A copy of Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. bought as a Christmas gift in late 1986 was placed inside a desk drawer and forgotten for 35 years. It remained sealed and untouched until it was discovered in 2021. On April 2 that year, the game sold for $660,000 at Heritage Auctions, setting a new record for the most ever paid for a video game.The game was sold as part of Heritage Auctions’ Comics & Comic Art Auction in Dallas, Texas. The auction house described it as the finest known copy of the oldest sealed hangtab version of Super Mario Bros. to have been professionally graded for auction. The copy carried a Wata 9.6 A+ grade and was still sealed in its original packaging.The sale broke the previous record of $114,000, which had been set by another copy of Super Mario Bros. at a Heritage Auctions sale in July 2020. The 2021 copy was especially valuable because of its rare packaging variation and its condition.Someone bought the game in late 1986 as a Christmas gift. Instead of being opened, it was put into the bottom of an office desk drawer. It stayed there for decades without the owner realising that the unopened game could one day become a highly valuable collector’s item.“It stayed in the bottom of my office desk this whole time since the day I bought it,” said the seller, who asked not to be identified. “I never thought anything about it,” he said as quoted by Heritage Auctions.
A short production run made it rare
The game’s condition was only part of what made it special. Heritage Auctions said the copy was a pristine example of a particular Super Mario Bros. variant that was produced for an extraordinarily short period.It had a perforated cardboard hangtab and plastic shrink wrap. Heritage described it as the finest sealed copy with a perforated cardboard hangtab of any black box title it had offered. It was also the oldest factory-sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. ever offered by the auction house.The copy was produced in late 1986. According to Heritage Auctions Video Games Director Valarie McLeckie, it was among the earliest copies that came with plastic shrink wrap instead of a sticker seal.“This particular copy was produced in late 1986, and it was one of the earliest copies produced that had plastic shrink wrap, rather than sticker seal,” McLeckie said. “By early 1987, Nintendo was producing a version that had another new variation to their original packaging (an additional “code”).“As soon as this copy of Super Mario Bros. arrived at Heritage, we knew the market would find it just as sensational as we did,” Heritage Auctions Video Games Director Valarie McLeckie said. “Even so, the degree to which this game was embraced outside the market has been nothing short of exceptional, and that aspect of this sale has certainly exceeded our expectations. Though, I suppose we can’t be too shocked; who doesn’t love Mario?”
