My Thoughts On The Sale Of The $100,150 Super Mario Bros. Nintendo Game

March 22, 2019

On Feb. 6, Heritage Auctions sold a rare first-release, factory-sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (known as the NES) for $100,150. The copy sold was a sticker-sealed edition that was first released when the original Nintendo system was test marketed in New York and Los Angeles in 1985, prior to its national launch. The game was graded by WATA games in 9.4 condition. The day after the sale, my email was brewing with questions asking what my thoughts were on the sale. Rather than address all the questions I got individually, I decided to write this article instead.
Before we get to my thoughts on the actual sale and what it means for the hobby of collecting vintage (and modern) video games, we have to take a look back as to how we got here. I received my Nintendo Entertainment System when I was 11 years old. Up until this point, I was an avid video and computer game enthusiast. I was lucky enough to own an Atari 2600 home video game system and an Apple IIc home computer. Both were readily used for games. I spent countless hours captivated by the electronic worlds they created. When the original Nintendo launched in 1985 with little fanfare, I was 9. By early 1987, the NES was everywhere. Nintendo knew how to advertise, and both the games and graphics on the original Nintendo were incredible compared to anything at the time. By the age of 12, I was an avid Nintendo fan. Video games would come to define the next decade of my life in some form or another. It was also during this time that I was a collector of comic books, coins, and toys. Vintage video games were becoming serious collectibles, so at the age of 19, I started buying and selling vintage video games on eBay. By this time, I had a massive personal collection of games spanning across almost every home video game system ever made, but there was always something special about each and every Nintendo system ever created. The games were just magical.
Fast forward to 2005, and the vintage video game market had been transformed. Pre-Nintendo video games and systems such as Atari, Colecovision, and Intellivision were falling in price and popularity. The speculative markets that ushered in these items as serious collectibles was fading. Nintendo and post-Nintendo systems from the likes of Sega, NEC, and SNK were skyrocketing in price. By 2012, it would be clear that the future of vintage video games was Nintendo and later. Nintendo was able to do what most other video game hardware manufacturers could not: It created steady and popular franchises that are still relevant today. Unlike other hardware manufacturers that have adopted digital media, Nintendo has been slow to do so, instead releasing incredible limited collector’s editions of some of its most popular games. Its most recent video game system, aptly named the Nintendo Switch, is a hybrid of a portable and home system with games being contained on micro mini cartridges packaged in beautiful sturdy hard plastic cases. Nintendo continues to innovate and has captured multiple generations of hardcore fans and enthusiasts.
My commentary on this sale would not be complete without giving readers an understanding of third-party grading as it applies to the video game marketplace. There are currently two different companies that certify and grade video games. The first is well-known: VGA (Video Game Authority). It has been around for several years and grades video games and hardware on a basic 0 through 100 grading system that increases on scale in 5-point increments. This is the same scale used by AFA (Action Figure Authority) in the toy grading market, because both AFA and VGA are part of the same company.
The second video game grading company is a newcomer to the scene. WATA Games was created within the last year, and to create even more confusion in the marketplace, rather than use VGA’s 0 to 100 grading system, WATA Games uses a 0 to 10 grading scale that borrows elements from the graded comic book industry grading system. For instance, a solid near-mint game under WATA standards is 9.4. On VGA’s grading scale, near-mint starts at a grade of 85. This dual grading discrepancy will continue to create chaos and confusion in the market for years to come. Imagine if PCGS and NGC, two top-tier coin grading companies, used different grading scales to grade coins. The end result would be utter confusion and an uncertain marketplace.
So what are my thoughts on the sale of the $100,150 Super Mario Bros. game? First, a lot of the articles surrounding the sale seem to exclude the fact that the game was bought by several collectors and investors in the industry and not just one person. This is important because one of the buyers was Jim Halperin himself, who started Heritage Auctions and whose firm sold the game. Collectors should be careful over how much weight they place on this sale. A lot of speculators are incorrectly equating brand-new modern video games as investments as a result of interest in the vintage market. This is a miscalculation on their part, and there is no justification to even think that the hobby of vintage video games will become as high profile as numismatics has or even be on par with sports card collecting. This sale tells us none of that, and should excite owners of factory-sealed vintage video games, but few others. Nintendo is a behemoth that created an industry of nostalgic franchises. As a result, it should come as no surprise that its products, vintage or modern, are being sought after. What should cause caution is how much money speculators pour into vintage video games chasing gains that may or may not ever materialize. In fact, I would caution that most long-term collectors take a logical wait-and-see attitude before spending thousands of dollars on factory-sealed and graded vintage video games. Whether a long-term trend emerges here based on this one inside sale is not guaranteed. Rather, it is much more feasible that a speculator’s market develops instead. I also want to add that both VGA and WATA Games appear to be very reputable companies. That said, collectors may wish to question how much emphasis they place on certified video games while two completely different grading systems exist in the market. I urge collectors to simply buy what they love and not go into debt or spend more than they can afford chasing speculative dreams of nostalgia. If you take that advice, you can never go wrong. So my advice? Ignore this sale. In the grand scheme of things, it means very little.

 

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