#BOOTLEG NES GAMES SERIAL NUMBERS#
#BOOTLEG NES GAMES SERIAL NUMBER#

On these flash chips, you see 'NES-PY-0'. It is laser etched on the chip after the game is flashed to the ROM chips.

#BOOTLEG NES GAMES SERIAL NUMBER#

This serial number should be partially printed on the chip that holds the ROM data.

#BOOTLEG NES GAMES SERIAL NUMBERS#

Regardless, the serial numbers can be easily found online for any specific game. For our example, see #1 in the first image. Some earlier carts (the NES black labels), these may not have the serial number printed on the label but from probably 1986 on, all Nintendo games should have these serial numbers. For your specific system, do some quick googling of where this is located. I'll be referencing the annotated points on these images:Д®ach Nintendo game usually has a serial number printed somewhere on the cartridge.

Open the cartridge and look for the following signs of legitimacy.ДЇor this list of items to search for, I'll be using Paperboy as an example. These are used to open up Nintendo hardware since they use special screws on their games. The first thing you will need to do is purchase a cartridge screwdriver set like this one. If you can't buy it through a reputable dealer then be sure to see the game in person and check out the game with your own eyes and hands before making a purchase. You will still want to verify the cartridge with these steps but it helps to have a way to back out, assuming you buy a cartridge and find out it's a fake. Otherwise, they will get bad rep for selling bootlegs. They know which games are rare and if they have a great reputation, then they know that they HAVE to do this checking themselves. If you are in the market for a really valuable cartridge or if the game happens to be super-hot and easy to sell at the moment, then you may want to take the next step to verify the legitimacy of the cartridge.ДЇirst, if you know of a super-reputable store online that has a great return policy, you can trust them. It is worth mentioning because an old title like Gyromite may very well have a Famicom converter in it and those cartridges way more because of the extra hardware. The Famicome-to-NES converter isn't super rare, but it is uncommon. These were limited to just a select early titles. The only exception to the weight of of some cartridges is that early NES games would have a Famicom to NES converter board in the cartridge. It's not visibly noticeable but you can easily feel it if you've handled your share of NES cartridges. The games often feel a little thicker too, because these chips often take up all of the space within the height of the cartridge and make it slightly bulge. Does the cart feel heavier than most, or another game of the same type? Some of the earlier bootlegs used cheap EPROM chips and they are thicker and noticeably heavier.Are the corners of the labels rounded or square? Legit labels are rounded on the corners, where square corners are certainly fake.The roughness in texture comes from the nature of making a duplicate from an original. This is because most bootleg cases come from a mold that was made from original cartridge shell. Personally, I think some bootlegs often feel a little like worn sand paper- slightly grittier than the standard texture. If you are not buying it online feel the plastic texture.This stamp is not on bootlegs and I've never seen a legit Nintendo cartridge pre-DS era without them. This is a QA stamp so that if there are any problems when a game is released to the public, Nintendo can identify the manufacturing source from within their assembly factories. If the cart doesn't have a caution label (like the handheld games) then it's pressed on the front label. You should see at least 2-digits pressed into the caution label on the back. If it's a Nintendo cartridge, check the labels for an impressed stamp.If the cropping of the image is off, it's a bootleg. If the bootlegger could find a better image on, say, a poster, they would take it and then crop it into a similar graphic overlay for all of the traditional SNES and 'Nintendo Seal of Quality' notes. Compare the image to other legit copies and look at image cropping.Kid Dracula for Game Boy is one example I have in my collection.

Still, it is worth comparing against an image of a legit version because a handful of games actually had poor images.

Most counterfeits use decent scans for reproduction labels, and the quality is more than obvious when you see it. Is it blurry? It's probably a fake if it is. Look for these qualities when attempting to identify counterfeit cartridges. There are a couple of tell-tale signs which actually seem common for just about all Nintendo, cartridge-based systems.

Bootleg nes games