Hola! 
First time poster. Thanks for approving the account, admins!

I've been hunting around for info on this gem. Got it for a couple of bucks at a yard sale! There is nothing on ebay for this particular sample cart. I'm looking to offload it to a sample cart collector. First inquiries on facebook groups I frequent resulted in a value proposition anywhere between $300 and $1000. 

I would prefer not to ebay it because of the fees (I do most of my selling locally). But that may have to happen in order to get the most eyes on it. I was thinking of maybe putting it up as a buy it now at a ridiculous price, just to field offers from interested parties. Any thoughts?

Anyway, here she is!

Edit 1:

So, I'm trying to figure out if this is an earlier build of the game. Right now, I'm like 75% sure that it is. I dumped the cart to my retrofreak, and it was not recognized. The hash was not in their database, but it played 100% perfectly. The reason this doesn't make me 100% sure is because this can be a false flag. The retrofreak will give you a hash instead of the game title if a cart is screwed up, or if all the contacts aren't making proper contact.

That said, I have a friend who has modified his retron 5 to dump carts. So that's probably my next step in verifying that this is indeed not a release version. I can't really use the retrofreak dumps, because they get encrypted to the machine.

I'm considering getting a bare bones cart dumper for these kinds of things in the future. Any recommendations?

Edit 2:

Got some great findings. It looks like this is indeed a beta cart. Not sure to what extent the changes are, but I was able to get the cart dumped. I compared the individual chip dumps to the retail cart, and both the CHR and PRG chips have changes if you diff them. I'm supplying some screenshots of the diff here. 

I suspect that this will increase the value to a serious collector by a significant amount. Thoughts?

There are lots of prototype collectors here so I'm sure you will get some good info. Would recommend that you also start a thread in the seller's forum with a title like "FO - North and South Proto" and let people field you offers.

It would be best to dump the cart or try and compare to a retail release how different this cart is to the final release. Much earlier versions with alot of differences not found in the retail release make a proto copy more desirable rather than what is usually a retail copy on a dev board.
 

ooh, good call. I have a retrofreak that dumps carts. That's my only method though. I probably wouldn't be able to tell what the difference is except for maybe the CRC and file size. 
The date on the label (Aug 21 1990) is a few months before the release date of the game. (December 1990). So there's a chance!
Thanks for the tip!
 

Please keep us up to date on what you come up with. This is perhaps my favorite NES game and am very curious as to what you will find.

That close to release I can tell you it's likely the retail release. A company needs a few months to get boxes and boards created, then shipped to manufacturers.

That's a lusty piece thanks to Zi introducing the game to me. Will trade for it if you want to part with it  .

I loved renting North & South growing up. And to this day I will sometimes deliberately lose battles just to make a game last from January 1861 to April 1865.

Congrats on your find and good luck with the sale/trade. If I could I’d make an offer myself!

North and South is actually a good game? I got it around the same time as a couple others I played like crazy and never ended up giving it much of a shot. I guess I need to revisit it. 
 

tis a very good game

Excellent 2p game as well

Added some info to OP ^^. And to comment, I have never played the game until now, and I do like it. It's a slower, turn based kind of game. Think Risk, but you actually get to fight the battles instead of rolling dice to see who dies.  

I once owned this game but since I had no attachment to it and it was low on my backlog, it was trade fodder. Jeez, always check before you trade. I seem to recall I got a good deal but now I want to check it out, which means probablg buy/trade it back. Oh well. That's how it sometimes goes in this hobby.

The battles and strategy is pretty good, but I love the fort/train raid sequences. They are so cartoony and fun!

Looks like this might indeed be a beta cart. More info in the OP. ^^