Homemade reproduction labels

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Robotrek
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Joined: June 6th, 2016, 9:24 pm

Homemade reproduction labels

Postby Robotrek » May 31st, 2017, 5:56 pm

I just saw this video on YouTube and this looks pretty badass! This guy made some kickass repro labels that look really damned cool! Check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QJChsouvTI

gametime
Posts: 26
Joined: May 24th, 2017, 6:24 pm

Re: Homemade reproduction labels

Postby gametime » June 1st, 2017, 8:31 am

I have avoided buying some carts in the past because of bad labels but sometimes it can't be helped if the game is cheap enough. Very informative.

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Rookie1
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Re: Homemade reproduction labels

Postby Rookie1 » June 2nd, 2017, 6:57 am

Man, this video has the gaming community up in flames right now. It was posted on Nintendo Age and those guys lost it. Personally, I could care less about this kind of stuff. Who knows, I may have a repro label in my collection that I dont know about? Whatevs though. I used to make my own reproduction cardbacks for my vintage star wars collection. They look good hanging on my wall, and didnt cost me the hundreds, or even thousands it would cost to get legit ones.

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scotland
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Re: Homemade reproduction labels

Postby scotland » June 2nd, 2017, 9:43 am

For me, I think salvaging the old cartridges is wonderful. I have a lot of Atari 2600 cartridges with damaged labels.

I get why collectors are annoyed though. Its a real Pitfall cartridge, but now it has an reproduction label on it. Its like a car collector wanting all authentic parts, except unlike cars where you can replace damaged original parts with new old stock and everyone is happy, there are no 'parts' for game cartridges. This guy is creating repro-parts where none existed before.

I think the concern is that it may devalue the truly all-original cartridges, but really, its overblown. First, the price of the original cartridge is highly volatile, and might collapse in price in a few years anyway. Second, I'd rather see these damaged cartridges restored than worry about a collector's hypothetical value of a collection they are never going to sell anyway, and third, like a forged painting, these reproduction labels or boxes are not so perfect as to be indistinguishable. Look at all the work that went into salvaging a Pitfall game, and a good eye could probably spot the difference to an authentic one anyway.

bluenote
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Joined: August 14th, 2015, 5:16 pm

Re: Homemade reproduction labels

Postby bluenote » June 2nd, 2017, 10:42 am

Personally I love this. I buy repro boxes and even repro games. I have no intention of ever selling these, it just allows me to have something that is normally unattainable.

For instance, I bought a repro of Little Samson along with a reproduction of the box and manual. Cost me about $75 all together. And it looks (and plays) great! The box is exactly like the original, except the bar code is the reproduction company's logo. The cartridge label also states reproduction.

It sits nicely on my shelf and I get to have a perfect copy of a fun game, that normally would cost in the thousands for a complete copy.

I can however see why the serious collector would have a problem with this. Even if the label is a repro, then that will affect the value of the cart and someone might get ripped off.

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Retro STrife
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Re: Homemade reproduction labels

Postby Retro STrife » June 2nd, 2017, 11:20 am

Really cool video. I can't imagine spending that much time on a Pitfall or Wrestlemania logo, but it's a great idea for more expensive games.

Regarding people being up in arms over this... As a collector I generally have nothing against repro labels or boxes, or even repro games. I certainly have a few in my collection to save on money. But I think collectors have a very valid concern about this being abused to make counterfeit games and pass them off as the real thing. The guy in this video isn't doing that..and we don't have concerns about fake copies of Wrestlemania floating around the internet. But how about Little Samson? It's worth the effort to make a counterfeit Little Samson and try to score $1000 on it. How about all those "disc only" copies of Snatcher that float around ebay? Did that many people really lose their cases and manuals? It's not hard to burn the game to a disc and print a nice looking image on the disc, and pass it off as real. A good repro creator will prevent this by stating "reproduction" on the game, but not everyone does it. So I think collectors are just worried about reproductions being abused to rip them off, rather than actually hating reproductions in general. (And if they do hate repros in general, then those are just crybabies that are upset and jealous about paying loads of money for the real thing.)

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ActRaiser
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Re: Homemade reproduction labels

Postby ActRaiser » June 2nd, 2017, 1:18 pm

Yeah, I thought it was an awesome video and great idea. I have no problems with it. (of course, I don't buy $1000 games either. ;)

Robotrek
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Re: Homemade reproduction labels

Postby Robotrek » June 13th, 2017, 3:55 pm

Well, I gave this a go. I managed to re-label 3 Activision games. Grand Prix, Megamania, and Dragster. Though, mine aren't IDENTICAL, for example, I'll show my Grand Prix design here.

It fit the cartridge nicely after printing, and looked great, while not looking identical. So I still have a nice looking label, far better than what it was (which was torn to absolute SHREDS).

For kicks, I'll show my Megamania label too.
Attachments
MEGALAB.png
MEGALAB.png (13.2 KiB) Viewed 2030 times
PRIX.png
PRIX.png (14.2 KiB) Viewed 2030 times


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