There has long been an outstanding dispute about how many grey 1990 NWCs were produced.  Websites tell us 90, yet we have seen these number up to the 300's which has many believe there are potentially 300 out there.

Well, I had the opportunity to receive a message from a 1990 NWC road crew.  And I believe them because they had hats and other 1990 NWC items listed for sale.

In any event, they let me know a little bit of information about why the numbers go up so high.  As they would bring these carts to the various competitions, the labels are made very cheaply.  And as such the labels would become damaged during travels.  Well what happened when a cart would have a damaged label?  They would print out a new one - whichever number came sequentially next in order.  This may explain why we have never seen very low numbered copies as those carts still exist, but exist with a higher number due to the label being messed up and the road crew members were authorized to reprint a label for the cart.

oh, so these carts were used even before the 1990 NWC competition?

but then why do the labels read 1990 nintendo world championships?

the final event was the 1990 nwc main event...but you had to win in your state to win there ...

The NWC was a traveling events. several competitions all over the nation. So what Antofarabia is saying is that throughout the competition the labels would get messed up just through wear and tear, then the road crew would print new labels.

Interesting idea, never thought that would explain the numbering system, but it very well could. I kinda don't believe there were just 90, cause those all went to finalists and some carts were found in the possession of NOA employees, not many, but still a handful.

That's definitely an interesting idea, but it doesn't make sense. If this were the case, why bother numbering them at all? And if so, why bother incrementing the number? They would've just given the game the same number, which would keep track of the item as inventory. If they incremented the numbers, they'd surely lose track of them. I'm not going to say I call BS 100% on that guy's story, but it really doesn't add up.

I don't really believe it either. The simple story seems the most likely, that 400-500 were manufactured at once, 90 of those were given as unplanned prizes, and a few others (2 known?) were taken by employees. Label swapping would also likely have shown up in double layers of labels and some being significantly different paper or glue. There may simply not be enough samples to decide either way. Low numbers being tossed when they get damaged would be just as likely as an explanation as label replacement.  New labels also hasn't been mentioned by the people who we know worked on the contest.

I also find it a bit hard to believe. Weren't the competitions taking place in two places at once occasionally (I remember reading this somewhere)? In that case, different road crew may have printed labels exclusive from each other, and there should be carts with the same # out there.

Sorry, fat fingers. See post below.....

Hey guys, I have been tracking the sales of these carts and I have a link to an NWC auction that may answer your question. There is a Q/A posting that is likely the same guy you are talking about. He actually says the carts were replaced due to malfunction or being MIA. He says he brought home 3 himself. It makes sense because with a big deal competition that they were advertising, they would not want to have someone's games freeze (like we have all experienced before at that vital moment). In the end it would make more than 90 carts. Whether they were discarded or not, we may never know because I'm sure some are probably in the landfill somehere and it would likely be impossible to track them all. That makes much more sense to me. Take a look for yourselves.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=29021...

haha..that is antofarbia's auction...probably want prompted the start of this thread. This seems like some random BS to me, makes not sense what so ever. Over the course of an event, there is NO way they would ever possibly need to print 800+ different labels. Hell, they probably didn't even go to 800 different places over the course of it.
~~NGD

I am 100% positive ther are moe than 116 of these out there.  There are probably at least a few hundred of the greys out there.  No doubr about it!

Let's assume the label replacement story is correct. 150 carts were produced ever, enough to cover the 90 grays, 26 golds, and lots of extras. In order to get to the highest number found of 343 there would have been 180+ new labels produced. That means on average each original cart gets more than 1 new label. All numbers 1-150 should be gone but a few 80s and many 100s have been found.

Even if you assume 200 or 250 carts were produced at the start, getting the numbers up to 343 is still a huge amount of replaced labels. The distribution for the random 90 carts given away should be shifted far to the high end but it seems fairly even with the small sample set.

At least 119 carts have been confirmed to have left the competition by Rob Budrick in interviews with Ben Smith. The rest were likely recycled as memory chips were expensive at that time.

I read that online article as well. I also read an article that I believe was by Brian Sulpher, if I am not mistaken that rumors that around 200 carts were actually given out to employees. He talked with Ben Smith as well. I have posted a link below (although most have probably read it), that seems to back up what I say. However, I cannot get the original article to come up, only fragments when I type Nintendo World Championships 200 employees in Yahoo search. The link posted does not repeat the rumored 200 number. They only say unknown amount. I should have bookmarked it >_< These rumored 200 carts would account for any large descrepancy if it was true.

http://www.rfgeneration.com/cgi-b...

There are obvously more than 90 carts, that'd be under 2 carts per state per tournament, so only two people could compete at a time?

There were 90 carts officially given out to contestants of the 1990 NWC, other carts have leaked from those running it or working at Nintendo just as many prototypes are leaked from Nintendo.

The officially number will probably remain unknown, but it's more than 90.

But the contest wasn't in all 50 states at the same time, it was a traveling event. There were finalists from 30 cities, and http://www.nesplayer.com/features... lists the dates of 12 that do not overlap. Need to find photos or references of how many NWC stations were set up at a typical location.

Isn't there a link to contact Rob Budrick on one of those postings somewhere? I have been reading up and I could swear that he invited people to contact him about it somewhere. Who better to ask right than a contestant, right?

This is a little late to add to this thread, but I swear there had to be a couple hundred set up at in the competition area. I remember the walk around to choose a machine was no quick walk past 90 machines. Then at the finals in Hollywood, there were 90 machines set up for all the finalist to practice on at the same time. And that was in a small ballroom at the Hotel. Granted its been a while, but I'm sure the competition area at the NWC events was a lot larger than where they had those 90 terminals set up.

Hi Folks,

I think I can clear SOME of this confusion. Labels on games were not reprinted. The games were made and assembled in Japan and shipped here. I spoke to one of the folks that worked in the production office at the NWC event. He was actually the road crew chief who got bored when he wasn't hauling or setting up and had the office folks give him extra work to do for extra cash. One of the things he often did was tedious things like printing out those passes that went around your neck for the crew and such. They would get lost or ruined all the time and he often took care of that...he would do up stacks of those.

Now, about 120 games DEFINITELY existed, with the number likely far more (116 to the finalists and NP winers, 4 discovered with photographic proof outside of them.  For the story on when I discovered the 117th, the first outside the known 116 ever, see here: http://www.neswarpzone.com/bensmi... ). NOA was stingy about sending too many carts to the competition, so techs complained they didn't have enough (I've got the name of the lead electrical tech that handled all things like this at the event, I just have been super-busy and have not contacted him yet) and there were some failures, so NOA sent more. Many employees took advantage of this and pocketed a few for themselves. NOA then sent more. So, with employees snagging them left and right, 116 were given out to people, there were some failed carts, and I have discovered at least 4 outside of the 116 given out to finalist and NP contest winners, you can bet that a LOT were made. However, no number above 343 has been found, and The VP of Mega Inc, the agency that handled the tour told me he thought between 500 and 1000 were made, but he probably wasn't even close to sure, imo.

Now that I think of it, since they kept having to order more, it may very well be that NO ONE knows how many were made. However, I have a few leads on a few folks that might that worked in the office. A few people that would know are simply unreachable: Gail Tilden, Howard Lincoln, and Minoru Arakawa (sp?). They were the bigwigs behind the event happening. If anyone can score their contact info, I would be most grateful...though I doubt Arakawa San would reply...then again,  I'd imagine he speaks fluent English, having worked in America so long, so maybe he would.

-Rob

yeah I don't believe they reprinted the lables.

Has anyone ever thought of the possibility of high quality fakes?? I know I'll probably catch a lot of shit for bringing this up, but come on...ANYTHING man-made can be reproduced with the right equipment and skill...Look at the Retrozone repros...even the dip-switches are on them...Who's to say that someone isn't putting a repro board in a grey cart, cutting a square out of the damn thing, adding a similar dipswitch, and printing a label (that they of course purposefully age)...Im just saying, it CAN be done and probably has been...Especially when there is some serious profit to be made!!

^ Have you seen the PCB for this game? That would definitely take some doing...

I have not...but how many eBay auctions for this item show the PCB board???  How many owners have taken the game apart to see the board???  Just saying, it can be done and it would be sugar coated to think it hasn't

That's part of why the serious collectors have done so much legwork to document the lineage of these things all the way back to the original owners.

If a GOOD fake shows up, then that may signal a tipping point where the game will only be of value if you can show the provenance of the item through solid documentation.

If the buyer doesn't have the item to physically inspect, it won't matter if your fake is amazingly good or bad. Poor pictures or carefully taken pictures will always make an average fake look like the original. For something like eBay you could even just steal pictures and never have the original. Once the item is in hand the it is much easier to tell, but then it is too late.

If you already have an NWC it is relatively easy to make a very good copy. It would cost a few hundred but selling just one would easily cover that. Eventually I will make my fake, and it will take someone with a knowledge of dot printing to tell the difference

^^^ I think it's fair to say that currently, the known guys with the ability to make a good fake have nothing to gain and EVERYTHING to lose.

Frankly, I'm not concerned about it since the thing is way out of my price range for a collectible. But as you point out, it is MUCH easier to simply scam somebody with bad pictures through eBay.