So... uh, I played/verified NWC No. 308 today

[Slowman]

I know, right?  So my roommate noticed one for sale in Madison, WI a few months back.  He contacted the owner and asked if we could meet at a local game store just to see it and say that we saw it (neutral territory sort of thing).  We didn't hear back from him for awhile but he just contacted us last night and asked if we could meet up and help him test it out.  It had sold on eBay and the buyer wanted to see it working before it was shipped, however the seller did not own a NES and is not a collector.  The seller's uncle was contracted by Nintendo to help organize and run the NWC competition and he was able to keep the cartridge after the competition. The cartridge has literally been in a box since 1990 and this was the first time it hit a system since the competition.  His uncle recently gave it to him, not knowing it's value.  The seller himself did not know the value until he did an internet search several months back.

We did try it out in a toploader just for kicks and got a grey screen with 4 out of 5 tries.  Approximately 1 out of 5 times we would get a garbled start screen like you would get putting a dirty game into a dirty system but we could still see the "shield" that you get on the boot screen.  Started up first try in my toaster. 

I don't feel it's appropriate to state what it went for but I do know that it will be on it's way to a collector in Virginia on Monday of next week.  I feel honored that this game was in my system and that I was able to play some role in testing and verifying what it was.  Also, my score sucks, haha

[Boshamp]

Just to hold it would be an honor. I am guessing somewhere between 6,000-8,000 for the pricing? It is hard to estimate, how picky can one be about the peeled label?

[Slowman]

Yeah, just holding it was... WOW.  Suddenly, even the rarest things I own looked like Game Boy Tetris haha.  The transaction itself is not complete.  I'm biting my nails about it and I don't even have skin in the game, pun intended. 

Here is a reprint of a 1990 article detailing the uncle's involvement (Danny Socolof) - http://articles.philly.co...on-new-game-solar-striker

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Even in this day and age, we're still finding NWC cartridges that haven't been in circulation yet...

[mumboking]

Eek! Exposed EPROM windows!

[singlebanana]

Very, very cool man!

[Flee]

I.. I want to daintily clean it.

[Crabmaster2000]

Thats so cool!! I hope I can have the same honor some day

[Duke.Togo]

Amazing stuff. Must be great to be close to a grail.

[Beardcore84]

amazing!

[gbpxl]

I never had much interest in the NWC carts other than the simple fact that they're worth almost the same as a cheap house. I am too young and/or I was uninformed at the time to know about the contest they had going so the history behind it doesn't mean much for me. The cartridges seemed to be made solely for the contest and not really for the average consumer, which means 99.9% of us were never meant to play them.

There's nothing special about any of the games on the cartridge, they're 3 of the most common NES games ever produced. I have more interest in licensed NES games that received limited production runs but were meant to be released to the public.

I won't sit here and say that I'd pass up the opportunity to play it but like a supermodel, it's something I will never obtain and was never meant to. ;-)

[shaggy]

I never had much interest in the NWC carts other than the simple fact that they're worth almost the same as a cheap house. I am too young and/or I was uninformed at the time to know about the contest they had going so the history behind it doesn't mean much for me. The cartridges seemed to be made solely for the contest and not really for the average consumer, which means 99.9% of us were never meant to play them.

There's nothing special about any of the games on the cartridge, they're 3 of the most common NES games ever produced. I have more interest in licensed NES games that received limited production runs but were meant to be released to the public.

I won't sit here and say that I'd pass up the opportunity to play it but like a supermodel, it's something I will never obtain and was never meant to. ;-)

I remember going to Nintendo Fest when it came around and I played the "game" several times in the competition.

[shaggy]

Madison, WI

What?!  That's an hour away from me?!  Where?  Where?!