Famicom Jigsaw Puzzles are Awesome

 

I picked up these on Yahoo Auctions recently: four Famicom jigsaw puzzles!

I already had a couple of Famicom game jigsaw puzzles featuring Star Force and Yie Ar Kung Fu which I picked up a few years ago and look like this:

Those ones were produced by Amada, a company which put out a lot of Famicom related odds and ends back in the 80s.  The ones I got this week on the other hand were put out by a different company called Toyo.  In addition to featuring different games and coming in differently designed boxes the big difference between the two is size.  The Amada ones are small puzzles with only a dozen pieces, while the Toyo ones are bigger and contain 60 pieces each.

As the photo at the top of the post indicated the four I got were Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong Jr, Front Line and Exerion.  These games were put out by three different makers (Nintendo, Taito and Jaleco) whose company logos are on the front.  The Amada ones (at least the ones I have) featured games by Hudson Soft and Konami.  

The back of each box has a checklist of the six different puzzles.  In addition to the four I have they also made Wrecking Crew and Hyper Sports. I'll have to find those at some point so I can complete the set!

The back also tells us that these cost 100 Yen each back in 1985, which was a pretty good deal (I paid way more than that for them in 2020!)

The sides of the boxes say "Pocket Jigsaw Puzzle" in bold lettering:

The top edge of the boxes tell you which game is depicted:

These are pretty awesome.  They are all still sealed in their original bags inside the boxes, I think these are "dead stock" that were store leftovers.  I haven't broken them out to put them together because I bought them more for the box art than the puzzles themselves!

Interior Decor: Famicom Carts as Parquet Flooring? Wallpaper? Coffee Tabletop?

 Some carts I have more copies of than others.  Super Mario Bros, Spartan X, Excitebike and Donkey Kong Jr for some reason I have quite a few of.  They were pretty popular games back in the day and are pretty good games to play now.  Still though, I don`t relaly need 12 copies of each even though I have that many.

When you have 12 of the same Famicom cart you can organize them into 3 by 4 squares which, when put together with other carts you have 12 of, can open up some interesting interior decorating ideas.

 Parquet type flooring is one.  You would have to put them under some sort of sturdy, extremely thick plexiglass to prevent them from being broken though, which would be expensive to install.  Maybe not the best idea.

 They would make for a great coffee-table top too, just put a piece of glass over them and you are golden.  Definitely a cool conversation starter.

They would also work pretty good as wallpaper if you had some way of attaching them to the wall wtihout damaging them.  Probably there is some way of doing this.  A wall covered with Famicom carts in 3 by 4 squares would look  pretty awesome.  If I ever open up a Famicom cafe, that is how I am going to decorate it.

I`m Back Again: My CIB Small-box Nintendo Famicom Collection

As the part of the title that precedes the colon states, I`m back.  Well, I never left really, I have just been too busy.  Today I am home sick from work (just a cold, nothing to worry about) and for the first time in 2013 I find myself with a few spare moments to devote to my beloved blog.

Ah how I have missed it.  I thought I would do a post on one of my sub-collections - the small box early Nintendo carts CIB.

This is a very difficult to name series because it doesn`t quite correspond to the pulse line carts - Hogan`s Alley for example doesn`t have a pulse line version of the cart but has one of these boxes while Devil World, which does have a pulse line cart, was only sold in the larger silver boxes so far as I know. So tempted though I am, I can`t just refer to it as a CIB set of the pulse line carts even though that is almost what they are.  That means, you know, just look at the pictures to figure out which CIB games I am talking about here.

These, along with the early Namco boxes of similar size, are my favorite Famicom games in terms of boxes.  They just have the right balance of size, color and evocative-yet-simple artwork on the cover to lure me in.  If I had been a kid in 1983 and been confronted with a sales display full of these I definitely would have bugged my parents for them until they became so massively fed up that they just bought me one to shut me up.

Come to think of it I was a kid in 1983.  Lucky for my parents that they never took me to Japan.

Anyway, I only have 10 of these which means I am still a few short of a set.  That includes some of the nicer ones like Mario Bros and Donkey Kong Jr. Math.  Fortunately none of them are expensive so hopefully I`ll track them down at some point.  Sadly that will probably have to be on Yahoo Auctions or somewhere similar as I don`t get out to the shops anymore like I used to.

Anyway, I think the Donkey Kong one is probably my favorite of the ones I do have.  It is a very cool piece of pop art.  I think once I finish the set my next project will be to try and devise some way of properly displaying them all as my current method (putting them in a box stored under the bed) just isn`t doing them justice at all.

Sharp Donkey Kong Jr/ Donkey Kong Math: The Famicom`s first Multicart

One of my recent Yahoo Auction purchases was the above little footnote in the Famicom`s history, the Sharp Donkey Kong Jr/ Donkey Kong Math multicart.

This is a pretty hard cart to find but it has an interesting place in Famicom cart history. This was never sold individually but came as the pack-in cart with the Sharp Famicom TV, a TV that came with a Famicom built into it (in other words the most amazing TV ever made).

Since I already have both of the games I mainly just wanted this for its interest value. Its a real conversation piece. Well, actually no I suppose it isn`t. I don`t think I`ve ever had a conversation about Famicom collecting with anyone before, save online.

There weren`t a huge number of Sharp Famicom TVs made so these carts are among the harder to find ones out there and usually retail for about 3,000 yen (40$) or so.

I suspect that the creation of this multicart may have been the result of Sharp getting the license for Donkey Kong Math, then suddenly realizing that nobody would ever buy the TV if it only came with Donkey Kong Math. They then entered some marathon all night negotiations with the folks at Nintendo, begging them to let them include a real game - ANY real game - alongside the crappy one that no kid ever wanted to play. Nintendo eventually gave way and let them add Donkey Kong Jr to the cart.

More Stuff: Donkey Kong Jr and Snoopy Tennis Game and Watches

I`ve been in to Omocha Souko almost every day this week and in an amazing run of luck every time I have found some new bargain they have put out. Today was no exception. In their 300 yen junk bin today I fished out two vintage Game and Watches: Donkey Kong Jr. and Snoopy Tennis.

I really love Game and Watches but only have a small collection of them so far, so I was pretty psyched to be able to score a pair for only 600 yen. The prices for these usually start from about 3000 yen each and can go much higher.

Snoopy Tennis unfortunately turned out to be a dud. The screen is completely messed up and though it makes game sounds when turned on it is basically useless. These are the risks one takes when purchasing stuff from the junk bin! Its too bad as I really like the look of the unit:
Donkey Kong Jr on the other hand turned out to be a major score, which more than made up for that. I put some batteries in and found that it works perfectly. It has a couple of small scratches but is in otherwise great condition. I love the green and white color scheme accentuated by the red buttons:
One thing I like about the design of these types of Game and Watches is that they have little stands on the back that allow you to display them easily like I have it in the photo above.
Donkey Kong Jr also had the battery cover, which was a cool bonus. A lot of Game and Watches (like my Snoopy Tennis) have lost them over the years.

Its a great little game. The gameplay is somewhat similar to the game`s Famicom version in that you have to jump and climb vines to avoid little alligators and birds as they come at you. I`ve been playing it for the past hour or so and quite enjoyed it.

I didn`t get this with it but found an image of the original handbill for this game which is just as aweseome. They originally sold for 4800 yen, not a bad deal!

Related Posts:
- Mario Bros. Game and Watch Hits the Road
- The Unveiling: Donkey Kong Hockey!

Double Trouble Donkey Kong Jr. Style: Pulse Line versus Box Art

One of my recent Famicom purchases was another copy of Donkey Kong Jr. I`ve had the pulse line version of this game for quite a while, but I didn`t have the other version. The...uh...one on the right in the above photo.

The subject of today`s post is this duality exemplified in my Donkey Kong Jrs. Most of the Famicom Pulse line carts were released in two versions - the original pulse line version and the other version with the picture from the box art, which were released later.

As a point of nomenclature, I`m not actually sure how to refer to these versions. `Pulse line` is a convenient and descriptive term that is hard to mistake for something else. But what to call these other carts? `Picture carts`? That is short, but not very specific as most Famicom carts have pictures on them. `Box art carts`? Same problem.

Anyway, since I need to refer to them as something in this post, I`ll use the phrase `box art carts` to refer to the versions of the pulse line carts that have box art instead of the pulse line on the cover. Everybody clear on that? Good.

From a collector`s point of view, I`ve noticed some variations in the relative scarcity of the pulse line and box art versions of some of these carts. I think they can be divided into three categories.

1. Pulse Line Carts that have no Box Art version

To the best of my knowledge, the following pulse line carts never had a box art version released:

Donkey Kong 3
Pinball
Donkey Kong Jr Math
Popeye English

I could be mistaken and if anyone knows of box art versions of these carts, please let me know. I have never seen one myself though.

2. Pulse Line Carts that have Box Art versions which were released in roughly equal numbers

For some games that had two versions released, each version seems to have been released in roughly the same quantity and neither is harder to find or more expensive than the other. I would include the following games in this category:

Baseball
Golf
Devil World
Tennis
Mario Bros.
Mah-Jong

There is a bit of variation. The box art version of Mario Bros. seems to be slightly harder to find than the pulse line version, for example, but not too much harder and most shops charge the same price for each if they have them.

3. Pulse line carts that are much easier to find than their box art versions

For some reason a number of carts have box art versions that are significantly harder to find than the pulse line versions and most stores will sell the box art version for a much higher price. These include:

Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr
Popeye

At Mandarake in town here, for example, they have both versions of Popeye available loose. The Pulse line version they are selling for 630 yen (about 9$), while the box art version they are selling for 2400 yen (about 30$). I`m guessing that the reason for this relative scarcity of the later box art versions is that the popularity of those games declined quickly between 1983 and 1985 and thus fewer of the newer versions were sold.

4. Gomokunarabe

This is the one cart which I can`t say for certain which category it belongs in. I have one copy of each version, so I can say that it belongs in either group 2 or 3, but I just haven`t seen enough copies of it in stores to know which is harder to find than the other. Anybody out there know?

Anyway, just thought I`d put this info I had rattling around in my head out there for reference if any of you are trying to collect both versions of these games!