh ?
My other white spitball has a serial of S1386xxx which is very close to my other one's serial and that probably indicates that only a few were made. Anyone else have any white sparkys serial numbers to submit ?
Michael
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Post by andycole on Jan 31, 2007 14:48:48 GMT 2
Mine is S1387548, only 51 away from yours. Mike, you've recently bought 2 white spitballs. Did you ask both sellers for info? Interesting about 'patent pending' though, I've never seen that before, to be honest I haven't paid much attention to patent numbers on games or boxes. Are there different patent numbers for each case design? If so, then you might be right that one with 'patent pending' was released before others. We can't necessarily rely on serial numbers to determine age. Perhaps we can find out more about the date of the relevant patents and date it that way?
Lastly, are we 100% sure that NOA ONLY used the cartoon style boxes? I'm thinking that can't be true, your game disproves that theory, doesn't it?
I'm sure we'll go round in circles with this mystery just like we have others.
Andy
edit: Just realised that the other seller was Taki and he's already told us that he knows nothing.
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Post by andycole on Jan 31, 2007 15:18:07 GMT 2
Sorry for the double post, but I already edited my previous post twice, so wanted to keep things understandable! Here is the discussion on the forum about patent numbers. The 2 main numbers that appear on a lot of boxes were published in August 1983 and March 1984. Surely this means that any game that's box and case says 'patent pending' was released before this? Spitball was released in Feb 84, in between those 2 dates. I've never seen a box that listed just one pending number. Any game released after March 04 should have the patent numbers, you would think! If we can prove this theory, it may go a long way to dating some releases. If we disprove it, we're back to square one! Andy edit: I have a HK-303 Supposedly released in 11/84 with Pat pending on it. Also a BJ-60 from 02/85. BF-803 from 1986 has no mention of patents on the box.
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Jan 31, 2007 19:22:17 GMT 2
I think I'm sure about NOA. On the white sparky's box I can see "Nintendo co. ltd" while on my NOA spitball sparky box I can see "Nintendo of America inc.". Since the serials of all NOA games I've seen are lower than the serials of my white sparkys I can only come to conclusion that the white sparkys were released after the original ones while the patent for them was still pending. Now, I don't know the reason why NOA didn't release them in the US, maybe they were imported by another company, maybe the white sparkys were sold only in specific regions.. who knows ?
I think all original releases had at least a patent pending for them (and Nintendo submitted more than two patents for the game&watch line for approval! We've found at least 6 or 7 if I remember correctly!). After 1985 when some games were re-released the words regarding patents on the box vanished only to be replaced by (c) Nintendo or something similar.
Judging by the serial numbers my guess would be that only a couple of thousand of them were made, maybe even less..
Michael
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Post by andycole on Feb 1, 2007 12:34:32 GMT 2
Most of these have turned up in the USA, so I think it's a fair assumption that they were sold in the US. Not all American sold games had NOA boxes, of course. I think that the higher serial numbers are a red herring. It would make a lot more sense that these were pre-releases. Maybe NOA wasn't formed then? We know the date NOA was created, don't we? Perhaps that will help us. Yes, your 'Pocketsize as second version' thread suggests that the colourful boxes were second editions. Only the higher S/N on the white ones confuses the matter.
Regarding the patents, I've only ever seen the 2 patent numbers on boxes. I guess those 2 covered the main features of the games. Didn't help much, though, did it, everyone copied the games!
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Feb 2, 2007 0:05:58 GMT 2
Yeah, Nintendo patents didn't matter in Russia! :biggrin: Anyway, I don't see any reason why Nintendo would circumvent the ascending order of the serials in this case. This would be a first and I think Nintendo proved to be very consistent with the details of their releases so far. NOA released the games between 1983 and 1985. It's very strange when you think about it because although the serials indicate that the white sparkys should have been a re-release, they can't be because all re-releases were produced after 1985 when Nintendo stopped producing new games! And the white sparkys have been clearly released before 1985 due to the patent pending element..
This must have been a parallel release (part of a promotion perhaps?). This is the only logical explanation which could also explain the low release numbers.
NOA was formed in the late 70s-beginning of the 80s so this doesn't help us at all..
Michael
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Post by Br3nd4N on Feb 2, 2007 1:38:55 GMT 2
or they just released a batch with no metallic finish for one reason of another, breakdown in factory etc
-B
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Feb 2, 2007 23:55:43 GMT 2
I would dismiss this theory because it seems that a lot more games than we originally thought were released and it doesn't explain the different box anyway.
Michael
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Post by andycole on Feb 5, 2007 11:57:21 GMT 2
OK, what about this theory......Nintendo packed in the sale of games 1985 or whenever it was....They had loads of spare parts left.....spitball sparky boxes......unpainted cases. NOA, or even some other company in USA, stepped in with a 'job lot' offer, and released the games even though the boxes weren't the usual ones. That would explain all the 'clues' we have so far. Andy
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Post by devster on Apr 24, 2007 0:54:07 GMT 2
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Post by jonwiththewind on Apr 24, 2007 17:33:18 GMT 2
sort yer links out bad boy [ url= ] Click here etc.. [ /url ] (without spaces after the [ and before the ] so it looks like this! Click Here EDIT: I clocked up 1000 posts on the forum and I didn't notice - Arrgghhh!!! Mike - Do I win a something for my "achievement"? A cigar would be nice!
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Apr 24, 2007 19:17:53 GMT 2
No, it can't be Paul. I thought of that originally but the colour job is so uniform it's impossible for anyone to do it by themselves. And I can probably understand it for one item but I've seen 4 or 5 already!!
Michael
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