Original Game Boy with weird shell

[it290]

Alright, so this post contains nothing related to hardware for shmupping, but is really just a curious thing I noticed today and was hoping someone could fill me in on (warning, large images):

I have an original Game Boy that I just pulled out of a box because I wanted to reshell it — the case, in its Ziploc coffin, looks like this:

Spoiler

I have every reason to believe this shell is totally original — I've owned it since way before making weird Game Boys was a thing, and it has a 1989 copyright and DMG-01 model number on the back.

When I pulled it out, my first thought was "Holy hell, that font is huge." It didn't correspond with my recollection of what a Game Boy looked like, which is this:

Spoiler

However, after a bit of Googling I found this image from an old ad in GQ, which appears to match the unit I have:

Spoiler

This is the only picture I've been able to find of a Game Boy with the big ass GAME BOY font. So does anyone know what the deal with this shell is? The ad is from '92, so was this some later variant, or do I have a truly weird Game Boy on my hands? Or is this thing entirely common and just not present in picture on the Internet for some bizarre reason?

[nem]

It's also in this 1992 TV ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFq5Hw8j2k4

Neat find. Both Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx II came out the year before, maybe Nintendo thought they needed to raise brand awareness in '92 with the big ass font.

There's a black one here:

https://assemblergames.com/threads/boot ... boy.35554/

Seems rare?

[mikejmoffitt]

It's in this Game Boy Pocket commercial too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwvZSWQAMak

[it290]

Interesting, thanks guys. I wonder if they had a few of these made up for ads so that the logo would be more visible? Trying to remember where I got this one — pretty sure it was from a friend, but my mom actually worked on some Game Boy commercials back in the day for products like Wario Land and the Game Boy Camera, so maybe it was a leftover from her job; I'll have to ask her. The other kinda odd thing about it is that it it has a notch hand-dremeled in the back of the battery cover that looks like it could have been used to mount the device on a screw or peg of some sort, which lends some credence to the ad theory.

[it290]

Found another ad that uses a similar GB:

Spoiler

So far all the instances I've seen appear to be 1st-party Nintendo ads. Interestingly this one lacks the blue Nintendo logo in the lower left corner, wonder if that was shopped out?

[XtraSmiley]

Obviously now, I'd say don't reshell it!

Cool find. Note that yours actually says Nintendo on the bottom where the one in the last ad doesn't.

[energizerfellow‌]

Interesting, thanks guys. I wonder if they had a few of these made up for ads so that the logo would be more visible? Trying to remember where I got this one — pretty sure it was from a friend, but my mom actually worked on some Game Boy commercials back in the day for products like Wario Land and the Game Boy Camera, so maybe it was a leftover from her job; I'll have to ask her. The other kinda odd thing about it is that it it has a notch hand-dremeled in the back of the battery cover that looks like it could have been used to mount the device on a screw or peg of some sort, which lends some credence to the ad theory.

You likely have a one-off custom made for marketing that would literally be considered a museum piece these days. Please, please contact the National Videogame Museum to validate what it is and possibly put it on loan to the museum for display with the ads it was put in.

http://nvmusa.org/

Obviously now, I'd say don't reshell it!

Cool find. Note that yours actually says Nintendo on the bottom where the one in the last ad doesn't.

No. Oh god, no.

[bobrocks95]

Interesting, thanks guys. I wonder if they had a few of these made up for ads so that the logo would be more visible? Trying to remember where I got this one — pretty sure it was from a friend, but my mom actually worked on some Game Boy commercials back in the day for products like Wario Land and the Game Boy Camera, so maybe it was a leftover from her job; I'll have to ask her. The other kinda odd thing about it is that it it has a notch hand-dremeled in the back of the battery cover that looks like it could have been used to mount the device on a screw or peg of some sort, which lends some credence to the ad theory.

You likely have a one-off custom made for marketing that would literally be considered a museum piece these days. Please, please contact the National Videogame Museum to validate what it is and possibly put it on loan to the museum for display with the ads it was put in.

http://nvmusa.org/

If you just want a quick response from someone who would probably know about it, tweet at Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi), he's with the Video Game History Foundation and is usually pretty responsive on Twitter. Or it looks like you can DM the VGHF's Twitter as well, that's probably even better.