A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for the NES has sold for $100,150, setting a new record for the video game-collecting market and perhaps ushering in a new era for the valuation of gaming rarities.

Before you go searching to see if that old cartridge in your attic might be your gateway to riches, note that this copy of the game is so valuable primarily because it’s one of the earliest known copies of the game, and in near-perfect condition. The box in question comes from Nintendo’s extremely limited “test market launch” for the NES in New York City and Los Angeles starting in late 1985 (no one actually knows the exact date). These copies didn’t come in the usual shrink wrap but were instead sealed with a small matte or glossy sticker (this handy guide outlines the many different Super Mario Bros. box variants released between 1985 and 1994).

Deniz Kahn—CEO and cofounder of game-grading service Wata Games, which evaluated this specimen—estimates that only 2,000 to 10,000 copies of each of the 27 test market games were ever made in this sticker-sealed style. That makes finding even an opened box decades later rare enough. Finding one with the sticker seal intact is even rarer; Kahn estimates only a few dozen exist across the whole test-market line.

But finding an unopened test-market Super Mario Bros. is so rare that Kahn told Ars that it’s “the only known copy of arguably the most important game in Nintendo history… It’s rumored that there is one more out there, but it’s just hearsay. I haven’t seen proof of it.”

Not only that, but Wata Games’ chief grader Kenneth Thrower said in a statement that this box is in a “supreme state of preservation… [test market boxes] usually exhibit significant wear after more than 30 years.” Wata Games gave the unopened box a 9.4 rating on its ten-point rating scale and gave the sticker seal its highest rating of A++. “This game may be the condition census of all sticker sealed NES games known to exist,” Thrower said.

Coming out of the woodwork

Kahn said he first heard of this one-of-a-kind, sealed test-market Super Mario Bros. about six years ago through direct contact with the person who eventually sold it. While Kahn said that seller wished to keep his identity private, he’s “one of the largest collectors of sealed video games” and is well-known in the tight-knit community of top-level game collectors.

“You couldn’t be a high-level collector without knowing [about this game],” Kahn said. “In the sealed collector market that was one of his holy grails. A lot of collectors at that level know about the game. People know where it came from because the community is not massive.”

There’s not much information available on how the seller came into possession of the game or how it remained in such good condition for decades despite having no protection from shrink wrap. Usually this kind of top-quality find only occurs by happenstance. A collection of 2,200 sealed NES, SNES, and Genesis games was recently uncovered from two Indiana video rental stores that had suddenly shut down, leaving their stock sitting undisturbed on the shelves for years. “Sometimes a grandmother might buy a game for Christmas and then pass away,” Kahn said of previous high-quality gaming finds.

Though the sealed Super Mario Bros. had been previously graded by another company, Kahn says the owner sent it to Wata for re-evaluation in part because “we actually recognize on the label what variant it is, while the old one hadn’t in any way (or not prominently enough).” That’s important because a mint-condition copy of the 11th printing of Super Mario Bros. is only worth about $1,000, Kahn said.

Finding a buyer

Once Wata Games’ grading process was complete, word quickly spread among the community that the game might be available for purchase for the right price. “The owner said he would not listen to an offer that was less than $100,000,” said Jim Halperin, owner of Heritage Auctions and one of three buyers who ended up purchasing a share in the game. “So we all talked about it and decided to buy it together. The extra $150 covered the seller’s expenses.”

(While Halperin sits on the advisory board for Wata Games, Kahn stressed that he had no knowledge or involvement about the grading process before it was completed.)

The six-figure sales price is easily a record in the video game world. A shrink-wrap-sealed (post-test-market) copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for just over $30,000 last year. Sealed copies of the ultra-rare Stadium Events have sold for at least $35,000 in the past. A Nintendo World Championship cartridge attracted a $98,000 bid in 2014, but that bid appears to have been fake and the sale never happened at that price.

Halperin was brought in to the record-setting deal by Rich Lecce, who until 2010 had the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest video game collection. Zac Gieg, a collector and owner of Just Press Play Video Games, also took part in the sale.

“At Rich’s request, the partners invited me in after the price was set,” Halperin told Ars. “My now-partners simply decided that we could all go in together and keep it in strong hands. This was an opportunity to diversify the risk, have fun, and use the publicity to help educate others about the hobby.”

Halperin says he’s not sure precisely which of the three owners will hold on to the game going forward. “For now it will be stored in our vaults at Heritage Auctions whenever we aren’t displaying at conventions and other events,” he said. “Of course we all want to share it with the collecting community as often as humanly possible.”

A million-dollar video game?

While the six-figure game sale is a new high-water mark for the collecting community, it may not remain so for long. “When a new collecting genre is launched and a piece comes on the market for the first time, that is the absolute best price you’re going to pay for that item because word will get out and demand will spike across the world,” Heritage Auctions PR Director Eric Bradley told Ars.

“When a story like this gets out, everybody turns to their collection and goes, ‘OK, is my copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 still sealed or did I buy an extra copy?’ They start to look at the quality and the flood gates start to open… I would not be surprised if we saw more games in the next five years getting into the five- or six-figure prices.”

Kahn likened this sealed Super Mario Bros. to Action Comics No. 1, the premiere of Superman that has become the holy grail for comic book collectors. Both examples complete the trifecta for premium collectibility: rarity, popularity among the public, and significance to collectors. The only other game that might compete in value, Kahn said, is a true first-printing of The Legend of Zelda (which has a ™ rather than an ® mark on the box). “There is one known copy [of the first-printing Zelda] and I’ve never even seen a photo of it,” he said.

A pristine copy of Action Comics No. 1 sold for $3.21 million in 2014, and Kahn doesn’t think those kinds of valuations are out of the question for the rarest, most desirable video games. “The Overstreet Price Guide in the mid-’70s was listing $12,000 for a mint condition Action Comics No. 1,” Kahn points out. “In games, some titles sold for one-tenth of their current price just a decade ago.”

“There are bets on what will someday be the first million dollar video game, and many collectors believe that this will be the one,” Halperin said. “Whether it is or not, I think the value is there based upon the rarity, importance of Super Mario and the high grade. When coins, baseball cards, and comic books with much higher populations are bringing millions of dollars, to me this game seems like a great value at this level.”

“I think [this particular Super Mario Bros.] could go higher depending on the demand,” Bradley said. “I don’t know if it would go higher immediately…. The game is iconic, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they hold on to it for a while and when the market matures a little bit it comes up for auction.”

“We’ve been seeing the video game market growing and reaching the level of the more mature hobbies,” Kahn added. “It’s only natural that the people who grew up with this stuff are getting disposable incomes and they want to collect what they grew up with. There’s this transition that happened with comics and now with games; they aren’t just seen as items of nostalgia, but being appreciated for their art and cultural value. That’s what’s causing this paradigm shift.”

“If video games are going to go the way of comics and coins, then there will one day be a million dollar video game sale, and I think this is that game if that’s going to happen.”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1457327