I guess Mario isn’t the only classic video game character who can bring in the big bucks from collectors.
On Friday, Heritage Auctions held their first standalone “Video Game Signature Auction” and auctioneers brought the hammer down on a sealed and graded copy of The Legend of Zelda for $870,000. This eye-popping price isn’t just impressively high, it also set a new record for a single game transaction.
“I had a lot of confidence in this game, and, yet, I still feel like the reality of today’s bidding exceeded my vision of how it would play out,” said Valarie McLeckie, a Video Games Specialist at Heritage Auctions. “Making history is never an easy thing. I’m just really proud we got to be part of this yet again.”
So it’s time to ask once again, what makes this copy of The Legend of Zelda so special? Aside from being sealed and graded (earning a 9.0 A score from Wata), it also comes from one of the game’s rarest print runs. According to Heritage, “this copy is the earliest sealed copy one could realistically hope to obtain.”
In this case, bidders were especially looking at the circular Nintendo Seal of Quality on the front cover, which doesn’t include the Revision information that would be included on all later print runs (known in collector circles as the “NES R” variant). Later pressings would shift to the more familiar oval-shaped Nintendo Seal of Quality and add a Revision number in red text to the front of the box.
The “NES R” variant of The Legend of Zelda was only produced for a few months in 1987, but it was preceded by the even rarer “NES TM” variant, which swaps out the ® symbol on the cover for a plain “TM” marking. However, the auctioneers at Heritage believe that only a single sealed “NES TM” example still exists.
The collector market for video games, especially those that have been graded by Wata, has just exploded in the last few years. The final bid for this auction surpassed the previous recordholder, a similarly sealed and graded copy of Super Mario Bros. that sold for $660,000 in April, by $210,000.
As recently as a year ago, a different sealed and graded copy of Super Mario Bros. changed hands in a private sale for the then-record-breaking amount of $140,000. The final bid on eight additional games from Heritage’s “Video Game Signature Auction” surpassed that amount, including graded examples of Super Mario World, Final Fantasy, a Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge, Mario Bros., Contra, Super Mario Bros. 3, and two additional copies of Super Mario Bros.
A copy of Super Mario 64 that’s currently sitting at $330,000 in pre-auction bidding will join them after it’s sold later today.
It really is only a matter of time until someone pockets more than a million dollars for a single (sealed and graded) game, isn’t it?