clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Rare Super Mario Bros. game sells for $2M on site that sells ‘shares’ in collectibles

$2M sale bests $1.56M sale of Super Mario 64 in July

Artwork of Mario from the original Super Mario Bros. NES box art Image: Nintendo
Michael McWhertor is a journalist with more than 17 years of experience covering video games, technology, movies, TV, and entertainment.

A rare copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for $2 million on Friday, the highest price ever paid for a single video game, according to an announcement from collectibles website Rally. What makes the sale unique, other than its mind-boggling price, is how it was sold: An anonymous buyer purchased the collectible from Rally, which had sold shares in the copy of the game to investors.

According to a report from The New York Times, the buyer of Super Mario Bros. offered $2 million for the copy — which is factory-sealed, professionally graded, and part of a limited print run — and the sale was approved by shareholders in the NES game. That’s Rally’s business; investors can purchase shares of expensive collectibles, like vintage baseball cards, comic books, cars, and dinosaur skulls, instead of buying them outright. Collectibles that sell at a high price through Rally can result in a return on investment for shareholders. In this case, investors reportedly received a roughly 900% return on their shares.

The $2 million sale of Super Mario Bros. breaks the previous record for a video game collectible, a $1.56 million copy of Super Mario 64 that sold through Heritage Auctions in July. That sale broke the prior record holder nearly twice over; a game cartridge of The Legend of Zelda sold for $870,000 at auction earlier in July.

Despite that there are more than 40 million copies of Super Mario Bros. for the NES and Famicom out in the market, a sealed, highly graded copy of a widely available game can (obviously) go for big bucks. Based on how price trends are going — today’s sale is nearly three times what a similar, but slightly lower-graded copy of Super Mario Bros. went for in April 2021 — expect prices to inflate further.

The next level of puzzles.

Take a break from your day by playing a puzzle or two! We’ve got SpellTower, Typeshift, crosswords, and more.

news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news
news