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How many times have you opened up an old box in the attic to find treasures from your past? Be it old toys, comic books, or Pokémon cards, these trinkets remind us of the good old days, when we didn’t have to worry about Zoom calls or world affairs. Of course, these ‘treasures’ are only valuable to us thanks to their sentimental value, and most of the time don’t really have any monetary value. But, now and then, someone opens up a box of memories to discover they’ve had something actually worth a lot of money, to the right people.
That’s exactly what happened to one person about five years ago, who discovered a sealed copy of the original Super Mario Bros. game sitting in their desk drawer. While it was purchased in 1986 as a Christmas gift for someone, the seller never did end up giving it to them, resulting in the pristine copy sitting in the desk drawer, only to be rediscovered decades later, in 2021. They eventually presented the copy to Heritage Auctions, where it sold for a whopping $660,000 on April 2, 2021. It smashed the previous record for a copy of Super Mario Bros. sold at the auction house, which was $114,000 in July 2020. There’s something sad about a Christmas gift that was never given, but imagine how many they can now buy with that kind of money.
Why Was This Sealed Copy Of Super Mario Bros. Worth So Much?
But what made this particular copy of Super Mario Bros. so special that it went for six times the price of the previous record? Apart from being in great condition, Heritage Auctions said that it was produced in late 1986 and had a plastic shrink wrap instead of the regular sticker seal. By the beginning of 1987, Nintendo started using sticker seals for their packaging, doing away with the shrink wrap system. The method used to package it was used for a very short period and is one of the main reasons why this copy of the game is so coveted. In fact, finding one with this packaging and in a similar condition is next to impossible.
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The unnamed buyer struck gold when they found the copy. “It stayed in the bottom of my office desk this whole time since the day I bought it,” they said at the time. “I never thought anything about it.” The copy is now considered one of the most lucrative and rarest video game items to ever be sold on Heritage Auctions. So, I suggest you start opening up your old memory boxes and drawers; you never know what you may end up finding.
In fact, Heritage Auctions has currently listed a copy of Super Mario Bros. with a Nintendo Entertainment System that’s currently going for $796,875 with the buyer’s premium. There are still a few days left, so the price may go up even further.
Do you have any vintage games that could be worth a lot of money? Let us know with a comment below, and join the conversation now in the Forum!
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