The Only Known Sealed First Production Original Mario Bros. Game Just Sold For a Massive Amount at Auction
One video game guaranteed to dominate any auction it appears in is Nintendo’s Mario Bros. The 1986 game that brought Mario’s arcade game onto the Nintendo Entertainment System and helped to cement the company’s signature franchise is well known for being a highly prized piece of history. After a never-before-seen Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cartridge recently found its way to auction for over $30,000, Heritage Auctions delivered something much bigger with a high-graded version of very first production run of The Original Mario Bros., the only known sealed example which comes with the early gloss sticker that marks it as one of the rarest Nintendo grails out there. That is why, in this first ever sale of such an item, the unique opportunity saw bidding soar to a massive $450,000, which is probably not surprising for one of most significant releases of Nintendo’s history.
This Mario Bros. cartridge comes with everything that collectors look for when considering offers that run into hundreds of thousands of dollars – or even millions. Super Mario Bros. became the best known and biggest selling iteration of Mario and Luigi, but this version went back to the 1983 arcade game featuring the intrepid plumbers, which helped to launch the entire franchise. The platformer would go on to be the basis and inspiration for many of the games that followed, as well as the entire Mario franchise, which is still going strong today with theme parks, movies, TV shows, and new games always on the horizon. This particular copy is graded PSA 9.2 A++, and as the only such sealed, graded copy out there, the likelihood of it making serious money was never in doubt. While it could not reach the same heights as the famous $3 million Super Mario cartridge sale from earlier this year, no one is disappointed by this staggering result.
Why This Original Mario Cartridge Sold for 10 Times Than Other Mario Games
What is interesting is that this was not the only Mario cartridge to be sold in this auction, but it brought a final sale price of more than 10 times the other iterations on offer even though some of them carried a higher grading. So what stopped others from turning five-figure sales into six figures? Firstly, although they are easy to mistake for each other at a glance, the $450,000 item was for The Original Mario Bros. game, and not the more famous Super Mario Bros., the title that everyone is more familiar with. However, the price range on three of those Super Mario Bros. cartridges is still substantially lower than even some other past sales of the title. The highest example was a PSA 9.6 version from the last run of Super Mario Bros. cartridges to be produced, which sold for $42,500, while a PSA 9.0 variant from mid-production – one of six known to exist – fetched $37,500. Behind those was first-production matte sticker copy with a PSA 7.5 grading brought a similarly impressive $31,250.
Super Mario Bros. was the game that saved the console market, which helps any of these early copies of the game an instant hit at auction. However, the phenomenal sum paid for The Original Mario Bros. cartridge is another example of what really defines the value of these items among collectors. Super Mario. Bros cartridges may be rare, even those with small quirks to their packaging, but the Mario Bros. cartridge is completely unique, a true one-of-a-kind piece of gaming history. It is that scarcity that outshines any sticker or cover variant where there are at least a few copies known to exist. It is why sometimes the most famous item lags behind the one that has been almost lost in its shadow. Right now, it is Mario Bros. that is proving to be superior to Super Mario Bros. that became Nintendo’s first console mega-hit.