Last year, a more typical edition of the game went for $50,400.
This year, a virtually flawless copy of Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) sold for $660,000. That record has since been surpassed by The Legend of Zelda, which was released only three months ago. On Friday, an auction house sold a rare, early manufacturing edition of the Nintendo Entertainment System classic for $870,000.
The game that sold this week is thought to be one of the oldest known sealed copies of The Legend of Zelda in existence, aside from a single sealed copy from its original manufacturing run. As stated by Heritage Auctions, the cartridge that was sold on Friday is from a production run of the game known as the “NES-R.” Nintendo only produced that version of the game for a few months in late 1987, when it was discontinued. In terms of the game itself, “this copy is essentially the oldest sealed copy one could possibly expect to get,” according to the auction house before the game went up for auction.
Regardless of whether the item is in immaculate condition or not, $870,000 is a significant sum of money to spend on a collectable. An identical copy of The Legend of Zelda from the game’s more common 1988 “Rev-A” manufacturing run went for $50,400 at Heritage Auctions last year to put the price in context.
Latest: September 2024
