Bloomy

I paid £275 for it back in May, which according to my PayPal history was $456.96 (exchange rates are a little cheaper at present). My most expensive Pokemon event purchase to date, but given the rarity of the system, I didn't want to let it slip to someone else. I don't remember what the auction's original Buy It Now price was, but the seller was also taking offers, and after a little haggling I didn't need to go too much above my initial offer for him to accept it. The seller also had a EUR berry glitch system up. It was an original style GBA with a cart that had tape all over it in what was apparently an attempt to "secure" it in the system. Since I already have a GC demo disc with the berry fix / shiny Zigzagoon distribution, I wasn't willing to offer what he was looking to get for it. A number of 4th gen and 5th gen distribution carts have popped up on eBay over the years. Was that $1,000 beasts cart a BIN price, or did it get bid up that high? I don't recall seeing one that expensive, that's pretty high for a DS distro cart. I have one of the beast carts, which I got for $137.50 on a BIN last March. Checking completed listings on eBay, one went for $199.99 on 12/27 and another for $225 on 10/12. I also picked up carts for Gamestop Deoxys back in Oct. 2009 and Winter 2011 Celebi in Oct. 2011. Since I have a US Colosseum bonus disc, I wasn't really interested in the Gamestop shiny Pichu / Jirachi carts that have popped up, nor Karrablast / Shelmet or Secret Egg carts. Have seen a couple Keldeo carts. One had already ended by the time I saw it. The other had a BIN price more than I was willing to pay, so I made a bid to disable the BIN, but was ultimately outbid. Gamestop seems much more lax than TRU about ensuring carts are sent back to Nintendo. Despite some Mystry Mew carts getting out in wild, I don't recall seeing Manaphy, Darkrai, Shaymin or Arceus carts show up on eBay. I had forgotten about this, but came across it while digging through some old posts of mine on another forum - I had taken my Deoxys cart to a Dragon Quest 9 map event at a Best Buy a couple years back, in case anyone had brought along some Pokemon games for trading. After chatting with the Nintendo rep for a while and getting the impression that she wouldn't make a stink about it, I showed her the Deoxys cart. Her eyes narrowed a bit and she asked me where I got it, and how much I paid after I told her eBay. She didn't seem to care that I had it, and said that the price that I paid (a little under $150) was about the price Nintendo charges for unreturned event carts. She said those charges are made at the corporate level, not the store / region level, which might make it easier for some to slip through the cracks. I had also told her that TRU employees said that if their carts weren't returned that they wouldn't be able to participate in future events, but she said that wasn't the case.

Thanks for that info, Kaphotics. I had read through that Mystry Mew thread previously, and I recall seeing an auction for one on eBay earlier last year. I was a bit leery about that, though, since I didn't know if there was a way to test the cart itself for legitimacy. I had participated in the event back in '06, and saw it was a regular game seeded with a PC full of Mew. I don't remember from the other thread if there is a way to identify a real TRU cart vs. one filled with Mew and touted as the real thing. My regrets from the actual event were not sticking around after all the kids had left and continue trading as long as the TRU employees would let me and not asking if they'd be willing to do a mass upload from the cart to my copy of Box. The member who PM'ed me did provide with me with the information to get it working. I need to hold Start and Select when powering on the receiving system, which starts the GBA in "receive" or "client" mode, for lack of knowing the official term for multiplayer with a single GBA cart. The distribution system's "WAITING..." changes to "TRANSFERRING..." and the receiving system shows : "You are receiving the POKéMON now. Please do not turn off the power." with a trail of Pokeballs rolling across the screen. Once the Mew is received, it says : "The POKéMON has arrived! Please turn off the power, and unplug the Game Boy Advance Game Link cable." with a Mew sprite beneath the message. If the party is full, the receiving GBA shows : "You need to have a free space in your party. Please turn off the power and unplug the Game Boy Advance Game Link cable." Once I receive a Mew, I can turn off the receiving system, turn it back on with Start and Select and receive another as long as I have space in my party. So it's not like the Jirachi disc (one per save) but like the GC demo disc berry fix Zigzagoon (unlimited). The 252 is a number distributed counter, it's now up to 270. :biggrin: Wonder if there's a limit, and if it would roll over to 0 if a limit is reached. I've sent Mew to US Sapphire, EUR Sapphire and US Emerald with the link cable. Purple end in the distribution system, which I think is how the set up needs to be for the "host" system. The distribution doesn't appear to work with the wireless adapter, the receiving system couldn't find anything to download. The distribution also failed to connect to a JP Ruby ("Please make sure you have an English version of a GBA Pokemon Game Pak inserted."), haven't checked to see if it gives that message for a non-Pokemon GBA game. My only current means of capturing video is my 3DS, which was also used for the pictures in the first post. I don't know how well things will show up with that, but will take some test videos later.

A few months back, I purchased a Mew distribution GBA system on eBay from someone in the UK. It's a regular GBA SP with a metal harness screwed onto it that prevents the cartridge from being removed. Pictures of the system are attached. I'm guessing this was used to distribute Aura Mew. I'm hoping someone here knows how to use it, because I haven't had much luck trying to figure it out myself or finding instructions online. I messaged the seller, who had excellent feedback, and he confirmed it worked. For something like this, I decided to take the risk of making an offer without fully knowing how to use it before someone else had a chance to bite. If you can't tell from the 4th picture, when I turn the system on, it says "POKéMON Deliver" near the top of the screen, "WAITING..." in the middle and "252" with a spinning Pokeball in the lower right. I've tried connecting it to US copies all 5 of the GBA games and a UK copy of Sapphire. I've tried the purple end of the GBA connector cable in both the sending and receiving systems, as well as Mystery Gift with the wireless adapter for FR/LG/E. No luck. I read through the AuroraTicket / US Emerald topic, so unless this cart is different from other GBA events, I should be able to use a US cart with it. The US carts I've tried have the Elite 4 beaten and have the National Dex. The UK cart only has 5 badges. I also bought it from eBay after picking up the system and not having luck with my other carts. I'm not 100% certain it's legit, though my US Diamond doesn't complain or wipe the save when trying to send stuff through the Pal Park. The battery has run out, though. I don't know if that would make a difference with this, but my US Sapphire's battery has also run out and I can't use it with my GC berry fix demo disc anymore. The berry program says the game pak is damaged or the save file has been modified, and I didn't do the latter. I hope that 252 on the screen doesn't represent some sort of distribution limit that's been reached. Thanks for any help and insight anyone can provide.