Meet the collectors - #6 - Fred (update)

It is time for another episode of Meet the Collectors. We are once again traveling to France, where we meet Nintendo collector Fred.

I already posted some pictures of Fred's collection yesterday, but he has just sent some more recent pictures. So here's an update, with the promised interview.

The core of Fred's interest is Game & Watch. But that is not all. There is more. A lot more. His collection includes many of the older Nintendo games and toys. There is so much to see here, your eyes are not sure where to look.

So, let's go meet Fred.

"My name is Frederic, I'm 42 and I live in the south-eastern part of France, near Nîmes."

"I am passionate about Game & Watch and Nintendo, but I also collect motor bikes (I have a dozen Japanese motorcycles) and French and German cars from the period 1960-80."

"Back in 1982, when I was 11 years old, I received a Game & Watch Donkey Kong as a Christmas present. This was the only Game & Watch that I had at the time, and I played it for hours and hours on end!"

Nintendo Copilas - part 3 (コピラス, 1971)

In two previous posts on this blog, the 1971 Nintendo Copilas (コピラス) photocopier was introduced and its use demonstrated.

This machine was sold at a then revolutionary price of only ¥9,800, barely providing a profit margin on the hardware. Like many printer companies these days - that practically give away printers in order to make handsome profits on the ink cartridges - Nintendo also intended to make most of the money on providing a continuous supply of paper and developing agent to the Copilas users.

The initial standard Copilas machine was produced in quite large numbers, so finding one these days is not very difficult (various follow-up models were created that are much rarer). However, finding original supplies needed to run it is much more difficult now. These were either used back then or discarded. So, I was happy when I was able to add some of these to my collection a little while ago.

Nintendo Copilas photo sensitive paper

The photo sensitive paper (感光紙) was sold in two standard sizes: B4 and B5.