A cardboard box in a Wisconsin retro game store looked like a stash of one of the most common NES pack-ins ever made. Then collector and Nintendo Wire editor Jason Ganos opened it and found 97 pristine copies of Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, each wrapped with an unused manual tucked behind the cartridge.
The quantity alone was unusual. The bigger surprise came when collectors studied the labels, manuals, and production codes. They did not match any version that had been documented before.
The find is not a lost Mario game or a different adventure. It is a previously undocumented manufacturing variant of the familiar Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge, preserved in a condition that is almost impossible to recreate more than 30 years later.
What was inside the box?
Ganos reported that the box held 97 individually wrapped cartridges and 97 clean manuals. A label on the outside listed a quantity of 100, which suggests that three copies disappeared somewhere along the way.
The shipping box carries a December 19, 1995 date and describes the contents as “Mario - Hunt Remanufactured NES.” Another label contains Japanese text that translates to 100 assembled NES cartridges. The paperwork makes the box interesting on its own: it appears to have moved from Japan to Nintendo of America very late in the NES era.
For a closer look at the game behind the discovery, the Super Mario Bros. game page covers the original release and its place in Nintendo history.
What makes this Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt variant different?
The clearest difference is on the back of the cartridge. Known copies use an English-only label, while these cartridges include several languages. The manuals also change a small line of wording: documented copies say “maintenance or repairs,” but the manuals from this box say “maintenance or service.”
Production codes add another clue. The code 9340 points to the 40th week of 1993, placing manufacture after the known console bundles that included this version of the game. One cartridge was opened so the board could be inspected, and grading specialists were brought in to study the lot.
Those details support the variant claim, but they do not explain why Nintendo made this run. Replacement stock for warranty work, refurbished systems, and a planned bundle that never reached stores are all possible explanations. None has been confirmed.
