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Post by Aris on Oct 30, 2009 19:42:28 GMT 2
Jeez, I really think that you DO have OCD or something! The amount of effort you are putting into this gives me a headache! Just 2 things I want to reply about, and I can't believe that I'm saying this: Andy stated "the Supercolours have always been white underneath and we all knew that already." I don't agree with this. As a matter of fact, I think very few people, if any at all, knew they were white underneath! Since it seems that it was obvious to you, you may have been the only one that was aware of this Andy.... Mind you, being one of the few owners of such a rare item, maybe by having the opportunity look at one at will, you were able to tell that it was a simple matter of the game lacking its silver coating or something, but, how many people were in your position to actually look at one? Not many. I'm going to say this slowly so that you can take it in: E V E R Y O W N E R O F E V E R Y S I L V E R S U P E R C O L O R G A M E C A N O P E N T H E B A T T E R Y C O M P A R T M E N T A N D S E E T H E W H I T E U N D E R N E A T H ! ! ;D Andy AC, You do know that I'm not doubting they're all white underneath, I'm just doubting the bold statement you made that everyone already knew they were white underneath..... When I sent that e-mail (with a link to that peeling SS game) out to Mike, and about another half-dozen seasoned collectors the responses I received back were all responses of surprise, no one said anything like: "yeah, I already knew they were white underneath." Regarding the issue of whether "regular" (non-white) games were produced after the white versions, well, so far, based on what we have data-wise, There is one "regular" (non-white) SS game produced after the string of 4 white SS games. That one game has a serial of S1394967. As far as overall production though, the last Supercolour game we have record of is for a white CG game with serial S1400380. So, to reiterate, in question and answer form: Q: How many Spitball Sparky and Crab Grab games were manufactured?A: Based on data obtained directly from Nintendo as well as data published in various magazines, books and even websites, the estimated number of units produced for Spitball Sparky was 250,000. And the estimated number of units produced for Crab Grab was also 250,000.Q: What was the starting point, serial number-wise for Supercolour games?A: We don't know for sure, but, based on the data we have, we believe it would be S1000000.Q: So, if S1000000 is the serial number of the first Supercolour game produced, was that game a SS game or a CG game? A: Again, we don't know for sure. It's a 50/50 crap shoot, but, based on the model numbers of the games (SS is BU-201 and CG is UD-202) I'd bet you dollars to doughnuts that the earliest serial-numbered Supercolour game produced was a SS game.Q: Does your database of serial numbers for Supercolour games confirm this production number? A: Not exactly, but sort of! The serial numbers used for both Spitball Sparky and Crab Grab, are all part of the same range. We believe the starting serial number was S1000000. Now, if the estimated figures of 250,000 of each were made, then, the ending serial number would be S1499999. Right now, the gap between our lowest serial number and highest serial number is 397,073, which might suggest that a figure closer to 200,000 of each were actually manufactured, even though the target amount they may have wanted to produce was 250,000 of each! If the starting serial is indeed S1000000, then we know for sure, that more than 400,000 were produced because our highest serial number for either game is S1400380. So, perhaps we can say that at least 400,380 games were manufactured! Q: What is the earliest (lowest) serial numbered game you have record of for SS and CG?A: The earliest (lowest) serial number we have for SS is S1003307. For CG, it's S1118538. As a matter of fact, we have record of 70 SS games that have lower serial numbers than the lowest serial-numbered Crab Grab game we have record of!Q: What is the highest serial numbered game you have record of for SS and CG?A: The highest serial number we have for SS is S1394967. For CG, it's S1400380. The twist however, is that S1400380 is a WHITE version of CG, not the typical SILVER version that most of us own and are more accustomed to seeing on ebay etc....Q: What can you tell me about the WHITE version of Supercolour games? Why were they made? How many were made?? How many of each (that you know of) exist? A: This is a very good question. Unfortunately, at this point, I'm afraid only certain employees who were employed at Nintendo when these games were produced, know the answer to "why were these produced? And how many of each were made?" Some theories include:
- They ran out of the silver coating used to coat the otherwise white coloured Supercoloured games, and ended up producing them without the silver coating until they were able to replenish their stock of silver coating.
- It was done intentionally to mark some sort of achievement/milestone, and was done in very few numbers to make them a special rare version.
- It was an malfunction/accident on the spraying part of the assembly line that resulted in a few games sneaking past Nintendo's QC department, and actually making it to store shelves.
The numbers in terms of how many were made are unclear. It would appear that these WHITE Supercolour games were made in a straight batch run, since, the 4 serial numbers that we currently have for WHITE SS games all start with "S138" and the gap between the lowest serialed White SS and the highest serialed White SS is only 1557. One other thing I should mention that also supports the idea that these WHITE games were produced in a straight run, is that we don't have any "non-white" serial numbers between the lowest serialed WHITE SS (S1386042) and the highest serialed WHITE SS (S1387599). Our guess right now is that 2000 were made, with the start possibly being S1386000 and the end being S1387999.
CG is another story. There is only one known to exist, so, we can't draw any conclusions about that particular Supercolour game yet.
As to how many exist that we know of, based on data I have as of October 30th 2009, there are 2 more WHITE SS games known to exist that we don't have serial numbers on YET! So, in total, there are 6 known WHITE SS games and only 1 known WHITE CG game! There is a rumour that Taki has another WHITE SS game, so, if the rumour is true, then, there will be 7 known WHITE SS games.Okay, that's all for now, I guess I can add more questions/amend the current ones, as more data becomes available to us. Andy, that's great news that you got a hold of ramrodius and the collector you got your from, and that the both confirmed they still have their WHITE versions!!! Can't wait to get the serials to find out if they fall into place where they should, or if they make this even more confusing than it already is.... I contacted Ramrodius too (through ebay's "contact seller" link) yesterday, but have not heard anything from him yet. He doesn't even know me, so, he may not respond. But, regardless of that, it looks like you'll get some answers on those serials before I do. Thanks for those links on previous discussion on White SS/CG games Andy, I'll have to check them out later tonight. Lastly, the issue about the "silvers" being mixed with the "whites". (sheesh, I feel like we're discussing segregation or something!!!) We don't have any proof of this yet, not for mixing for one particular game anyway. I still think the WHITE SS games had one range (S1386000 to S1387999) And the WHITE CG games had a higher range, maybe something like 1400000 to 1401999. So, the fact that we have a regular (non-white) SS with serial S1394967 just means it was produced AFTER the WHITE batch run of SS games, but before the WHITE batch run of CG games began. One thing that is indeed still puzzling is how they alternated the serial numbers for both these games? We know they came in shippers of 10, and those 10 games (Perhaps Andrew can confirm this with his shipper full) should be consecutive serial numbered games. But, how does this explain the fact that we have a SS game with serial S1144080 and a CG game with serial S1144087. The only possibilities that come to mind are: 1) What Runepune suggested, the backs may have been switched. 2) Serial number fiddling, maybe the backs weren't switched, but the serial numbers might have been tampered with. Oh wait!! I think I figured it out!!! 3) Maybe the production of 10 SS then 10 CG (or however they did it) didn't necessarily start at an even number. i.e., maybe the 10 SS games were: S1144071 S1144072 S1144073 S1144074 S1144075 S1144076 S1144077 S1144078 S1144079 S1144080And then the next 10 CG games would be: S1144081 S1144082 S1144083 S1144084 S1144085 S1144086 S1144087S1144088 S1144089 S1144090 Yes, I think that must be it! Andrew, where are you??? We need to know how your shipper full of SS games is serial-numbered! ;D Okay, I'm outta here! You're right Mike, I think I do keep raising the bar for long posts.... AC PS Amazing findings Aris, and yes, I always pay attention when you post. Thanks Runepune, it's good to know that someone's listening.... ;D
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Oct 30, 2009 20:14:02 GMT 2
Hmm.. just checked the serial on my white sparky and compared against other serials and it's a lot smaller so either the serial on the above crab grab is genuine or it was made by someone other than Nintendo. Serials from other games won't fit on a supercolor game.. Anyway, I still don't buy the "error" thing. Why would Nintendo release the white games with no explanation whatsoever? They even included a notice that explained the problem with game B in judge and that was when they started producing the games.. And why would the machine fail after it worked perfectly for all previous games? And why would the production line let so many of them produced? I'm sure someone would have noticed the problem in time to avoid this problem. Nintendo in the mid-80s was a giant already, you think they didn't have the resources to fix the problem? I don't think all the above is just a big fat coincidence!! When I say special version I don't mean a promotion, advertising item or whatever (although we can't rule that out yet), it could very well have been a release intended for certain countries or country, for a certain retailer or something else.. Don't forget that argentinian wide screen games were blue!! Lastly, about the serials, Aris, you make the mistake of assuming that the serial numbers we've seen in the past define more or less the production line numbers which can't be more far from the truth! The only thing that tells us is how many (approximately) of these games were sold. I'm sure there were many more that probably never left Nintendo warehouses or returned back. Nintendo released only two supercolor games so they probably didn't do so well, sale-wise. They were also released during 1984 when the sales of game&watch games had already started falling.. Btw, nice job on the faq although you probably haven't checked the release dates of the supercolor games because you would have noticed that spitball sparky was released before crab grab!! So, the first serial belonged to spitball sparky and there's no doubt about it!! Michael
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Post by Aris on Oct 31, 2009 8:42:24 GMT 2
Wow, lots to respond to..... Okay, I'll start with Rene's suggestion about how the WHITE games came about. At first, (before I started working on this whole WHITE Supercolour phenomenon ) my thoughts were more or less along the same lines as Rene's and Andy's. Meaning, I thought the WHITE SS, which at that time, I think I was only aware of two existing, Taki's and Andy's, was an error in production. I didn't put much thought into how it happened, I just thought, ah, something went wrong with the making of a few games. However, now that I've been working on this for a bit, I really think this wasn't an accident, and am more in line with Mike's thoughts, I think the production of WHITE Supercolour games was a conscious effort on Nintendo's part! I realize there are formidable arguments for both theories, so, it's just my opinion that the games were made "white" intentionally, and not by accident. Part of the reason why I believe this is because I really do think there are a lot more out there, and we just haven't seen them. If it were just a few that existed, then, I can see it being an error that slipped through, but, given the serial range of WHITE games so far, and that we don't have any (yet...) "non-white" games within our current WHITE games serial range, it would appear that at least 1500+ of the SS games were made. Too many, in my opinion, to be an accident, even if they did run out of paint. I also echo Mike's thoughts on if it was a problem they had the resources to fix it promptly. As well as the fact that it doesn't make sense that this only happened with Supercolour line of games, and not with any other games, and that it happened so far deep into the production process. Probably, the most convincing reason why this wasn't an accident, would be the fact that we have 1 "non-white" SS serial (S1394967) which has a higher serial than the highest WHITE SS game we currently know of (so this would mean the "problem with the paint system" would have been fixed....) But, then we have a WHITE CG game with a higher serial (S1400380) than the "non-white" SS (S1394967) that was produced AFTER the last known produced WHITE SS game. If it was a paint malfunction, then, it was obviously fixed when S1394967 was made, so, why would S1400380 be white then? I think this was Andy's cue to throw a wrench in the works! Some other things to consider: If this was a paint malfunction issue, don't you think that the paint wouldn't have just stopped dry altogether and voila, we have a completely white SS or CG game, but instead, it would have spattered, and there would be games covered in silver paint spatter, with various bits of white showing here and there? I mean really, how can it go from spraying full out, enough silver paint to cover an entire game, to not spraying a single drop of silver paint at all? Surely, if it was a malfunction there would be spatter. I say the only way this happens (from full out silver paint with no issues to absolutely no silver paint at all) is through a controlled procedure, i.e. an intended procedure. And.... This is a guess, but, I'm sure there were at least two SEPARATE lines making the Supercolour games, one for SS the other for CG. In addition to all the other reasons we've suggested as to why this couldn't be an accident, what are the chances that both of these separate assembly lines had this same paint issue, yet none of the other 58 games ever ran into this problem??? Now, about that wrench, or spanner, as you English folk like to call it! I can speak rather candidly about the White CG game because I am the one that saw it and told Paul about it!!! I specifically remember coming across it on ebay when I was doing my regular searches, and figured it would go way beyond anything I was willing to spend on it, so, I contacted Mr. Deep Pockets himself. From what I recall, there was nothing about the auction that would suggest any part of it was not genuine. It was boxed and complete, and if I remember correctly, looked like it had been used very little if at all. As it was not a private deal, they had no way of knowing Paul would end up buying it, let alone, even know that it was on ebay at that time, so, that rules that possibility out! Also, how many people actually knew the serial range well enough to know that S1400380 was outside any serials we currently knew of? We're the experts here, can anyone here say that back in June of 2008, they knew what the serial ranges were for CG games??? The game was sold by some lady in Florida, do we know any collectors from Florida??? Hmm.. just checked the serial on my white sparky and compared against other serials and it's a lot smaller so either the serial on the above crab grab is genuine or it was made by someone other than Nintendo. Serials from other games won't fit on a supercolor game. Michael I'm confused Mike... Doesn't your WHITE SS have serial S1387599? What serials did you compare it against where it's a lot smaller? Yours is the highest (so far) WHITE SS serial, and it's the second highest serial we have for all SS games! Not to mention, only one CG game (so far) is higher than your WHITE SS serial too! Lastly, about the serials, Aris, you make the mistake of assuming that the serial numbers we've seen in the past define more or less the production line numbers which can't be more far from the truth! The only thing that tells us is how many (approximately) of these games were sold. I'm sure there were many more that probably never left Nintendo warehouses or returned back. Nintendo released only two supercolor games so they probably didn't do so well, sale-wise. They were also released during 1984 when the sales of game&watch games had already started falling.. Michael Ah yes, of course.... But, I would have no way of knowing about them, specifically, their numbers, so, there's no way I can figure them into my findings. Heck, I'm sure there could even be hundreds of shippers that did leave Nintendo warehouses, and are still sitting in some stores' attics, or got destroyed in a fire, or, heaven forbid, just got tossed out b/c they could no longer be returned to Nintendo, that I wont be able to account for! But yes, you're absolutely right, the numbers are based on the amount of units that actually made it out to the general public's hands! In other words, as Mike stated, my numbers are based on units that actually sold! Btw, nice job on the faq although you probably haven't checked the release dates of the supercolor games because you would have noticed that spitball sparky was released before crab grab!! So, the first serial belonged to spitball sparky and there's no doubt about it!!Michael D'oh!!! It's always the obvious stuff we miss eh??? I did not check the release dates, and as a matter of fact, I just assumed they were released together.... It's good that you mentioned that though, because, when I put together my database, I did it in Excel, and in addition to a sheet where I have different columns for SS, CG, WSS & WCG, I also did one where ALL the serials are in a single column (I differentiated them by making SS serials black, CG serials red, WSS serials are white writing on a black background and WCG serials are white writing on a red background) and I noticed a rather large gap between the earliest CG serial we have (S1118538) and the earliest SS serial we have (S1003307). I mean, I've got like 70 SS serials that are all lower than the lowest CG serial we have data on! The difference between the first SS serial and the first CG serial is just over 100,000! Do you think they made 100,000 units in the two weeks head-start that SS had over CG??? Andy, I can't wait until you get those WSS serials!!! Should be interesting to see if they're able to confirm our current findings, or maybe even establish some new findings!!! I hope they get these to you over the weekend. Heck, I'm so excited I think I'm going to message Taki and ask him if he still has a WHITE SS game! ;D Aris
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Post by rensmits on Oct 31, 2009 11:54:56 GMT 2
I bet they made these white games for South Africa (oeps, bad joke?) @mike: You're right about the B game sheet for judge green and the Argentinian games. But then again, if it was some promotial game, why isn't there a paper or something in the complete box? Yes, it could been trown away, but all other papers were there. So why should the extra paper been trown away? Also, there wasn't a malfunction in the game, only a different edge. So why should they include a paper like they did with the green judge? It is not necessay that the paint kept dripping or something like that. When a machine stops, it stops immediatley. So directly, no more paint. But I brought this up because I thought that there were white games, then silver games and then white games again. If there was a straight line of white games then it would be very strange if there were more then 100 games in a row. Indeed they should have noticed earlier. But, what if it happened in the nightshift? Less people in the nightshift, lesser concentration etc. Maybe the headchief of the nightshift was afraid for his job and just let them through and hoped noone would notice this small difference. Now someone can say that Japanese are very strict, but that could just be the reason. One mistake and you're out! About the thing that it didn't happened with other games. You can't compaire the procedure with that from the silver games. I have seen several games with damage. When for instance the clasp is broken, the inside is still the same colour. So, they didn't only painted the outside. The whole piece of plastic was the same colour. Only the supercolour games had an extra layer of paint. So the productionline of the supercolours were different then the other games. I have a question for Aris. Did all white games popped up on ebay US? If so, I can't think of one reason why nintendo made white games just for the US. Promotional? Why did they make them white instead of gold or something. Why isn't there a brandmark on them? A price? Why haven't we seen a winning paper and why is it only differrent because of its colour? Now comes the Argentinian game around the corner. Why was that different than the games produced for other countries? That couldn't be a production failure. Also because of the different box. That's what's puzzeling me. All things considering, I still think it was a stupid mistake that was tried to cover up, by just shipping them and hoping noone would noticed the difference in colour. But no Japanese was thinking about Aris at that time. Our very own Sherlock Holmes Aris should do a DNA-check on all games! René
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Post by bacco on Oct 31, 2009 14:39:39 GMT 2
My 2 cents worth on this issue. First of all Aris I would like to commend you on your thorough investigation on this matter. You certainly raise very solid points. However, In my honest opinion ( and it's just that my opinion) I believe that it there was a fault in the production line and a certain amount of super color games didn't get coated with the chrome paint. I remember having several nokia phones that were about 6 or 7 ears old now back when the colour of the phones were in the chrome finish look similar to the supercolour games. Over time these the chrome colour on these phones would start to crack and peel. Low and behold the colour underneath the chrome was a bone colour white - similar to the supercolour games. Same with a tv remote control i had. The chrome colour was peeling off and you can see the bone white colour underneath it.
When the ink of a colour printer runs out, it doesn't spit and splatter out every last ink droplet, it just stops automatically. Within the system it is programmed to know that when the ink reaches a certain level % remaining it sends an error/stop message to the equipment. This is what probably happened.
My theory is this. Say at the production line it had to colour coat in chrome 100,000 pieces of super colour CASES not the game. But they colour coating application got to only 96,000 of the units. Now at another factory you have 100,000 game units ready to be installed in these cases of which only 96,000 are ready. The chrome paint has to be reordered as it is out of stock and there is a 6 week period to source more paint. As the production manager what do you do?
Do you push through the remaining 4000 cases that haven't been applied with the chrome paint along with the 96,000 chromed cases to the factory to have the games units installed with them or do you wait to source more chrome paint?
Don't forget the time period. The super colour games were released in 1984 so they were in production in 1983 around the same time period with the tabletops and panoramas. Perhaps they couldn't have any downtime on the chrome coloured paint as they perhaps wanted to release the super colour games along the same time with the tabletops,panorams and perhaps even the micro vs systems. So again if it was a launch date issue you can easily see them releasing the x amount of white cases of the super coloured games.
I've got a question. About 18 months to perhaps 2 years ago i'm not sure i remember seeing a NOA pocketsice crab grab which was whited coloured cased. I remember it reaching something like $800 i know because i was the one who pushed the price way up there and being outbidded by someone in the last few seconds? Aris is this the one that you refer to as Paul having?
Aris when i get a chance i'll email you my serial numbers of my super colour games. Its just that its a hassle for me to get them out because of where they are situated in my display case. Hopefully i get some time tomorrow and contribute my serial numbers to this exercise.
Arthur
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Oct 31, 2009 14:43:29 GMT 2
This is a guess, but, I'm sure there were at least two SEPARATE lines making the Supercolour games, one for SS the other for CG. Yes, it makes sense considering the serial numbers we've seen on the games. No reason to alternate the production line whenever Nintendo needed to produce one or the other supercolor game. I would very much like to see another white crab grab and prove that it's genuine so that we can probably discard the "error in manufacturing process" idea.. No, I mean size-wize. The silver serial strip on the supercolor games is a lot smaller than other games but since my message, yesterday, I had an epiphany and checked the serial on my lion game and guess what - it's the exact same size!! So the 03xxx serial could have easily been taken from a late silver, early gold game and glued on the supercolor game! And it fits the serial range we know for these games so.. there! Mystery solved! Yes, why not? Other games sold in millions. Early productions of 100,000 units wouldn't be uncommon.. I bet they made these white games for South Africa (oeps, bad joke?) LOL Rene, do you believe I thought of the exact same thing yesterday?! ;D About your question on the origins of most white games, I bought mine from the UK and the seller said that he'd found it at a fleamarket some years ago so no, not all of them were owned by us sellers. Lastly, you know japanese are very meticulous - they wouldn't just try to cover this up and pretend that nothing happened! They would have tried to explain it in case the game was released this way or at least ban all white games from sale! So, how about a mixed error/special release idea? The first ones were produced by mistake and they liked they way they looked and decided to produce some more and release them this way? ;D Michael
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Nov 1, 2009 2:13:17 GMT 2
Ok, a couple more serials for spitball sparky (via Ebay):
S1010697 (japanese) S1030220 (japanese) S1089376 (noa) S1087407 (european)
And crab grab:
S1126071 (japanese) S1381773 (italian)
Which is the first serial we have for crab grab Aris?
Michael
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Post by Aris on Nov 1, 2009 4:29:19 GMT 2
Ok, a couple more serials for spitball sparky (via Ebay): S1010697 (japanese) S1030220 (japanese) S1089376 (noa) S1087407 (european) And crab grab: S1126071 (japanese) S1381773 (italian) Which is the first serial we have for crab grab Aris? Michael Hey Mike, thanks for the serials! As luck would have it, I had already added these to my database earlier this week (shouldn't be a surprise to you since you think I'm on ebay 24/7 LOL!) as well as a few more I've gotten from Torsten's site and even some video clips on YouTube where this one guy does a review of his CG game. But please, ANY serials that ANYONE comes across, keep them coming to me! Every serial is important, and every single one will help establish findings we already may be leaning towards, or, maybe even bring our attention to something we didn't think was possible. I also have been keeping my eye on YJ for Supercolour game serials. By next week, we should have a few more new ones, (The WSSs that I'm hoping Andy gets from Ramrodius and the guy Andy got his WSS from) as well as maybe a few from Arthur. I'm also hoping that whenever Andrew signs in, we can get the serials from all the SC games he owns, including the shipper full of SS games! I've also sent Taki a msg. to find out if he still owns a WSS, and I contacted the person that Paul got his WCG from to see if she can tell me anything about where she got it from, etc... In the meantime, I believe Andy wanted to see a pic of the WCG game, so, here is a pic of the WCG auction Paul won: AC PS Oops, almost forgot! Mike, the lowest serial we currently have for a CG game is S1118538.
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Post by Aris on Nov 1, 2009 8:07:52 GMT 2
My 2 cents worth on this issue. First of all Aris I would like to commend you on your thorough investigation on this matter. You certainly raise very solid points. However, In my honest opinion ( and it's just that my opinion) I believe that it there was a fault in the production line and a certain amount of super color games didn't get coated with the chrome paint. I remember having several nokia phones that were about 6 or 7 ears old now back when the colour of the phones were in the chrome finish look similar to the supercolour games. Over time these the chrome colour on these phones would start to crack and peel. Low and behold the colour underneath the chrome was a bone colour white - similar to the supercolour games. Same with a tv remote control i had. The chrome colour was peeling off and you can see the bone white colour underneath it. When the ink of a colour printer runs out, it doesn't spit and splatter out every last ink droplet, it just stops automatically. Within the system it is programmed to know that when the ink reaches a certain level % remaining it sends an error/stop message to the equipment. This is what probably happened. My theory is this. Say at the production line it had to colour coat in chrome 100,000 pieces of super colour CASES not the game. But they colour coating application got to only 96,000 of the units. Now at another factory you have 100,000 game units ready to be installed in these cases of which only 96,000 are ready. The chrome paint has to be reordered as it is out of stock and there is a 6 week period to source more paint. As the production manager what do you do? Do you push through the remaining 4000 cases that haven't been applied with the chrome paint along with the 96,000 chromed cases to the factory to have the games units installed with them or do you wait to source more chrome paint? Don't forget the time period. The super colour games were released in 1984 so they were in production in 1983 around the same time period with the tabletops and panoramas. Perhaps they couldn't have any downtime on the chrome coloured paint as they perhaps wanted to release the super colour games along the same time with the tabletops,panorams and perhaps even the micro vs systems. So again if it was a launch date issue you can easily see them releasing the x amount of white cases of the super coloured games. I've got a question. About 18 months to perhaps 2 years ago i'm not sure i remember seeing a NOA pocketsice crab grab which was whited coloured cased. I remember it reaching something like $800 i know because i was the one who pushed the price way up there and being outbidded by someone in the last few seconds? Aris is this the one that you refer to as Paul having? Aris when i get a chance i'll email you my serial numbers of my super colour games. Its just that its a hassle for me to get them out because of where they are situated in my display case. Hopefully i get some time tomorrow and contribute my serial numbers to this exercise. Arthur Hmmm.. interesting points!!! With my printer, when the ink is getting low, the inkjet cartridges end up printing fainter copies, and of course, you get the warnings that Cyan, Magenta, etc.... is low and will need replacing soon. So, it doesn't go from full out to nothing, it goes from full out, to faint, to nothing. You're right, no splatter with inkjet printing cartridges. However, I don't know what sort of paint system Nintendo used on their G&W games. I don't think it would be like an inkjet for printers, I'm thinking more of a sprayer, like you can use on a car, or wood furniture, etc... And with that, I think it would splatter rather than just stop altogether. It's hard to say... I mean, it's almost impossible to know for sure.... When I look at my "single column serials database" it appears that, whatever caused the WSS games to be produced, occurred about 386000 units into production (First serial being estimated at S1000000 and the earliest WSS serial being S1386042). But for the CG games, whatever caused the WCG games to be produced occurred about 282000 units into production (first CG serial that we have record of being S1118538 and the only WCG serial we have being S1400380). Shouldn't the paint have run out around the same stage of production for both games? Either that, or they when they started up the assembly line for CG games, they started with 1/3 less paint than they had when they started the SS assembly line. ;D This point about about having 100,000 games ready, but only 96,000 cases is an interesting scenario, and the only thing that might shoot a hole in that theory is that one game was produced AFTER this "paint problem" occurred, and it's only 7,368 units later! If this was a legitimate, "ran out of paint" issue, I still find it weird that this didn't happen with any of the other games! Look at all those Gold games, don't you think they're silver underneath? Even DKJR, MCF, TB, FA, MH, & TF. They must be silver underneath too. Why hasn't this happened to any units in those releases??? In an earlier post, we talked about the two week span between the release date of SS vs the release date of CG. We also linked this to the rather large gap between the earliest SS serials vs the earliest CG serials. The gap is 118,538 units, which suggests that in 2 weeks, they made almost 120,000 units So, in 1 week, they made about 60,000 units. Now, if production was done 7 days a week, (based on the limited serials we have) they made almost 8600 units a day! Assuming a 5 day work week, they made 12,000 units a day. If these numbers are accurate, that's pretty interesting isn't it? AC
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Post by ash888 on Nov 1, 2009 17:07:33 GMT 2
Nintendo might have had a production deadline to meet, and their paint machine wasn't working, so they just decided to shut it off completely and make some white ones until they could get it fixed. It must be something like that.
Anyway, I just got another SS, so here's the serial number if you still want them Aris!
S1092341
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Nov 1, 2009 19:08:16 GMT 2
Thanks for the serial Aris, it's my hypothesis that the earliest crab grab serial number is 1100000 or something like that. I can't back it up for now. I think that Nintendo made around 100,000 sparkys before releasing the crab grab games.. I'm looking forward to seeing more crab grab serial numbers..
Btw, QJ (qjuk) used to own a very big serial numbers database that contained information about most different editions and localized versions. He also created an excel file (the one you can find in my faq) and tried to categorize releases by serial numbers. It would be interesting to know whether he or someone else still owns this database.. No information about white versions in there though - we discovered these versions after he decided to abandon collecting..
Michael
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Post by bacco on Nov 2, 2009 2:25:21 GMT 2
My 2 cents worth on this issue. First of all Aris I would like to commend you on your thorough investigation on this matter. You certainly raise very solid points. However, In my honest opinion ( and it's just that my opinion) I believe that it there was a fault in the production line and a certain amount of super color games didn't get coated with the chrome paint. I remember having several nokia phones that were about 6 or 7 ears old now back when the colour of the phones were in the chrome finish look similar to the supercolour games. Over time these the chrome colour on these phones would start to crack and peel. Low and behold the colour underneath the chrome was a bone colour white - similar to the supercolour games. Same with a tv remote control i had. The chrome colour was peeling off and you can see the bone white colour underneath it. When the ink of a colour printer runs out, it doesn't spit and splatter out every last ink droplet, it just stops automatically. Within the system it is programmed to know that when the ink reaches a certain level % remaining it sends an error/stop message to the equipment. This is what probably happened. My theory is this. Say at the production line it had to colour coat in chrome 100,000 pieces of super colour CASES not the game. But they colour coating application got to only 96,000 of the units. Now at another factory you have 100,000 game units ready to be installed in these cases of which only 96,000 are ready. The chrome paint has to be reordered as it is out of stock and there is a 6 week period to source more paint. As the production manager what do you do? Do you push through the remaining 4000 cases that haven't been applied with the chrome paint along with the 96,000 chromed cases to the factory to have the games units installed with them or do you wait to source more chrome paint? Don't forget the time period. The super colour games were released in 1984 so they were in production in 1983 around the same time period with the tabletops and panoramas. Perhaps they couldn't have any downtime on the chrome coloured paint as they perhaps wanted to release the super colour games along the same time with the tabletops,panorams and perhaps even the micro vs systems. So again if it was a launch date issue you can easily see them releasing the x amount of white cases of the super coloured games. I've got a question. About 18 months to perhaps 2 years ago i'm not sure i remember seeing a NOA pocketsice crab grab which was whited coloured cased. I remember it reaching something like $800 i know because i was the one who pushed the price way up there and being outbidded by someone in the last few seconds? Aris is this the one that you refer to as Paul having? Aris when i get a chance i'll email you my serial numbers of my super colour games. Its just that its a hassle for me to get them out because of where they are situated in my display case. Hopefully i get some time tomorrow and contribute my serial numbers to this exercise. Arthur Hmmm.. interesting points!!! With my printer, when the ink is getting low, the inkjet cartridges end up printing fainter copies, and of course, you get the warnings that Cyan, Magenta, etc.... is low and will need replacing soon. So, it doesn't go from full out to nothing, it goes from full out, to faint, to nothing. You're right, no splatter with inkjet printing cartridges. However, I don't know what sort of paint system Nintendo used on their G&W games. I don't think it would be like an inkjet for printers, I'm thinking more of a sprayer, like you can use on a car, or wood furniture, etc... And with that, I think it would splatter rather than just stop altogether. Shouldn't the paint have run out around the same stage of production for both games? Either that, or they when they started up the assembly line for CG games, they started with 1/3 less paint than they had when they started the SS assembly line. ;D This point about about having 100,000 games ready, but only 96,000 cases is an interesting scenario, and the only thing that might shoot a hole in that theory is that one game was produced AFTER this "paint problem" occurred, and it's only 7,368 units later! If this was a legitimate, "ran out of paint" issue, I still find it weird that this didn't happen with any of the other games! Look at all those Gold games, don't you think they're silver underneath? Even DKJR, MCF, TB, FA, MH, & TF. They must be silver underneath too. Why hasn't this happened to any units in those releases??? AC Here at work we have a $30k laser colour printer that prints high end quality print outs for our book covers, whenever one of the colours is running low (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) it cuts off completely and can't print further. If we have a 500 page print out of covers and one of the colours run out, it stops smack bang on the last copy till the drum cartridge is replaced. There is no loss of quality on the last pages that were printed out before it suspends the total job. It waits till the cartridge has been replenished. Perhaps the same thing with the equipment at nintendo factory? In regards to why the colour didn't run out for the other games here is my theory on that. The supercolour cases were different from the rest of the other series cases in that they (supercolour) were painted cases whereas the other cases were dyed. I'm no paint expert but when it comes to metallic paints such as a chrome colour they need a primer based paint before being applied onto. In the case of supercolour the cases were dyed white then paint coated with the chrome finish. As stated in an earlier comment of mine you will find that chrome finished devices or items which have a plastic material, when the chrome colour get's scratched or starts peeling off the primer colour underneath it is white. Have a look around your household and see if the theory applies to your items. Havuing said that I don't expect anyone to start damaging their items to see if the theory is correct! Arthur Arthur
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Post by andycole on Nov 2, 2009 13:37:34 GMT 2
Wow, what a lot to posts over a weekend! Way too many for me to quote again, it just gets too messy. I'll reply to what I can remember though. 1. The reason why the 'missing paint effect' wouldn't occur to all the other 58 games is that none of them were painted, they were solid coloured plastic. I think Rene pointed this out. If this was a mistake in production, I think it's more likely that they just didn't go through that part of production, in other words, weren't put on the 'paint' conveyorbelt, rather than the machine running out of paint. 2. 100,000 Spitballs in such a short period of time is very likely as they were launching a brand new game and would have had to do enough stock for all of their stockists worldwide. After the initial launch, the runs could have been a lot smaller. 3. Although Mike may have seem surprised at the white peeling Spitball you showed him, he did already know it. Just look at those old threads I pointed out. I guess his memory is failing him 4. If Taki still has a WSS, then there are 8 possible known games, unless one or more of them that I know of is the same one. These are the ones I have heard about 1. Mine 2. Another owned by the US collector I got mine from 3. The loose one Taki sold which has changed hands a few times since 4. The boxed one Mike has 5. Ramrodius's boxed one 6. The loose one I saw on ebay in 2000. I already provided the serial so this will help to determine if it's unique or has appeared since. 7. The one purchased by Northfrost 8. (unconfirmed) Taki's second one. 5. I could have sworn that there was a second white crab grab. Perhaps I'm getting confused! 6. It's fair to say that we've only got a record of a tiny percentage of the games that ever existed. There are only 187 supercolor serials in the database, that's 0.04% of all the 400,000 games that the serial numbers would imply. Working upwards from the 8 white spitballs that we think exist and that gives you a figure of 17,000 white games! It sounds like too many to be true but if we've only seen 0.04% of them..... No news on those other 2 serials yet, but rest assured I'll be straight here if I get them! Andy
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Post by mpanayiotakis on Nov 2, 2009 20:01:54 GMT 2
Of course I knew that spitball was white underneath the silver paint.. Most old collectors do. I don't know how Aris got that impression. The reason I wrote my first post this way is because I wanted to present this like an article and let everyone know about this, especially new collectors who don't know much about special or strange releases..
Andy since we don't know how many white games were produced we can't possible know how many of them (statistically) we've seen already. Considering their rarity my guess is that less than 10,000 were made, probably a lot less..
Michael
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Post by Aris on Nov 3, 2009 10:14:43 GMT 2
LOL!! Mike, I got that impression from the wording in the opening post of this thread. I like to think my English is pretty good, so, when someone says: "It seems that underneath the metal cover the Supercolor games are white....." to me, that sounds like someone who wasn't aware they were white underneath. Now that you've explained why you wrote it the way you did, then, okay, I guess both you and Andy knew they were white underneath..... All I know is that I didn't know they were white underneath! LOL! Anyway, I've got some news for everyone, but no new serials or anything. I've sent a few of you (whose personal e-mails I have on my contacts list) the spreadsheet I've been working on, and so far, the feedback has been good. I have 215 serials in my Excel spreadsheet database, the majority of which, came from Patrick, so, just wanted to say a BIG thanks to Patrick for gathering all those numbers for me, and more importantly for us as a community of collectors. I've heard back from Taki (he was on your forum earlier today, so, no doubt he read some of the recent posts) as well as the seller of Paul's white CG game. I'll start with Paul's WCG source: She explained to me that she was helping a friend sell off items that he has in a storage facility. Apparently, this friend has two large garages full of random items from music instruments to games, etc... She guessed that the WCG game was something this guy had from his younger days and at that time, she recalled that he had handed her a few of those types of games which she has already sold. She going to ask him if he has anymore. So, that should take care of any doubts as to the authenticity of the WCG's serial. Now, on to Taki's e-mail to me: Taki confirmed that he still has a WSS game in his possession, and that he sold one earlier (this is the one that is now with Paul). He says the one he kept is in much better condition. He said he really would love to help with the serial #, but, he doesn't have access to his entire collection for a short period. He did give me the serial # for a regular SS he currently has in his store, so, I've added that to the database. He also gave his opinion on the White version of Supercolour games and this is exactly what he said: "I believe that the white SS was an intentional release for certain countries, same thing like the Argentina game&watch. Some country law might ban the silver coating on toys for some reason. Just my 2 cents."Interesting point made by Taki. That "some reason" I'm guessing would have to do with high mercury/lead levels in silver paint. Were they aware of that sort of thing in the 80s? I mean, I hear about that all the time now, but, maybe that's just because I'm a parent. Regardless, it's a good point, can anyone shed some light on this new possible reason for WSS and WCG games? Rene, sorry, I missed your question from an earlier post. You asked if these games popped up on ebay US only. Well, it seems as though 6 of the known games "kinda" (I say kinda b/c I don't know where Taki and the others ORIGINALLY got their White Supercolour games from....) have origins in the USA: 1 - The boxed WCG Paul won. 2 - The boxed WSS Mike won. 3 - The loose WSS Mike won off Taki, that is now with Paul 4 - The other loose WSS Taki just confirmed with me that he has 5 - The loose WSS Andy owns came from a US collector 6 - The loose WSS this US collector owns himself Northfrost's WSS was sold on ebay with the seller's location being Spain. And I believe Mike or Andy said Ramrodius's was purchased at a carboot sale, which I'm guessing was within the UK. OMG! I can't believe I missed Andy's EDIT from Oct 29th where he provided yet another WSS serial number (S1389220)!!! Man, I must be daydreaming or something.... Okay, I added that one to the database Andy, thanks! Hmmm.... given this new information, perhaps they made 3500 White Spitball Sparky games - S1386000 - S1389499 I guess now, we'll just have to sit and wait for Taki, Ramrodius and the collector Andy got his WSS from to get us those WSS game serial numbers. Hey look, here's a link to Ramrodius's WSS! gameandwatch0.tripod.com/supercolor.htmlToo bad it doesn't include pics of the back of his games... Okay, I've read, more or less, all the posts within the links Andy provided regarding previous discussions about WSS games, and I saw that the discussion of Supercolour games being white underneath did come up, so, now I see why Andy said "we already all knew that!" I stand corrected. AC out PS Mike, Andy, or anybody else that might know, is there a way to add an Excel file to this site? Or, is there a way to add the database I'm working on to this site, so others can see it too?
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