A Sealed Copy of The Legend of Zelda Just Sold For Nearly a Million Dollars (theverge.com) 37
A sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda for the NES just sold for $870,000 at Heritage Auctions, breaking the previous record for the most expensive game ever sold. Jay Peters writes via The Verge: As for why this version of the game is so valuable? I'm just going to leave part of Heritage Auctions' grandiose explanation here: "While it is a hard truth, it is a truth nonetheless â" none of the copies we've offered of this title previously could even attempt to hold a candle to this one due to its incredibly rare variant that holds early production status. This matter is completely inarguable. This is the only copy from one of the earliest production runs that we've ever had the opportunity to offer, and, possibly will have the opportunity to offer, for many years to come. Considering this variant was only produced for a few months in late 1987 before it was ultimately replaced by the 'Rev-A' variant in early 1988, this statement likely comes as no surprise to collectors. Only one other variant precedes the offered 'NES R' variant and that is the 'NES TM' variant, which is the true first production run. However, it is also widely believed that only a single sealed 'NES TM' example exists, and there is no telling whether or not that copy will ever come to market. Essentially, this copy is the earliest sealed copy one could realistically hope to obtain."
Same reason why a 100 carat diamond sold for $12m (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Same reason why a 100 carat diamond sold for $1 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Same reason why a 100 carat diamond sold for $ (Score:2)
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Well of course. When the end of the world comes, just crack open that box, plug into one's retro-NES and have some good memories while the planet burns. Cryptocurrencies...?
Blind squirrel theory (Score:2)
Scour enough garage sales, and you too, might discover a hidden treasure...
I find it likely, on the order of tomorrow's sunrise, that someone will win their State Lottery, not that that's a sane way to plan one's retirement.
One off experience: I ran into an old friend today, who'd had a bit of contractor luck and won a 300k bid, for a 6 month project renovating a metal building. He quoted materials as costing only 75K of that, as he bought seven $50 lottery tickets at the liquor store we met at.
Re: Blind squirrel theory (Score:1)
He's going to lose money on that job.
Re: Blind squirrel theory (Score:1)
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He's going to lose money on that job.
He may. I don't know what he pays his help, although he does a lot of the work himself.
I know for sure he's going to lose money on the scratch-off tickets. Perhaps the worst thing to happen to him this year was hitting US$10k on a single ticket, and now he can't stop trying to revive the luck.
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Scour enough garage sales, and you too, might discover a hidden treasure...
An entire series [pbs.org] going on since 1997 to the present is based around that, so it must be viable.
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I always get frustrated at those shows. Because before COVID I would go to garage sales all the time and never find anything close to the good stuff they'd always find. During the 1990's there was a show on A&E where this woman would go to garage sales in Beverly Hills. She bought...
A letter to Madeline Kahn thanking her for being in Young Frankenstein signed by Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman and Peter Boyle. - $25
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Scour enough garage sales, and you too, might discover a hidden treasure...
That's the basis of this guy's living:
https://www.generationcool.net... [generationcool.net]
Also a short run series:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8... [imdb.com]
Conundrum (Score:2)
So if the item is sealed, how do they know what is inside is actually a copy of Legend of Zelda from that era?
Nobody wants to open it to check, because then it's no longer sealed. It would be hilarious if someone a hundred years from now checks... and it's a copy of another game.
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It's Legend, better stood this way.
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Is it? We already have the technology to read rolled up scrolls so why can't they read an unopened box?
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So if the item is sealed, how do they know what is inside is actually a copy of Legend of Zelda from that era?
Nobody wants to open it to check, because then it's no longer sealed. It would be hilarious if someone a hundred years from now checks... and it's a copy of another game.
Schrodinger's Zelda?
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If I remember correctly, there was a window in the box for that game that let you see the cartridge. Rather than the typical grey, the game was a shiny gold color.
Decadence (Score:2)
There's a word for this nonsense: decadence.
An old video game. Nearly a million dollars. What insanity.
Have I Got A Deal For You! (Score:2)
I will sell the NFT to a screenshot of a photo of the game.
First come, first served. $500,000 ono.
Wow. (Score:3)
I coulda bought a house.
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It's worrisome that the tax value of the house is based on speculative market price. Like, what is the town trying to say here? That they want to kick you out and replace you? What is your property tax like relative to your mortgage payment?
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And then you'd have a house.
If this is sealed they've not got a clue if it's even got the game in there. They might have just bought a cardboard box in saran wrap.
The emperor has no cloths (Score:1)
The video game collectables market is a bubble that has been inflated by the grading companies (Wata and VGA) and the maybe 100 people paying crazy prices for these items. The market has been bootstrapped by a few high priced sales of not particularly rare items, justifying even higher prices for the next not that rare thing. The whole thing is as fake as crypto or New York real estate.
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The video game collectables market is a bubble that has been inflated by the grading companies (Wata and VGA) and the maybe 100 people paying crazy prices for these items.
Yeah, but that can't explain the whole thing. There's a surprising number of games fetching multiple-hundred dollar prices now. I actually made [a tiny amount] of money selling my video game collection, since I bought so many of the games used in the first place, and a literal few of them were rare and valuable. A couple games went into the case at the shop where I sold them reserved for the expensive stuff. But none of it was up in the multiple hundreds or thousands, of course, or I'd have posted about it
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The video game collectables market is a bubble that has been inflated by the grading companies (Wata and VGA)
That is why auction houses for rare items take such a large cut. Their primary skillset is to build hype and sell things to people with money.
What's the difference in variants? (Score:2)
I still have a disc! (Score:2)
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Why exactly... (Score:2)
Why exactly should I care about details of the ultra rich trading their turds?
Battery backed RAM? (Score:2)
Didn't this game have a battery-backed ram for save games? At this age, it's probably already leaked all over and destroyed the electronics. So, if anybody actually opens the package and tries to play it, it probably wouldn't work.