H seam just means horizontal seam across the back connected at the two sides of the box. V seam means a vertical seam across a back. Most game boy/GBC games will have an h seam.
The one you posted is almost certainly a re-wrap. I doesn’t look like a tight wrap at all, and doesn’t have any hallmarks of what real seals look like from the game boy era. Ask for clear photos of all sides, and you’ll probably see other things to make you pause (like slight indents or whitening in the box where it was opened, etc)
The game you posted is a reseal for sure. Assuming you’re looking for the NTSC American release, the H-seal is the only factory seal, everything else is shade city.
The H-seal has a thin horizontal line on the back of the box in the middle, where the two ends of the wrap were melted/fused together.
What is the difference between the 3 sealsThere’s a few different types to know about in my experience:
H-seam is a horizontal seam across the back. Common on nearly every Nintendo-licensed game from the NES days through game boy advance (though GBA had many 3rd party, 3-side (or RTB/LRT) seams due to Nintendo winding down production from 2004-2006).
V-seam is an H-seam rotated 90 degrees. No difference otherwise.
RTB (or LRT) is a common three-side seam you’d see on many third party games (such as capcom or square enix). It’s legitimate in that regard, and sadly no way to prove it came from a factory except by comparing to a copy you know definitively came from said factory. As long as the box doesn’t look opened (see end of my post here) and the seal isn’t too rigid like a candy wrapper, it’s probably legitimate. These also appear on Nintendo DS games, of all things, and tend to look way uglier to those on cardboard/gameboy games. They’re the biggest indicator of a reseal on anything before Game Boy Advance and GameCube, with few exceptions.
Y-fold is the type of seal on your silver here. Common on games with disc cases and starting with Nintendo DS. No game boy (including color and advance) games should have this.
Four-side seam is always a fake reseal.
Which one is the most highly valued by collectorsAs long as it’s a legitimate seam, it’s highly valued. Preference is entirely up to the sophisticated collector, of which I’ve never encountered.
Any signs to look out for in regards to spotting a fake
The best way is to compare with a copy you know is legitimate. I’ve bought enough games now (over many years) that I just “know,” but in the beginning I had to buy multiple copies from difference sources and learn to tell the difference from posts online. In general though, Y-fold wrappers are like candy wrappers. Somewhat rigid and easy to fake. GameCube games have a distinct overlap across three sides indicating light use of adhesive, too. There are slight nuances like with GameCube but overall they’re similar. With H- and V-seams, the wrappers are much softer; easily scuffed and ripped. They feel sensitive, in other words.
As for Silver specifically (American print), it should always have an H-seam or V-seam. The print you’re showing is a Y-fold seam, which means the game was resealed at some point. Only PAL region had the Y-fold on their Game Boy games (in addition to the tear strips).
Separately, there are two ways to know if the box itself has been opened:
Open the box and check.
Inspect the box flaps/hinge where the flap meets the box. You should see a clear line (or crease) across the hinge through the glossy print should indicate it’s been opened. If there’s no crease there, you have yourself a resealed (but never opened) Pokemon silver, which is pretty cool, but sadly has lower value overall.
-This game lacks an H/V seam on the back of the box. In fact there is no seam on the back of the box.
-There is no T seam on the sides of the box, just one long continuous seam intersecting 3 side panels of the box.
-The plastic film feels much cheaper, I know this is hard to compare, but what I recommend is comparing the plastic to a legit sealed game you might have. I simply rubbed my thumb on a factory sealed GBC game I have, while also rubbing my other thumb on this Pokemon Pinball. My thumb smoothly slid across the factory sealed GBC game with minimal friction or “squeeking” noises. My other thumb did not slide as smoothly and experienced friction across this Pokemon Pinball seal, as well as “squeeking” noises.
-This game had excessive pinholes, many more pinholes than I’ve seen in an OEM Nintendo seal. The pinholes also did not show horizontal/vertical correlation to an H/V seam because, well… there was no seam.
-The plastic feels slightly loose, I’d be lying if I said this was a dead giveaway of a reseal, because sometimes it just is not. In this case, the shrink wrap is kind of wavy and not firmly grasping the box. Normally, I’d honestly let a very slightly loose shrink wrap pass, but because of the prior points, I couldn’t let this one through.
It is funny, because if you check out this video talking about factory seams, one of the top comments is a person who claims to have worked at KB Toys, and he says they had a wrap machine in the back and they would re-wrap games that were new, but just showed signs of wear, etc. So that Pokemon Pinball might actually be “brand new”, but it just got re-sealed at KB Toys. Which is unfortunate!
Preference is entirely up to the sophisticated collector, of which I’ve never encountered.
