Not too long ago, I made a thread called “undocumented Virtual Boy promo item?”…
There, I told the story on how I had found this interesting but severely damaged undocumented promo item for the Virtual Boy. The damage was caused from 8 button cell batteries leaking due to them being left in the item for soo long. I did try to have the item restored, but in the end, I had to guess what the actual light did to have it replaced. I chose to go with a blinking red LED, since well… It’s a VB promo item, and the artwork of the item just reminded me of a bright red flash.
Recently, I came across 2 more of these special value items, and they’re both new and still sealed! I flicked the switch on one of them and nothing happened. I then flicked on the other, and BAM! It works!
The item does indeed flash a bright red light, in a steady pattern, about 1 flash per second. It’s crazy that those batteries are still working after more than 20 years.
And now, I would like to introduce to the community, another undocumented (until now) VB promo item!
This was included in the same set as the above red special value buttons. It’s basically the same thing as the red ones, only I flicked it on and it does not work. And there’s no way in hell I’m opening it up to find out what it does after what I went through with the first one. It most likely does the same thing, and that’s to flash a red light.
These must’ve been included in a special value set of some sorts. Since each one matches certain colors of the Virtual Boy’s US retail box.
Benjamin Stevens wrote:
it looks like they’re doing more than just matching the VB box’s colors. Especially with the blue one, it appears that part of the blue control pad on the VB’s box appears to the left of the “Nintendo” logo on the button, and the rest of the button could be a distorted image of what appears on the VB’s box, too.
I see what you’re saying there. Check this out… I was able to remove the blue one from its plastic to get a better picture. It seems to match one of the blue inner box flaps quite nicely.
Turns out these buttons aren’t buttons after all, they’re Shelf Talkers. Shelf Talkers are basically pieces of advertisements that run along the edge of store shelves. The first picture below shows a store shelf with the necessary holes for mounting such advertisements. The second picture is just an example.
