2 Lovely 1998 and 2001 Metal Slug 1 JPN with exotic PCBS. Billie Jean, BLACK AND WHITE !

Hello,
Here we go, today, I show you one of the most " exotic" cart I've ever seen and owned, a great Metal Slug 1 JPN cart bought in 1998, and one another bought back in 2001.



CASE 1 : THE METAL SLUG BOUGHT IN 1998


So here are all the details.

This game has been bought by Dralair ( some die hard english collectors and the Neostore must reminds probably this name ( haha) in late 1998 in Japan. The lucky bastard who has his old Neoturfmaster must shake his hands !

PAPERS
The paper are original, proven, checked with 2 other original Metal Slug 1 JPN.

PCBS
Here is the EXOTIC PART.








At first sight : it's a bootleg ! What ! A bootleg bought in 1998?? Crazyyyy. We got fucked by a japanese prophet, when a Metal Slug 1 JPN was around 8000 french francs/1100 USD.

Second look: The pcbs looks virgin, with manually soldered MASK ROMS inside. So, it's a convertion from a game. But which one ? Look at the empty Mask Roms Slot, virgin from any soldering history, and not filled with a machine.
It's a Stakes Winner II Japan convertion from SNK !So, they changed the badly sold SWII(failure in business) into a Metal Slug 1 JPN !From Factory.

Wise Look : no no, it's AN ORIGINAL Metal Slug 1 Jpn.
It's not a recycled Stakes Winner 2.
J12 is original, there were never been anything on J16. Or, it should have been modified.
Under the pin22 from V2, we see the copper. Should be like " God", for not covering this part by mounting twice the cart.

At first, it looked like the ROMS were soldered/unsoldered/re-soldered, but in fact, the varnish is only on the soldering job. It can be easily removed by hand with a nail.

So it's not a virgin cart 100% mounted manually, as the MS1 JPN configuration is unique. The front is made by machine, the back, manually.



CASE 2 : THE METAL SLUG BOUGHT IN 2001

Look at this : Original PCB from a genuine Metal Slug 1 JPN, bought in 2001 ( proof of invoice from that date
Look at the PCBS :





The front of the pcb had been soldered manually ( really pig's jobs) and the soldering of mask rom, by the machine. Exactly the contrary of the case 1.



All this, to tell that sometimes, life's not taht easy, and only wise investigation can tell. Looks like SNK had a lot of troubles around 1996 with some of the production. Same for some Overtop PCBS.
You should open your carts more often to check what's inside, sometimes it's more or less a surprise !
The game is NOT FOR SALE btw.

Original 7000x9000 pixels pictures on request with pleasure!

Kisses
Mathieu

I don't understand any of this.

It just explains that it looks uncommon, but true, that some home cart games produced by SNK are sometimes badly soldered, crappy job, from Factory.

Here are 2 examples of snk job.

1st Metal slug has front of pcb manually soldered, back automatic with machine.

2nd Metal slug has front of pcb automatically soldered, back manually soldered.

That's just, I'd love to have other pictures of games like that.
Maybe some Over Top, Stakes Winner 2 etc games!

I've heard about this kind of stuff, but never seen the actual boards. Interesting.

Actually, I'm having most of my carts opened for that reason, just to " save carts" from being considered as fake when it's not true.
And the other way. A very strange cart can lead to a fake game.
I'm actually worried to see some real pcbs with fake inserts/Manuals/etc.

Right now, everything needs to be checked.

I'ts called wave soldering. They apply flux where they want the solder to adhere on the back of the board. If you look closely you can see that they put flux only on the pins they needed. I think after production increased, SNK abandoned that meticulous method and started fluxing the entire board which is why the newer boards have so much excess flux. The just painted the whole thing with flux.

Actually, this topic would be more usefull in the General discussion or in the boot not boot. Any moderator could move it ?
thanks a lot