Can You Help Me Identify This Strange Coleco Smurf Cart

[Dr Manhattan]

Recently I've been visiting my home state of New York and rummaging some of my old gaming collectibles. That's when I discovered this unusual white label ColecoVision Smurf game. I know that other white label carts have been discovered in the past. However what struck me about this cart was the unusual shape. Does anyone know anything about it?

 

I actually have a couple of different ColecoVision carts like this one. Unfortunately I can't find the others at the moment. I'm sure they'll turn up. In the 30 plus years that I've been a collector I've never sold anything, much to the dismay of my family, my girlfriend and our cat. These carts were sold to me by a guy who worked in an old flea market in Schenectady, NY. Back then I was buying used games for around 50 cents to $1 each.

 

Anyway, I thought I would show this to you folks in case you find it interesting.

[Pixelboy]

Telegames release, in an European ColecoVision cart shell.

 

Nothing to see, move along.

[Dr Manhattan]

Telegames release, in an European ColecoVision cart shell.

 

Nothing to see, move along.

 

But why the plain white label? And why a Euro cart shell in the US? Was this common?

[NIAD]

Yes.

 

[mr_me]

I'm guessing after cbs electronics got out of the video games business in 1984 they sold their unsold stock. Tele-games must of aquired cartridges and/or cartridge parts and eventually resold them in the US. I doubt telegames got licensing from the smurf people to manufacture new cartridges and sold existing unsold inventory, some of which needed packaging and labeling. After 1984 prices had to be kept low and is the reason for the cheap packaging. I think Telegames did license and produce some cartridges like Activision's Alcazar. I don't know if they did the same with the smurf game.

[Dr Manhattan]

This is really interesting. I had assumed that the white label carts were just from store displays. Something valueless but still kinda cool to own. I believe the other two carts I have in my collection are Time Pilot and Cosmic Avenger. Now I'm determined to dig them up. Recently I moved back to my home state and I've been reunited with my childhood retro gaming collection, all of which was still tucked away up in my mom's attic for the past several years. I'm finding all sorts of weird stuff that I do not recognize.

[+Tarzilla]

Yes.

 

Yep, saw those quite often in Canada at the end of the era, I'm actually surprised telegames even bothered packaging them the way they did instead of a Baggie with a header card.

[NIAD]

Telegames did the baggie with a header card as well.