Two special blue Famicom disk development disks drop on Yahoo auctions last week.

  Last week, a special internal blue version of the mass produced yellow disks hit the Yahoo auction block. What is so special about the blue disks? Several games were released on blue disks. Well, these special disks are not the same blue disks we know and cherish in our collections. These blue disks do not have a sliding protection door. These blue disks do not have the giant magnetic warning graphic pressed on the center of the disk, they are near the opening of the disk like their yellow counterparts. These blue disks were internal to Nintendo and used for what are presumed to be golden master copies of FDS games. These disks are Famicom Disk development disks

The first blue disk to show up had “FMC MASTER DISK CARD” printed on the label. also printed on the label was “06-ULM-00-00” Presuming the ULM signifies the product ID BAN-ULM, this would be the master copy of Ultraman: Kaiju Empire’s Counterattack. And finally, a space for a hand written check sum for both sides of the disk. 

This particular disk sat at 10,500 yen for most of the 4 days it was up. However, 4:00 this morning (for me on the west coast of the United States), the bidding went pretty crazy. The disk ended up at 76,000 yen roughly $661 USD. As a side note, on Yahoo Auctions, if a bid is made before 5 mins left, the winning bid will add 3 minutes to the auction over and over whenever there is a last minute bid. Anything under 4 minutes (I think), it adds 8 minutes. Alternatively, if a bid is within seconds, I think the auction will end. I experienced this bidding on some Super Famicom game manuals. My high bid was 6000 yen and at the very last second, someone bid and my 6000 yen kicked in and won the auction. I am not really 100% positive on the time durations, however. Interesting note – the same seller also had a white developer disk for sale that ended up going for 38000 yen (about $330 USD). This is almost double what I paid for the white developer disk I bought last year on Ebay.

Famicom Disk development disks next to a normal yellow and blue disk

The second blue disk from the Famicom Disk development disks is more of a mystery. Thanks to the GIGALEAK, we were able to see a massive dump of FMC Master disks pictures for most games. However, the second special blue disk has a different label. The label reads: “FMC DUBBING SAMPLE” The second line reads “01-ESC-00-00” Presuming this is Exciting Soccer, which, IMHO is not very exciting…luckily it is a rare disk! However, side B of this disk as a label with “金額確認用” or “Kingaku kakunin-yō” Translated to “for checking the amount of money” Could this be the contents of the fabled Green accounting disk after all? Thank you to Dio in the comments for pointing out that Seccond disk is not “kingaku kakunin yo” but “ryousan kakunin yo”.
量産確認用”ryousan kakunin yo” means “For Mass production confirmation”.
Thank you.I also watched the bidding happen on this auction this morning. Many times, at a minute to go, another bidder would bid up the disk. At one point, someone almost doubled going from 77000 yen to 130000 yen. 

Overall, I did not expect these Famicom Disk development disks to hit what they did. It does seem odd to me that after all of these years, two separate disks showed up relatively at the same time from two different sellers. It makes me wonder if we will see more of these master or Dubbing disks show up in the days or months to come. I havent seen a white developer disk since the eBay auction last year; time will tell. 

Lets hope whoever won these disks will report what they are!