Meet the collectors - #1 - Simon Sharratt

Today we are starting a new series of posts here on beforemario. There is a growing number of fellow collectors of Nintendo toys and games out there, and I thought it would be cool to get to know some of them, and to take a look at their collections.

Part of Simon's Nintendo collection

We kick-off by travelling down-under, where we meet Australian collector Simon Sharratt. He will introduce himself, and guide us through his quite impressive collection.

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"Hi there, my name is Simon, and I collect the vintage toys and games that Nintendo made all those years ago, Before Mario. I live in Brisbane, Australia and when I am not searching the internet to feed my collection/habit, I work in an operating theatre assisting with anaesthetics. I have only been collecting for just over a couple of years so far, but I am quite proud of what I have managed to collect already.

I got into collecting vintage Nintendo stuff through a chance discovery on eBay one day. At the time I was buying NES/SNES/N64 games, when I saw a listing for the Pix’N Love book, The History Of Nintendo, Volume 1 by Florent Gorges. It looked interesting and I soon found my way to the Pix’N Love website to find out more and I ordered a copy. When my copy arrived I was just amazed at all the great stuff within its pages, I’d known that Nintendo had originally started out as a playing card company, but I never knew that they also made a lot of cool and sometimes crazy toys and games!

So of course I had to start searching for this stuff on eBay, and it wasn’t too long before I had found and bought my first items, the Hachi No Su/Hive Game, and one of the three N&B Clocks. Slowly, more and more bits and pieces appeared on eBay, mainly from international sellers in Japan, but sometimes from the USA, the UK, South America and Europe, and I even managed to get a couple of items from here in Australia. Nowadays, most of my purchases are made through Yahoo Auctions Japan, where I have a person who bids on items on my behalf, then sends bulk packages to me here in Australia.

Unfortunately, my current home doesn’t have enough space to put all of collection out on display. Usually I have it securely locked away in storage, but for this occasion I have brought it all out, to catalogue and take photos of for this blog."

"In the first picture above, I have some of my board game collection; you can see I have all three versions of the Unmei/Destiny Game, two of the three versions of Twister, and some of the versions of Roulette that Nintendo made. Interestingly, the one in the bottom left hand corner displays the Big N logo instead of the NG logo, the Big N logo variation does not appear in the Pix’N Love book.

Also in this photo there is a Custom 7 set of games, Dominos, Casino Game, Las Vegas Game and Challenge Game. I also have doubles of both the Casino and Las Vegas Games."

"Here are more of my board game collection plus some playing cards; the complete Handy Pack series is displayed across the top and beneath that I have two of the five games in the Round Game series. The other board games are The Tale Of Heike Monogatari and Drive Game, both of which are unplayed as the collection of pieces within are still sealed, Napoleon Game, Jungle Game and Nihon Retto Kaihatsu Game.

In the bottom right hand corner are some of the Karuta card packs, and in the bottom left corner there is the game set World Of Popular Games along with a Shogi game, a Miracle Box, and some western style playing cards. I have doubles of the Napoleon Game and the Blue Handy Pack game, and I also have another better quality Jungle Game on its way from Japan."

"In this picture are my Disney/Nintendo board games, these are the board games I prize the most. Across the top are Mickey Mouse Adventure Game, Bambi Game and Donald Duck’s Universal Travel Game. In the middle row there are Disneyland Game and two Disney Kateiban Deluxe, the bottom row also has two Disney Kateiban in the middle along with one of the Disney Daiya Games, a pair of Disney Rocket Games, and the Seven Dwarves Game."

"Next up I have my Kousenjuu collection; you can see one of the Jumping Bottle variations, along with the Lion Target, two Kousenjuu pistols and the rifle. There is also some of the Custom series here too; I have a Custom Lever Action Rifle, Custom Gunman and Custom Lion as well as the Custom Target.

I had some issues getting the SP Rifle and the Custom Lever Action Rifle into Australia, the packages were scanned and opened by Customs and both were confiscated because I did not have the necessary permits to import replica weapons into Australia!! I had to make application to the Police to get the permits, and then post them off to Customs for their release, and then pay extra postage to get them delivered from Sydney to Brisbane! Ironically, it turns out that I don’t need a replica import permit for them here in Queensland, but because they came through Sydney, New South Wales, where a permit is needed, Customs seized them because I didn’t have the permits. So if any other Aussies are reading this, check with Customs and the Police to see if you need any special permits to bring these into Australia.

In the rest of the picture there are two Ultrascopes with the Ultracope spelling mistake variation, an Ultraman and a Kamen Rider Alarm Clock, two mini games Napoleon and Gear Challenge, and finally one of Nintendo’s crazier gadgets, the Light Telephone or Kousen Denwa LT."

"In this photo, I have my Color TV Game collection. In the middle are my CTG-R112 and CTG-BK6, and on the left hand side are my CTG 6 variations, at the top is the Sharp licensed XG-106V, beneath that is the CTG-6S, and the bottom two are actually both House Shanmen versions of CTG-6V. I’d purchased a couple of years back when I started collecting, what I thought at the time was just a normal CTG-6V, but it wasn’t until I’d pulled everything out of storage that I discovered that I had two House Shanmen!! I have since purchased a normal CTG-6V which is en route to me now from Japan.

On the right hand side of the photo are my CTG 15 variations. At the top is a CTG-15S that has red text and graphics colouring on the box, instead of the usual blue colouring as shown on the CTG-15S box beneath. I had never heard nor seen this variation before, and I’ve only just recently purchased it from a seller in Japan. As far as I can tell, the only difference between the blue and red variations is the different colour, everything inside the box appears to be a normal CTG-15S. At the bottom is of course a CTG-15V.

In the rest of the photo you can see two Ultramachines, including the Australian Slugger Mate version, unfortunately both are missing various bits and pieces, and in between them is a Duckhunt. On the bottom row there is a Candy Machine, two versions of the Ultrahand, and a Challenge Ball Game and a Balance Game. In the middle there are three colours of the American release of the Challenge Dice called Chaotic Cube, one of which is inside a cardboard box."

"Finally in this last photo, are the remaining items in my Nintendo collection. Across the top you can see a Chiritorie, a Punchbuoy, and a Shotracer. On either side of them I have a Love Tester, a Space Ball toy, and an N&B Crater set. On the next row is a Hip Flip, Hachi No Su Game, a blue and red Lefty RX Single Set A and a white Lefty RX GT Sport.

Just in front of them are some small boxes of N&B sets, and the two chair sets are actually still sealed with N&B sticky tape. On the third row is Dynamic Soccer, a Monster Copier, a Marble/Frying Pan Maze game, an N&B electric clock and one of the N&B mixed sets. Finally at the very front are my Paper Models.

For quite some time now I have been trying to track down the Mini Game version of the Love Tester, but just in the last few days I have managed to find one and it is currently on its way to join my collection. I am also waiting on another Disney board game, the 101 Dalmatians Game, plus I have also just bought a version of Home Bowling, an Ele-Conga Autoplayer and the Kousenjuu Roulette target. I am trying hard to track down the Sharp licensed version of the CTG 15 called XG-115.

So I hope you have enjoyed looking at my collection of Nintendo toys and games, I’m quite proud of it and I hope it inspires others to go searching high and low for those elusive items! Good Luck!!"

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Thanks Simon, for taking the time to show us around your wonderful collection! Hope that some day you will find room to display it all permanently, as it is really worth it.

Now that we have met Simon, the question is: who is next? [The answer: it is Fabrice!]

Do you also collect Nintendo toys and games? No matter how large or small your collection is, if you have been at it for years or just started recently, we would love to hear from you. So, if you want to show your collection and tell us about it, please get in touch.