A Wild Gunman NES Copy Costs Almost $8,000 Thanks To A Tiny Piece Of Cardboard

I remember the first time I played Wild Gunman as a kid on my friend’s Nintendo Entertainment System. It wasn’t bright, colorful, and whimsical like the other games we were used to playing. The tense music, the duellists who looked like they were straight out of the movies my dad watched, and the loud flashes when the guns fired made us feel like we were playing a game meant for adults. Of course, this was immediately cast aside when we won the round and the opponent’s pants fell off or hat flew away. 

While it’s not the most popular NES Zapper entry – that honor belongs to Duck Hunt – it was a core part of my love for video games. It was the first “grown up” game I ever played, or at least it felt like that at the time. Despite being a major part of my love for video games, Wild Gunman never really made it into mainstream popularity, so it’s pretty surprising to see that a sealed copy of the game sold for almost $8,000 at Heritage Auctions. However, the reason isn’t the game itself, but a tiny piece of cardboard on the packaging. 

Wild Gunman Copy With An Un-Punched Cardboard Hangtab Sells For $7,812.50 At An Auction

This version of Wild Gunman has a PSA rating of 9.6, and is part of Nintendo’s fabled Black Box series. While that’s great, it’s not really the reason why it managed to garner such a high price. The crowning jewel of this copy isn’t what’s in the box, but what’s on it. For a while in the 1980s, Nintendo packaged games with a cardboard hangtab reinforced by a plastic one, meant for display purposes. This packaging feature was discontinued in 1987, making it extremely rare to find today. 

What’s more? Even if you find a Nintendo game with this hangtab, it would most likely be punched with a hole, allowing for it to be hung on display shelves. So, if you happened to buy the game off the shelf at the time, it would most likely be punched. However, the hangtab on this Wild Gunman copy isn’t punched. Most likely, this copy never made it onto the shelves, or was displayed in a way that didn’t need the hangtab to be punched, making it exceedingly rare, even amongst NES games with a hangtab.

It’s pretty interesting that what makes this copy of the game so valuable is a small piece of cardboard, and probably a throwaway decision that someone made over 40 years ago to not punch it. There are plenty of cases where a vintage item becomes more valuable because of the packaging, but seeing that value skyrocket because of the lack of a hole just shows how intricate the workings of the collectors’ market is.  

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