Ok, so I was able to snag a 3 screw Stinger cart in a BIN on Ebay in December and I started researching the history of it.

in the earlier days of NA people were saying it didn't exist. Later people began to think that the few copies that have surfaced were factory errors.

Some were saying they've never seen a Non-Hangtab Stinger box, which would presumably be the missing link - as long as it said REV-A.

We even have Braveheart - whom I feel is the expert on just about everything NES - saying that a non-hangtab Stinger box didn't exist less than a year ago.



I knew I sold (yes, SOLD!) a Stinger box a few years ago and digging though my pictures I found it...Here you go, the REV-A Non-Hangtab Stinger Box:





Here is the cart I currently have if that is of any interest:






Someone more knowledgeable than me might be able to conclusively say that this proves that 3 screw Stinger is not a mismatch or fake.

Ferris Bueller wrote an article about this in last month's E-zine, which is what got me thinking about this actually. 

Anyways...thoughts?

looks pretty legit. that's fantastic.

Always thought that box existed otherwise why would there be 3 screw carts.

Any idea how many of these 3 screw Stinger variants are out there? If it was a factory error the window coudn't have been more than days? Weeks?

That is awesome to see. One of the fun things with NES and with NA is finding things almost thirty years later that are essentially "new" to our database of collective knowledge. Thanks very much for digging to find this and post. Very cool!

It's in beautiful shape as well. Awesome piece!

Yes, I totally agree with this as well.  

It is really exciting to see new items still being discovered even after all of these years.  

Awesome box pics. The hunt is on!

Awesome! Something new to look for.

No the question is can you buy the box back?

neat set, that is for sure =0)

That looks great.

Sweet, now why did you sell that box

Wow, that's super cool!

I have since contacted the buyer and made a generous offer. But, understandably, they are going to hold onto it.


I had no idea what I had. At that point in my collecting life you could have told me that all Stingers were non-HT and I would have believed you. 

The reason I sold it was I didn't like the paint missing from the front. Derp.

Great, now the price of three screw non-hangtab Stingers are going to go through the roof.

I know this is probably not the place for it but I have just started getting into NES CIB and variants. A Hangtab box indicates the game that came with it was a 5 screw, correct? What does the Rev-A marking mean?

No, not necessarily.  There are 65 hangtab boxes and about 85 5 screw games.  Hangtab box production ended about 3 months before 5 screw game production switched to 3 screws.  Rev-A denotes the change to 3 screw games, but you will find some instances where the contents are the opposite of what the box says, as Nintendo used up leftover parts during the overlap periods.

 

I see. Very useful info. Thank you. So Rev-A should not be printed on any 5 screw carts then? For some reason I feel like I have some 5 screw games with Rev-A printed on the back. Sorry again for the painfully noobish questions, I am just starting to delve into the variant NES collection world.

 

Well his statement is true... hangtab box = 5 screw cart.  It is just that the opposite is not true, as some 5 screw carts do not have confirmed hangtab boxes (like Zelda.)

Yes it shouldn't, and most times will not be.  I have a few though myself.  Again, just leftover parts use that makes things confusing.  

 

Zelda is an anomoly though (like Arkanoid) because it uses a unique die for the box with the cutout in the front.  I'm sure Nintendo knew they would be phasing out the hangtab, so when this die was created, the hangtab was left off.  Maybe they felt the game would be good enough to be reprinted later and didn't want to have multiple dies used for one title.  Just an educated guess though.

But to clarify: All 65 hangtab boxes came with 5 screw carts originally.  After hangtab box production ended, about 20 more 5 screw games were relased with non-hangtab boxes.



 

Thanks for all the info guys. So a 5 screw with a Rev-A marking is basically either a misprint but most likely just leftover pieces to complete carts. Those extra pieces I'm assuming are just the back labels? I guess I just don't understand how a 3 screw can be made into a 5 screw without literally modifying the cart itself to have 2 extra screw holes. Unless they just threw new labels onto older 3 screw carts and swapped boards? Again, if this is all posted somewhere please let me know. I don't wanna keep asking these noob questions here and waste people's time.

It's just the stickers that were mismatched.  That's how you would know it was a factory mismatch, because the 3 screw and 5 screw cart shells are different.  

So if you have a 5 screw back with a Rev-A sticker, it is a factory mismatch from using leftover parts.  On the otherhand, I have a 3 screw cart with a non-Rev-A sticker too.  But you'll see these aren't the norm, and are harder to come by.
 

There are also some Black Box variants that just make no sense at all as well. I chalk that up to just being sooooo early in the production life that they didn't know what they were going to go with.