General

On December 9, 2023 by Jonathan Zdziarski

I’ve previously written about auditing a graded video game, and some of the techniques that can be used to authenticate them. Now, I bring to you a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate what a counterfeit game looks like, and how to spot one. It was a cold December day, when I came across an auction on Yahoo JP by seller hiroki888dorakue: a sealed Legend of Zelda Famicom game listed as “new”. Not only new, but had the coveted yellow “Disk System” text in the upper left corner, which only existed on early issue versions of the game. I own three additional copies of this game, two with the yellow text and one with the white text, a change Nintendo made in later production runs.

The seller had 70 positive reviews and only one negative review, which would lead some to believe he’s trustworthy. Most Japanese proxy bidding sites, however, often require hundreds of positive feedbacks before they’ll even allow you to buy from a merchant. There are other problems on the American auction sites. For example, user geisha-exports has sold me a few counterfeits in the recent past, but when eBay issues a refund, the seller can have their negative feedback removed. As a result, no one knows that some of these sellers are cashing in on fakes.

Now, there are a few noticeable red flags with this auction. First, a typical collector will post more than just a front and back photo. Auctions with such little detail are often trying to hide something. A serious collector also generally doesn’t photograph their games on the floor. But that aside, there are some technical red flags here too.

While not immediately obvious unless you’re looking for it, the photos are clear enough to make out that there’s a significant amount of wear on the UPC code, as well as the packaging, but the seal looks absolutely brand new. Nintendo’s Famicom disk seals are designed to be tamper-evident. As a result, they’re very easy to damage. I have several copies of games with hairline scratches, scrapes, and even parts of the VOID text showing through – because they’re designed to be super easy to damage. For a game to be this dirty, but have a clean and perfect seal is certainly suspicious. Other auctions I’ve seen also tend to have crooked seals, which is another sign of a counterfeit game. I’ve never seen an authentic Nintendo game with a crooked seal, and in all likelihood they were sealed by a machine. A crooked seal is a fake seal.

This seal, however, looked straight. The seal is visibly identical in measurements to an authentic Famicom Disk System sticker seals, and in fact measured exactly when I received it. While this sticker is in fact a fake, there’s not enough detail in the photos to see the difference in its sheen and lack of VOID under-printing, which I’ll also show later in this post. Other possibilities? One might first consider perhaps it could be a replacement Nintendo seal; stores were known to have replacement seals for items that were damaged. Those retail seals, however, were intentionally made 1cm larger than the original Famicom seal, and very easy to spot in photos by comparing the space from the sticker to the package cutout. Replacement retail seals also have VOID under-printing.

From what little you can see of the packaging, one other thing that is noticeable are the sides bulging out around the rivets. This is pretty typical for a game that’s been heavily used, had heavy things placed on it, been exposed to water, or just not well cared for. Lastly, the price was a giveaway: a sealed, yellow label version of this game today sells for around $1,500-$2,000. This item had a Buy-it-Now price of only around $200.

In spite of the red flags, I decided to take a chance on this, if for any reason to write a blog post like this about it. So what did I end up with?

One of the best ways to authenticate a Famicom Disk game is with the help of an ultraviolet light source. I have several, but my favorite is the Jaxman U1c. It’s light, compact, and just the right power level to inspect things this small in your closet. I also recommend buying yellow, orange, and red filtered glasses, as each will pick up the fluorescence of different types of fluids and oils.

The first thing I inspected was, of course, the sketch seal. In person, it’s easy to see that the seal is too shiny compared to the slightly-matte seals that Nintendo made. Under an ultraviolet light, even more is special about this seal. As shown in the photo below, the seal is much more opaque than an authentic Famicom Disk System seal, but the one thing to notice is that there is no VOID under-printing. It is normally very easy to get it to show on an authentic game, but absolutely nothing on this seal was showing through.

Another thing that fluoresced under the UV light was some residue on the top of the manual, through the packaging. This is consistent with the types of oils one leaves when sweaty hands have handled an item.

There’s enough evidence here to convince me that this item had been previously opened, and that the seal was a fake. So I did what any self-respecting game enthusiast would do, and opened the package.

The seal was a real pain to get off, because it’s one of those modern foil seals as opposed to the ones Nintendo designed to be easy to break off. It’s real easy to see in person just how shiny the sheen is compared to a the authentic seals. It’s also real easy to see that there’s no VOID under-printing on this fake seal, and it left no evidence of itself on the packaging either.

Now that the game is open, let’s take a closer look inside! There was all kinds of touching going on on the printed materials of this game. The wear on the manual edges itself showed it has some considerable use, and the inserts had clear evidence of coming in contact with oils or other liquids.

The jewel case itself had some very clear signs of use and wear, which became a lot easier to spot once outside the packaging. The last person to use the game also left what looks like a thumbprint on the wax envelope!

I took an image using FDSStick connected to a Famicom Disk drive, and loaded it into OpenEmu. My absolute favorite part about this counterfeit was the fact that there were saved games still on the disk.

So there you have it. This is what a legit counterfeit of a sealed Famicom game circulating through the auction scene looks like. The game and materials are legit, however it looks like someone shoved a used game back into its box and then stuck a fake seal on it. Naturally, I opened up the correct disputes and will likely get my money back. For the average person collecting these, this fake used game could have ended up sitting in someone’s prized collection for years. It’s important to always keep a skeptical eye when buying collector’s items. Never just assume that seals can’t be copied, or that games are authentic because they look old. Don’t assume that good feedback is enough to trust a seller. And in everything you do, bring a good UV light source with you!