A "Holy Grail of Nintendo," the Sharp/TV NES combo set?

[fairyland]

I saw this on Creigs list today. http://utica.craigslist.org/vgm/4359291806.html By the title, I thought it was someone spamming a knock-off World's cart, but it was really the Sharp TV/NES combo. He claims it to be a Holy Grail of Nintendo and blah blah blah. Is the TV-NES combo really that rare and desirable? Only 200 made and all that? I'm not really interested in owning one , but if it's true, I thought someone on here would like to get it for their collection.

[bb_hood]

I saw this on Creigs list today. http://utica.craigslist.org/vgm/4359291806.html By the title, I thought it was someone spamming a knock-off World's cart, but it was really the Sharp TV/NES combo. He claims it to be a Holy Grail of Nintendo and blah blah blah. Is the TV-NES combo really that rare and desirable? Only 200 made and all that? I'm not really interested in owning one , but if it's true, I thought someone on here would like to get it for their collection.

I dont think so. I highly doubt only 200 were made, I have seen 3 of them locally. They have been sold on ebay before. The guy selling this is either misinformed or looking for someone to spend too much. The guy doesnt even have the controller that goes with the TV set. Its no holy grail. The one time that I played one of these sharp nes TVs the picture was bad, it was quite blurry.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

There's a whole pile of bullshit there. These were definitely more than 200 of these made. These were sold in Sears stores across North America for a period of four months Between November 1989 to February 1990, and cost $1499. Yes, they've been sold on ebay many times.

That said, they are rare. because of the high price and limited availability, it is estimated there are less than 5000 of them floating around, which makes them a holy grail of sorts.

Still, unless I found one on the cheap, I wouldn't personally buy one. It's just a small tv that has a built in NES-001. Since the NES-001 is prone to so many problems on its own without being integrated with a tv set, I don't even want to imagine the hassle of repairs for one of these.

[Tanooki]

He's right of sorts, it's a mini 'grail' of sorts I suppose since they only were produced for about 4 months, mostly used for store demo displays at places like Sears, and some sold to consumers for one hell of an inflated price well over the cost of a NES and a 19" TV.


If you're interested, please send him a link to that thread and then call him out on it and ask what he wants. If he says like $500-1000+ then point out all the debate on that site where a complete TV with no damage is like tops $300, the remote is 75-100, and controllers are like 50 each. He's missing 2 doors, no controllers, no remote, may have 4 feet? He's looking at a fair value of maybe $200-225. What a douche.



I got mine in January of 2012. It popped up on craigslist when I was out in San Diego County, dude cross promoted it on there between my area and his north in riverside county (he was in Hemet.) The TV I got has no missing parts, 2 controllers, and a cracked(side) but working remote and it came with 7 games and a zapper for $225. Dude was an adult owner, ex-military, bought it to mess with a few games, never did much so it was a bedroom TV for a decade or so and then retired to collect dust bunnies. I got lucky and got the first email into the guy, and due to his honor and beliefs rooted in military background he kept his word. It took 2-3 weeks of slow email and a few calls to sort it out, and despite reseller trash trying to offer double on it I still got to have first right of refusal. :) I won't part with it as it is a fantastic CRT and it also allows the N64 to be playable again since they don't work right on flat screens. If it ever breaks I'll take it to a local guy and get it fixed and short of death or a total disinterest in video gaming it stays.

Since researching that one and keeping up on it in the time since I know what can and can't be had to fix these things and how damned scarce some of it can be on top of what you imagine. Thankfully outside of body parts the guts are standard NES control deck with a dual wire feed to the motherboard to a fairly standard Sharp TV set up top as both are compartmentalized. I've opened it up twice to service, fine tune and clean both pieces. The caps and circuits can be dealt with and plans are online for the repair service center manual. Worst by far are body parts, once I've seen someone on NintendoAge get access to a few spares from the shell and never since so if you buy one cracked assume it stays that way for life and the feet are part of the body so if one goes, they all go replacing the whole bottom frame the NES sits in.

Satoshi that last part was more towards your part of servicing. I'm not one to own or use a soldering gun, and my hands shake a little doing fine stuff, and I was capable of opening up the TV and doing all that was needed in under an couple hours (takes awhile to take it apart.) Once you get that shell off it's a normal TV and a normal NES and being how it is, it's a little more durable against the usual crap that assaults the old NES like drops and spills, and it gets less dusty inside too as that guy never cleaned his.

[xelement5x]

Lol, that dude even has the NA link in his ad now, and obviously didn't read it.

[Tanooki]

Yeah a total tool. To think he could pull one over on that type of collector base there you got to be pretty dumb.

[Trebuken]

AS the owner of one of these as well I like to imagine it as being extremely valuable, please do not continue to ruin it for me. It may be the most valuable item in my collection; I have the remote and two controllers; all in good shape.

Mine needs a new pin connector....I once began to disassamle this to replace it, but quickly got scared off...to much work, thought I would be more likely to break it...

[bb_hood]

AS the owner of one of these as well I like to imagine it as being extremely valuable, please do not continue to ruin it for me. It may be the most valuable item in my collection; I have the remote and two controllers; all in good shape.

Mine needs a new pin connector....I once began to disassamle this to replace it, but quickly got scared off...to much work, thought I would be more likely to break it...

They are cool, but I just dont consider them to be a holy grail of Nintendo nes stuff.
That craigslist ad hyped it up way too much..

[A.C. Sativa]

There's a whole pile of bullshit there. These were definitely more than 200 of these made. These were sold in Sears stores across North America for a period of four months Between November 1989 to February 1990, and cost $1499. Yes, they've been sold on ebay many times.

That said, they are rare. because of the high price and limited availability, it is estimated there are less than 5000 of them floating around, which makes them a holy grail of sorts.

Still, unless I found one on the cheap, I wouldn't personally buy one. It's just a small tv that has a built in NES-001. Since the NES-001 is prone to so many problems on its own without being integrated with a tv set, I don't even want to imagine the hassle of repairs for one of these.

$1,499? Why the hell would someone buy that? You could just buy an NES and a really nice TV for probably half that. Though I do remember hearing that because it's all hardwired together it has a really nice picture, and that a lot of game magazines used them to get the best photos. But still, 1,500 bucks? Fuck outta here...

[Tanooki]

That's the word and I will say looking at old game magazines back in the day the TV at home never matched the palette you'd find in the magazines, but being able to PDF a look back at them now or even open up the old NES Game Atlas I can say the colors DO match the Sharp I have which was amusing to me. They're directly wired together as there's a 2 wire feed out of the NES section of the TV (both larger parts are screwed together into the full unit) and it goes right to the board inside the TV. It is a stock NES though so I would guess the TV is just not having loss from being a direct feed. It isn't and wasn't ever worth $1500, but as the primary market was I think businesses wanting to have a demo kiosk of the system without having that big kids plaything looking NES kiosk setup with the ROBs head on it among others, it was a classier alternative.

[BlastProcessing402]

it also allows the N64 to be playable again since they don't work right on flat screens.

Works fine on mine. Looks like shit, but that's just N64 in general.

[Tanooki]

You're right, they do, but do you have a copy of Rogue Squadron by any chance?

The N64, PSX and Saturn are all guilty of this. They kind of like how light guns won't work on LCDs all use the CRT specifications to benefit various cheats to display games. They all have a problem with light and shadow in particular relating to dark maps. The opening stages of RS are just fine, but once you hit one of those planetary night stages it's unplayable. What happens is that the light being cast from sources such as windows on buildings doesn't display, so all the low light projection from your own weapons and windows isn't present so windows are just white floating squares and your lasers are just thin colored lines with no glow so you just bounce off invisible walls to death. The game is also good for exhibiting that it fails to display high quality stills properly since scanlines don't exist on LCDs so the main menu images you rotate in the menu are damaged.

Also another fun one would be Hudson titles, they used a different technique of using scan lines to smooth the edges of imagery out instead of just anti aliasing so when put on a LCD the stuff looks incredibly blobbly/splotchy.

Either way there's a few games in my N64 collection that just can't be played on a LCD or LED tv as I've tried, most are fine, it's just a few, so once I got the Sharp I just transferred it to that TV and everything was fine.

[Xexyz]

LOL, I just saw this posting yesterday and I live in NY too. Seems he's just spamming it in every regional category.

[Ponyone]

I think you fellas are severely underestimating the rarity of this item. It was only made for 3 moths! That's uber rare!

[mrmark0673]

I owned one in the past, they're not over the top rare. The controllers are a little more uncommon, the remote is much more difficult to find, and often they are found with the 4 "feet" of the unit broken off.

Worth a couple hundred bucks.

[tom]

That's not rare, this is very rare though, a Atari VCS/Sanyo Monitor, only very few made it out the door before the crash in 1984
http://i357.photobucket.com/albums/oo12/Alison123456789/VCSwithscreen_zpsa89bff1e.jpg

[ggallegos1]

These go on ebay for a lot, but I wouldn't want to change the pin connector on that thing with the monitor in the way. That said, I've seen them in person, and the highest I've seen them go was for $300 at a retro store in TX. Interesting novelty, but I'm not as hardcore as I should be to get into that

[Benihana]

Glad to see my NA thread and Sharp TV thread database is getting used all over the net.
That is why I wanted to make it. I wanted the info for all to share.

That being said, if you guys over here find one, and it is not on the list. Get the details, PM them to me and I will keep the list updated.

Thanks to all.

[Niku-Sama]

NES sharp tv is the arc of the covenant the NWC gold cat is the holy grail.

I figure it this way you can store your holy grail in your arc

[stardust4ever]

That's the word and I will say looking at old game magazines back in the day the TV at home never matched the palette you'd find in the magazines, but being able to PDF a look back at them now or even open up the old NES Game Atlas I can say the colors DO match the Sharp I have which was amusing to me. They're directly wired together as there's a 2 wire feed out of the NES section of the TV (both larger parts are screwed together into the full unit) and it goes right to the board inside the TV. It is a stock NES though so I would guess the TV is just not having loss from being a direct feed. It isn't and wasn't ever worth $1500, but as the primary market was I think businesses wanting to have a demo kiosk of the system without having that big kids plaything looking NES kiosk setup with the ROBs head on it among others, it was a classier alternative.Tanooki, you say the NES is direct wired to the TV with a "two wires" setup. Is it just the stock AV composite going out the NES unit? Many of the RF autoswitches I've seen are really poor IMO and I get better picture with either direct-connected RF or composite AV. Is the picture really better than composite AV as they say or does it just look sharper because it was better than the crappy RF that most people put up with back in the day?

Thanks for the write up. Glad you got yours for a fair price. Also how big is the display?

BTW, game magazines used an RBG PPU (NES Play Choice 10 / Duck Hunt) combined with special capture equipment to create screenshots for media purposes.

[Tanooki]

Yes if you tear apart the two components the TV top from the control deck bottom there's this rectangle hole molded there with a pair of wires that go between the two. That wire sends the video feed on one and the audio on the other I imagine to the motherboard on the TV side so it does its thing when the NES is turned on. Visually it doesn't blur like RF does when screwed into a TV, I guess it's as sharp as a non-bleeding RCA connection. The screen on all of them is 19" and it's rounded, not flat as it came before TVs started going that way.

If magazines did that that's cool, I never really looked into it. I just looked at some old game magazines and the coloring on the sharp seemed to align pretty well compared to a normal TV so maybe it's just tweaked to be that way.

[stardust4ever]

Yes if you tear apart the two components the TV top from the control deck bottom there's this rectangle hole molded there with a pair of wires that go between the two. That wire sends the video feed on one and the audio on the other I imagine to the motherboard on the TV side so it does its thing when the NES is turned on. Visually it doesn't blur like RF does when screwed into a TV, I guess it's as sharp as a non-bleeding RCA connection. The screen on all of them is 19" and it's rounded, not flat as it came before TVs started going that way.

If magazines did that that's cool, I never really looked into it. I just looked at some old game magazines and the coloring on the sharp seemed to align pretty well compared to a normal TV so maybe it's just tweaked to be that way.

So if it's just AV composite then we can get that easily with any 90s or later CRT. Thanks for the clarity. I have a big Zenith faux woodgrain CRT in storage. I can't wait to use it when I get my own place even if it's RF only the scanlines for NES, Atari, etc on that thing are gorgeous. My mom bought it from a teacher friend before she retired and it's currently the nicest CRT we have, just too big for my current gaming setup (it's an old corner computer desk designed for CRT monitors which only holds 19 inches or so and too narrow for widescreen - I have an ASUS 23" LCD 1080p widescreen monitor on the top shelf for HD consoles).

[Tanooki]

Makes sense and you're right, it's nothing really special. The real thing with the TV is the honest to god rarity of the thing, not the faux rarity of a lot of these NES and SNES games people ask like $50+ for today that were mass printed. It was only made for 4 months and discontinued, but no surprise since it's an off the shelf 19" Sharp TV in a custom frame that screws into another custom frame with some flimsy feet and doors that house a classic NES deck inside it. You're paying for the plastic, the black controllers and remote, and for the cool factor for owning a Nintendo TV that once sold for $1200 few would pay up for that got discontinued fast.

[ZP3]

$1,499? Why the hell would someone buy that? You could just buy an NES and a really nice TV for probably half that. Though I do remember hearing that because it's all hardwired together it has a really nice picture, and that a lot of game magazines used them to get the best photos. But still, 1,500 bucks? Fuck outta here...

Lol...you could buy a NES and a great CRT TV for like $150 if you look hard enough

[stardust4ever]

If the MSRP was really $1500 when it released in 1990, then that was a rip off even when it was brand new. $100 for the NES deck and you could probably have bought a comparable TV new for $300 or a nicer one for $400. And it doesn't even look that nice; screw the 200% price markup...

[Tanooki]

The fact an undamaged one sells for like 1/2 the original retail price at this point in time is nuts enough.