Classic video games show up on eBay all the time, and sometimes those listings can be incredibly cool, like this poster for the Super Mario Bros. movie which was signed by two of the games creators, Shigeru Myamoto and Takashi Tezuka. But sometimes these auctions are so high profile, they are held through the international auction house known as Heritage Auctions, like the one-of-a-kind Nintendo PlayStation prototype.
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One such auction took place recently. As caught by Kotaku writer Chris Koehler, a sealed test market copy of the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES sold for an incredible $114,000. This beats the previous single retro game record of last year’s sale of another early test market copy of Super Mario Bros. by $14,000. If someone is wondering what makes this version worth $14,000 more than the other, the answer lies in the hangtab.
Back in 1985, when Nintendo was doing test market runs in New York and L.A., the company tried several different styles of packaging the games on store shelves. For only a short period of time during that year or so, Nintendo manufactured the game with a cardboard tab to hang it on hooks in stores. Not only was Nintendo rather quick to nix that idea, this particular copy is one of four sub-variants of the game with a hangtab made “useless” by the plastic seal, as heritage Auctions explains:
The price of rare games from the NES-era has been on an upward trajectory for some time now. Only three years ago, the incredibly rare game Stadium Events sold for $42,000, a measly sum in comparison to this new Super Mario Bros. auction. Experts predict that prices will only grow more outrageous from here, so anyone who thinks they might have a gem like this left in their parent’s attic should begin hunting.
Super Mario Bros. is available on most Nintendo consoles, including the Switch via Nintendo Switch Online.
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Source: Heritage Auctions
