Unopened "New" Copy of A 1989 Super Mario Gaming Chair Is Pure 90s Nostalgia (& Worth More Than You'd Think)

Mario has always been big business. That Italian plumber won over a legion of fans as soon as he first appeared in Donkey Kong (1981) and fronted his first video game, Mario Bros., alongside his brother Luigi, just two years later. Mario’s popularity just continues to grow, so even brief missteps like 1986’s Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, and the 1993 movie, Super Mario Bros. haven’t hindered him.

That means that anything with Mario’s visage plastered onto it is worth money. But it’s rare you find something so unusual that even dedicated collectors have seldom seen it before. That goes double for sealed collectibles, especially if the item in question is over three decades old. A recent listing on eBay is just that: a Mario item that’s unopened, in good condition, and rarely sees the light of day.

What Makes This Mario Chair So Special?

Now available on eBay is a Super Mario Bros. chair hailing from 1989, with Mario front and centre against a pattern of coins, mushrooms, Bullet Bills, and more – an eye-catching illustration. This is classed as a “video chair”, so it’s quite a small item comprised of a vinyl seat and back, plus steel frame. It was designed for “playing video games, watching TV, and studying”, as well as for outdoor uses on the beach, for picnics, or camping.

The thing that makes this listing stand out, however, is that the chair is still sealed. We’ve never actually seen a sealed version before, so to say this is a rare find is an understatement! Yes, its asking price, $999 or best offer, is steep, but used examples tend to go for around $300 to $500 and those are often in bad condition. This one, then, is a solid price due to its scarcity. Let’s not forget that it’s nearly 40 years old, so to find this chair still unopened is astonishing.

Why We Think This Mario Gaming Chair Is Wonderful

There’s something gloriously kitsch about this item, of course. It absolutely screams late ‘80s/early ‘90s, typifying the type of gaming merchandise that was being released at that time. It beautifully sums up the zeitgeist and excitement around gaming around that period – when video games were becoming more and more commercially available, and leading up to an explosion in the mid- to -late 1990s and 2000s. Mario is the best-selling video game franchise of all time, so to see a nice example of early merchandise like this, still sealed and in great condition, is a rare glimpse into the past of a games giant.

It’s also an amazing barometer for how greatly things have changed. It’s a “video chair”, a basic design comprised of a frame and seat. There are no easy comparisons, but this could be seen as an early take on the gaming chairs that every die-hard player owns. They’re typically large, encompassing chairs designed for whoever is sitting in it to be comfortable while occupying it for some considerable time. We wouldn’t want to collect all the Power Moons in Super Mario Odyssey while getting friction burn on that vinyl seat.

This is a charming slice of 1980s nostalgia and for that, let alone its astonishing condition, it’s an incredible find.

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