We discovered a new variant of Super Mario Bros(nintendowire.com)
33 pointsby hn198611 hours ago4 comments
  • shmeeed11 minutes ago
    Talk about a barn find. According to ChatGPT, this box might be worth $1 million or more.

    Good thing the owner talked to the author before putting them up for $15 each...

  • walrus01an hour ago
    Something that I wonder about when I see the 'final' results like these NES cartridges sealed in a graded plastic box as a collectible.

    Surely the market value of these will only hold up as long as they're within the normal lifespan of the people for whom the original NES is a nostalgia item?

    For example: If you were born in 1978 and were 7 to 8 years old when your parents bought the original NES and brought it home with a small selection of games, that's probably a core memory for you. And probably exactly the same demographic now who will pay big money for these things.

    But as this generation of people ages, do people who have no childhood memory of a NES (or SNES, or Genesis, etc) because they were born in 1999 consider these things to have any value? Will their value drop significantly when there's no longer a population of age-range-appropriate nostalgic collectors to buy them?

    If these are being treated as some kind of "how many dollars per unit" valuable commodity to be traded/hoarded, is it the best possible solution to convert a collection of something like this into currency before the collectors age out of the market?

    • maxericksonan hour ago
      My buddy's teenager has a collection of old systems, sort of does it as a hobby. I am not informed, but I guess they don't pay high for stuff.
      • walrus01an hour ago
        Googling "psa graded 9.6 NES mario bros" turns up some absurd looking dollar values. I can totally see collecting old video game stuff as a hobby when we're talking about things that a teenager can get for free or nearly free. There's just a vast amount of consumer goods sloshing around North America and lots of peoples' aunts/uncles probably have a SEGA Genesis with some games in a cardboard box on a shelf in the basement.

        Or for a few dollars/nominal cost. Sort of like the people who are buying and restoring 30-year old i386 gaming PCs for retro stuff, you can find the hardware for free if you talk to enough older people. Or find a way to intercept it before people literally huck it into a dumpster or take it to electronics recycling. Same for some people who luck into getting nice old 27 inch Sony Trinitron CRT TVs for free.

        But when we're talking about thousands of dollars or more per unit for a sealed (so you can never actually open or play it without ruining its value and grading) game in a plastic box, that's a whole other ball game...

      • antonymoosean hour ago
        Define “high” here - I grew up collecting NES gear and games from the flea market as a teen (circa 2005) and it was perhaps $30 for a working NES console, most games were $5. Perhaps $10-20 for a Legend of Zelda or Super Mario Bros. Few times a year some empty-nesters would hold a yard sale at the flea market and one could snatch up their grown children’s abandoned childhood games, negotiate $20 for the whole box.

        Nowadays you go to the flea market it’s a full-time reseller charging e-Bay influenced prices on all products. There’s no deal to be had. Feels like a death of an era sadly.

        • walrus01an hour ago
          My personal theory on that is that you bought all your stuff at a specific time (like 2005 or prior) before the population of original 1980s NES-game-owners became old enough, established in their careers and started having enough disposable income to buy back all their childhood favorites in a new collection, driving up the market price per piece.
  • worthless-trashan hour ago
    Do we know if the actual binary on the cartridge is the same ?
  • prathje2 hours ago
    Now that is a new variant I actually like to hear about. Thanks for the story behind it!