Who Knew Gaming Could Be So Profitable?

Forget Forex and deep-six stocks. Find me a sealed copy of Super Mario 64!  A sealed copy of the Nintendo 64 classic recently sold at auction for a whopping $1.56 million. The distinguishing mark for this sale? Wata Games, a games grading firm, graded this particular copy of Super Mario 64 a rare 9.8, making it the highest-graded copy on record. Not bad for a 25-year-old game.  

But wait - there's more! A Wata-graded 9.0 early-production Legend of Zelda for the NES sold at Heritage Auctions July 9th for a head-snapping $870,000. This Zelda auction began with an astonishing opening bid of $110,000, yet that amount was merited by its particular rarity. The copy in question was part of a late-1987 production run dubbed "NES R," which preceded the game's wider initial production run in early 1988 (dubbed "REV-A," as per a marking on its box). The latter was a much wider run that coincided with the console's explosion in American popularity, and it, too, featured a foil-gold cartridge. Thus, don't assume that your shiny Zelda cartridge in an old drawer is somehow worth close to a million dollars - especially since this auction happens to come in a sealed, original box.

Gaming historians know of one other production run that came before NES R, but it is unclear whether those "NES TM" copies ever left Nintendo HQ or were stored in similarly boxed-and-sealed fashion. As Heritage itself claims in the auction's listing page: "Essentially, this copy is the earliest sealed copy one could realistically hope to obtain." (The company forgot to add the crucial "unless your dad works for Nintendo" tag there, of course.)

This NES R copy of Zelda was the highlight in Heritage's latest gaming auction spree, which, as of press time, includes the following jaw-dropping results, all for boxed-and-sealed gaming classics. This list of particularly high prices is largely attached to special indicators of a game's earliest production run, with two crucial "circles" in mind: the circular Nintendo Seal of Quality on early NES games, and a round Nintendo-branded sticker that guaranteed the box in question hasn't been opened yet. This surpasses the previous record holder, a rare, sealed copy of the original Super Mario Bros, which sold for a staggering $660,000. 

Here are some highlights from the July auction at Heritage:

• Super Mario World, SNES: $360,000
• Super Mario Bros., NES ("No Rev-A"): $228,000
• Final Fantasy, NES: $204,000
• Mario Bros., NES: $156,000
• Contra, NES: $150,000
• Super Mario Bros. 3, NES (a rare print of the "Bros." text aligned to the left): $120,000
• Final Fantasy III, SNES: $96,000
• Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, SNES: $96,000
• Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, NES: $84,000
• Tecmo Bowl, NES: $45,600
• Battletoads, NES: $38,400
• Tengen Tetris, NES: $33,600

Additionally, a rare Nintendo World Championship cartridge sold in today's auction for $180,000, and its listing alleges that its owner traded a rare Tom Brady rookie trading card for the cart. The same listing points out that said rookie card has been sold at auction for as much as $555,000. So dig in your basement or attic, at a run of approximately 200, the NWC cartridge is one of the most rare you can find. On the other hand, it could be found at the bottom of a sack of boring trades, similar to what walked in to Pink Gorilla Games in Seattle. The man, whose other trades included Rush n' Attack, California Games, and Spy Hunter, happily accepted the $13,000 offer on the spot.