Publishers revised their packaging constantly — new seals, new banners, revised manuals, tweaked artwork, added reprint markings — and every one of those changes is a dated fingerprint. A collector who can read the revisions can date a copy to within a print window at a glance, which is the difference between paying first-print money for a first print and paying it for a reprint.
Quality seals and their equivalents changed shape and placement over time. Nintendo's 'Official Seal of Quality' moved from an early oval to a later round mark; other publishers had their own progressions. On a launch-era title the period-correct early seal is required for a first-print claim — a later seal on an early release is proof of a reprint, no matter how clean the copy.
The clearest revision markers are the reprint banners added once a title proved a hit.
Beyond seals and banners, boxes and manuals carry revision codes, and artwork was quietly adjusted between runs — a repositioned logo, a corrected credit, a colour shift, a changed rating mark. These are the connoisseur's tells, documented per-title, and they let you distinguish runs that look identical to a casual eye. Hangtabd's per-title identification guides record the ones that move the market.