Game:  Golf
Okay, so I bought this off of ebay the other day for the high price of $3.94 shipped. 

Here's the pic:

Now, any guesses?  Is this a Prototype or did some kid get over excited in ripping off his game labels?

Ebay seller description:

"The Labels are gone, both front and back. The Plastic is in Good Condition however. However, due to the cosmetic condition, the price is cut in half. This is a great deal if you just want something to play and don't care what it looks like. What you see in the photo above, is what you get, nothing else is included.

This game works perfectly, and has been professionally cleaned, inside and out. The Metal Contacts have been gently polished until perfection. There are no stickers, no goo, no marker, no dirty contacts, no worries!"

Pros

-          "The Labels are gone, both front and back" which seems odd to me that the back label would be missing

-          Looks as if no label was ever there... "no stickers, no goo" very clean looking, too clean looking...

-          A good number of other Taito protos have been found

 

Cons

-          Prototypes are rare and probably much rarer then kids who destroyed game labels

-          IF the game has actually been "cleaned inside and out" and was a proto I would think the        seller would notice the board looks way different then a normal board. 

 

So in conclusion, I give it about a 2% chance of being a prototype, but for less than $4.00 I'll take that chance.  I'll post what I find out once I get the cart in a few days, until then what does everyone else think?

Looks like the label was removed and one there at one point from the discoloration of the plastic where the label isn't. My wager is not a prototype, just a standard copy with a ripped label somebody removed.

X2

^^^Thats true, I did notice that after the fact, but I'm still holding out hope. If its not a proto then maybe I'll send it to Paul for his crappy cart collection...

what board type is it? Is it a decent donor for anything just in case?

Always a good idea, getting it to Paul that is. Having someone wanting beat up carts has added a new objective to game hunting.

iNES Mapper: 1
128K Program ROM.
128K Character ROM.
(NES-SLROM)

If you really want to know, just open it up. It will take all of ten seconds to figure it out after having a look at the board.

You are going to have to take a pic of the guts of the cart to know for sure if it's a prototype. Can't really tell by the cart plastic if it's a proto or not (in most cases).

It is NOT a proto the label was taken off recently, that's why the cart is yellow and the label area is still grey.

Ripped label.

You can tell by the uneven discoloration between the case and the label area that a label was present for long enough, protecting the plastic, and preventing it from somewhat degrading to the funkier darker color.

Def. not a proto... but I've eaten my words before...

Honestly, like MrMark said, just open the game and find out. I really don't understand the point of making a thread about this when all the facts (including the simplest one) have not been uncovered.

Does he even have it yet?

I'm going to guess that the biggest fact is that it was developed in Japan by Taito, so there should be no US proto's. Thats the only thing I can think of.

It doesn't work that way.  Plenty of protos of games that were first developed and released in Japan are produced in the US, many with differences from the final version.  Typically they're translation or region changes, but they're still not uncommon.

If anything changes from one region to the next, code would have to be changed and the game would need to be tested along the way.

That was just a guess. Haha, Mark, can you point out the obvious thing that DreamTR is talking about?

We were just saying that the board is the most telling indication of if it's a proto or not.  If the owner has the means, opening it up and looking at the board for all of 5 seconds will pretty much squash any speculation.

can you please just open it up and check?

Maybe everyone should read the whole post before they comment. He said he does not have the game yet and will check when he gets it.

Yep, no worries everyone. Like I said, I'm sure its not a proto. But I promise to open it up and post pictures when I get the cart. Its in the mail should hopefully be here in the next few days.

Only one of those were suggesting just opening it up, All others were just stating that the only way to truly know is to open it up. Of course thats right. I hope it turns out to be a proto though, because the story would be crazy how everyone thought it wasn't. lol.

Yeah my odds of this being a proto are.....one in a couple trillion. But still, there's always the one winning lottery ticket somewhere.

I think its odd that all the labels are perfectly torn off

It's called water and lots of time and elbow grease. I've torn the label off many of my carts and man....it's terrble. But I don't like using the heat gun because it deforms the cart. haha.


Let me post pictures in advance:  http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/pr...

We did read the initial post. Why start a thread then if the thing is not open? We're all going to say it needs to be opened, LOL