It wasn’t too long ago that sealed copies of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario 64 smashed gaming collectible records by selling for $870,000 and $1.5 million, respectively, but those records have already been shattered by another notable sale that ended this week.
As reported by The New York Times, a sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for $2 million yesterday, an unbelievable figure that now makes Nintendo’s classic the most expensive video game to have ever been sold.
Unlike the previous record holders that were hosted via Heritage Auctions, this sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. was sold off of a novel collectibles site called Rally, which allows users to invest in shares of physical collectibles as if they were stocks.
Rally purchased its sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for $140,000 in April and offered it for $300,000 before it was ultimately purchased by an anonymous buyer with big pockets this week.
Punks, X-Men, Declarations, and some news…
— Rally (@OnRallyRd) August 6, 2021
🏆A NEW WORLD RECORD on Rally🏆
…w/ the $2,000,000 sale of our 1985 Super Mario Bros., marking the HIGHEST PRICE EVER PAID for a video game of any title.
Read more in todays New York Times (cc: @nytimes): https://t.co/mJzEcVMXuQ pic.twitter.com/segsfw6Jw9
Ed Converse, a graduate law student from Green Bay, Wis., invested $100 in the game last year and said he was netting $950 from the sale.
“I’m very excited about it,” Mr. Converse, 32, said. “It’s pretty crazy to think that I made an investment in it because of the nostalgia of playing the video game when I was a kid and now it’s selling for $2 million.”
Sources: The New York Times, Rally