Super Mario Bros. 3 Sold for $156,000. Here’s why.
Who would have thought that the stuff we played with as kids would be worth so much today? Makes us wish we hadn't destroyed our G.I. Joes as they battled the Transformers. Now we've seen another record set in the worth of rare video games. This time with Super Mario Bros. 3 selling for $156,000 at a recent auction.
Back in July, a copy of the original Super Mario Bros. sold for $114,000, setting a record for video game worth. Of course there were all kinds of factors in the game getting such a price, it was sealed, graded at a 9.4 and it had a hang tab, which only ten copies exist with it.
A new record has now been set with a copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 selling for $156,000 at Heritage Auctions. There are special reasons it sold for this amount of money. Number one, it is sealed. Number two, it has been graded by WATA at a 9.2. Number three, on the cover of the box, the "Bros" is aligned to the left on top of Mario's glove. This is a super rare misprint.
That's not to say that a sealed and graded copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 couldn't score a nice price at auction, just not $156,000 nice. According to Kotaku, a sealed and graded copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 that had the "Bros" in the correct position on the box sold for $21,600.
I've got a decent collection of games for my original Nintendo at home, but nothing anywhere near these prices. Here's to hoping I find something in mom and dad's closet sometime.