would gamestop grind the contacts..

[saferkefka]

off of a gameboy game intentionally to destroy it? i'm asking, because in the lot of gameboy games i recently bought, a lot of the carts have had the gold/brass/copper or whatever polished off of the contacts. the contacts are now a nice shiny silver color...and none of them seem to work.

[HappehLemons]

That'd be a pretty crazy business practice.
I can't see why they would do that, since they would lose money if you just return the games.. I could image that might happen though. I've got a game that isn't mine and the pins are worn down to silver. I'm guessing it's because of taking the game in and out of the gb so much.

[saferkefka]

well, most if not all of these games were marked "return to warehouse" or "field destroy". also, you can tell this was definitely done by some type of machine, as you can see machining marks on the contacts.

[saferkefka]

[Sniderman]

Looks to me like someone was trying to polish up the contacts with sandpaper or something. If you bought them from GS, return 'em.

[slip81]

my guess would be is that they were non selling stock that corporate told GS to dumpster, and GS destroyed the carts before throwing them out so someone couldn't dig them out of the trash and try to return them.

Only it looks like someone dug them out anyway and sold them to you. This is nothing new for retail, it's routine to destroy product before throwing it out so it can't be salvaged.

[jb143]

It is possible to replate the contacts but the kits can be expensive. You might be able to find someone to do it for you though but I have no idea how much that would cost. An electronics shop or a jeweler may be able to do it.

http://www.circuitrework.com/services/gold.shtml
http://www.engineeringlab.com/contactrepair.html

[james42519]

That'd be a pretty crazy business practice.
I can't see why they would do that, since they would lose money if you just return the games.. I could image that might happen though. I've got a game that isn't mine and the pins are worn down to silver. I'm guessing it's because of taking the game in and out of the gb so much.

well i had people that work at gamestop tell me that corporate tells them they have to destroy the games too. they penny out the manuals then have to rip them and stuff. it's crazy. how can they get away with this. why do poeple still sell games to them. i mean some games are hard to find and this makes them harder.