An unopened copy of a vintage Super Mario Bros. video game has been sold for $114,000 at an auction, which is a testament to the game’s enduring popularity. An anonymous bidder won the early version of the groundbreaking Super Mario Bros. game released in 1985 for Nintendo’s NES console in an auction held Friday at Dallas-based Heritage Auctions.
The $114,000 price bested Heritage Auctions’ previous record bid for a video game, which was a $100,150 bid made for an unopened copy Super Mario Bros. last year. This year’s copy was part of a collection of vintage 80s and 90s video games that were sold to several buyers for an astounding $700,000, improving upon Heritage Auction’s initial target of $500,000. Among other titles auctioned were Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!, a 1987 video game based on the former heavyweight boxing champion, which went for $50,400.
Last year, an ultra-rare copy of Mega Man from the game’s first production run reached $75,000 during auction. At the time, it was confirmed to be the world record for the most valuable unopened video game ever sold at auction. The auction was also held at Heritage Auctions. That auction, held from November 21 to 24, included a selection of Wata-certified video games that sold for a total of $616,534.
“Sealed, high-grade video games starring blue-chip characters from early print runs currently spark the most interest with collectors,” Heritage Auctions Consignment Director Valarie McLeckie said at the time. “Mega Man is one of Capcom’s most iconic IPs, and this game marks his first appearance. The ‘Dr. Wright’ variant is the definitive first print, named for the text on the back of the box identifying the villain as ‘Dr. Wright,’ as it was changed shortly thereafter to ‘Dr. Wily’ on later print runs. Indisputably, this is not only the crown jewel of the Carolina Collection, but one of the most elusive sealed keys in video game collecting.”
Nearly two dozen bidders entered bids for the Mega Man [“Dr. Wright” First Release] – Carolina Collection Wata 9.4 A+ Sealed NES Capcom 1987 USA. Some believed it was the last remaining sealed copy from the game’s original production run.
Heritage Auctions is the largest fine art and collectibles auction house in the United States, and the world’s largest collectibles auction house. Heritage has offices in New York, Dallas, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Chicago, Palm Beach, London, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. The company also hosts the Internet’s most popular auction-house website, HA.com, which has over 1,250,000 registered bidder-members and free archives of five million past auction records.
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