Lester Knight wrote:
I am curious if this story will continue. Paypal siding with you looks good in your behalf. I hope you use that momentum and call a lawyer to go after this person who tried to defraud you.

Great idea in theory, but speaking as a lawyer, totally impractical. He can’t personally pursue criminal charges against the guy (that’s up to police or some other state entity), he can only file a civil action. But since he got his money back, the courts would say the case is moot.

Now, if ebay wants to file a civil action against the guy, they can – they’re the ones who lost money, in the end.

KR155E wrote:
That was most likely just a regular Mario’s Tennis cart with a Blockbuster sticker that had the working title on it. I had one once. Found a photo here: https://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6993&post_id=39477#forumpost39477

Thanks! That definitely makes me feel better. I would have been very disappointed to get that in the mail.

Ethan.Snyder98 wrote:
Anyone else have a story of a crazy deal in the past they missed out on?

Maybe 7 or 8 years ago (?), before prices skyrocketed, a guy posted a listing on ebay with a VB and “Mario’s Dream Tennis.” I wrote to say the proper title was Mario’s Tennis, and he responded that “this one says Mario’s Dream Tennis.” For some reason, I didn’t follow up and bid. Not sure what I was thinking. Can’t even recall if I checked the closing price.

ArcadeDanger wrote:
Neat find! Blockbuster was such a big part of our lives and that’s all gone now…

Not all gone – there’s one remaining in Bend, Oregon. 2 in Alaska closed a year or 2 ago, and the last one in Australia closed last March, leaving just the one in Oregon – the only one in the world. But I’m betting they’re not still renting VB games!

vuefinder83 wrote:
Perhaps these were intended for the managers of Blockbuster and were not intended to be rented out to the public like the cases with the standard handles that fit the security bar were…🤔

LOL – I think you’re way overthinking this! Those may have been a prototype run, or they changed vendors in the middle of production, or they found a bunch of leftover handles somewhere, and decided to use them. I can’t imagine anyone at Nintendo or Blockbuster making a conscious decision to make special handles for managers. But I’ve been wrong before. 😉

Well, I don’t need one, because my case is still in great shape, but I must say that this is pretty damn impressive. Truly a labor of love. Not cheap, but you can definitely see the work involved. And I’m glad to see it’s not an exact replica, because the original should still be distinct.

It’s funny that you say the Japan version can hold all 19 Japanese games – it’s great that you put the space in there for that, but can you see anyone actually stacking their Gundam, SI, VLab and Insmouse in there? 😉

I assume you saw this, tho it doesn’t show how to disassemble it.
http://blog.beforemario.com/2011/12/nintendo-color-tv-game-15-service.html

Interesting. Don’t think my case has that. How big is it? Where does it go? What kind of paper/adhesive are you using?

I don’t think you can find Spy Hunter or Defender on the WalMart site using ANY keywords, including the exact title they use on their site – “Games Spy Hunter Mini Arcade Game” and “Games Defender Mini Arcade Game”. But if you use the UPC to search, they come up:
Spy Hunter: 885561096408
Defender: 885561096026

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Looks pretty “handy” 🙂

Don’t quit your day job! 😉

My case has something I’ve never seen on any other VB Blockbuster case – it’s a metal plate around the handle that’s designed so that, when you pull up on the handle, it locks in place against the case, and two “lips” grab the ridges in the case, preventing it from falling open. This was clearly a back-up to prevent disaster if someone went to pick up the case without snapping it closed. The only downside is that the handle won’t fold down far with it in place, so I usually remove it. I just put it back on for these pics.

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Well, there have certainly been more than 2 on ebay, so I’d chalk that up to hyperbole. (I also own one.)

Not sure why “Sega” is in the title, other than to try to garner more views.

Because it was one of the first releases, before it was clear the system was going to bomb, and they WAY over-produced them. Then nobody bought it because it wasn’t even one of the better VB games. So there are tons of them that were never opened.

Unfortunately, the videogame hobby is filled with unscrupulous people. Years ago, I sold a very rare Dreamcast prototype game on ebay. It required a special DC boot disc, which went with it in the auction. WIthout the boot disc, it was pretty much worthless. A guy bought it, then wrote to me a couple of days after he received it to plead that he couldn’t really afford it, and asked me to let him return it for a refund. He was relentless. But I knew the guy’s rep – he had clearly copied it, and was trying to defraud me. I declined.

He later listed the game on ebay, but wasn’t including the boot disc, and failed to mention that the game woudn’t run without it. What a sleazebag.

Unfortunately, too many of us have stories like that.

In all the years I’ve been collecting VB stuff (since it was released), I’ve never seen this.

Welcome!

It’s a denim shirt. I have one.

Wrong pic?

If they were duped, they may have a recourse through ebay.

So, I have a friend in Japan who owns a couple of vintage game stores, and also happens to be a huge VB fan. I asked him which game was more rare, VLab or VBowl. Here’s his response: “I think Nintendo never announced production number of VB games. I guess minimum production number exists and both games were released not for making profit but both company need to fix [minimize] their loss. Therefore I think almost same numbers were made. J-Wing(VLab company) was free to sell VLab to individual customer like me [i.e., direct retail sales to customers]. On the other hand Athena (VBowling company) was much more strict [i.e., wholesale only – no direct retail sales to customers]. Taito (Space Invader company) and Bandai (Gundam Dimension War company) are big and much more strict than other 2 companies. So I guess they disposed their games like Atari E.T.” So it looks like it was a toss-up between VLab and VBowl, in terms of sales. In terms of quality – well, that’s a whole other issue!