How to identify a cart? Also how to determine pirates? How to determine value?

[NexPhr3ak0r]

So i've searched around a bit and have some basic ideas but is there any generally accepted way to figure out the famicom carts you have?

I am very new to the famicom world since i started getting hooked when a comic shop i go to got in a whole bunch of carts and I was able to spot some particular ones for myself, but there was a bunch in nothing but japanese (which i have zero capability to read) text.  I am now trying to help the owner of the shop identify what he has.  He must have gotten in 100 famicom games.  Some boxed, some not. 

Is that family computer 1983-1994 book the final word when it comes to identifying famicom games visually? 

Also is there any way to easily identify pirate games vs. real?  Like missing catalog id's or anything along those lines?

Also how do you figure out the value of something that you can't find for sale?  Being in the US i assume the value of famicom games would differ slightly from international value. 

[untinip]

Most (all?) official carts have a catalog id. If you have the catalog id you can look up the game's name here:
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/

If you think a game is a pirate, just look up the game at the site above and take a look at the official cart. Most pirates looks substantially different from the original cart.

[crade]

Not all official carts will have a catelog id, and some won't be in bootgod's db yet, but thats a good place to start.

The officials will usually have the company's name and copyright date written on them as well.  Another way that usually works for me is just do a google or ebay search for the game and see what the official version looks like.  Usually the pirate versions have little info other than the title on the label.  Obviously if they have a picture of a movie or something that came out after 2000, they are going to be pirate versions as well..  The pirates are usually pretty obvious..  Poor quality plastic, ect.

I don't know of any way of figuring out the value of anything you can't find a completed sale of..  Try checking more sources I guess.  Just price it high and keep looking?

[80sFREAK]

So i've searched around a bit and have some basic ideas but is there any generally accepted way to figure out the famicom carts you have?

Carts usually have code, like HVC-xxx or CAP-xxx etc. You can search bootgod's database by that codes.

Also is there any way to easily identify pirate games vs. real?  Like missing catalog id's or anything along those lines?

"weird" design of label, bad plastic, light weight. However some of pirates quite valuable due to rarity and content(Rockman 6-in-1 for example)

Also how do you figure out the value of something that you can't find for sale?  Being in the US i assume the value of famicom games would differ slightly from international value. 

World is little bit bigger than nintendoage