A copy of the ultra-rare Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge turned up in a box of traded-in NES games at a used game store in Seattle, Washington.On August 6, Pink Gorilla Games tweeted a picture of the cartridge and “Just traded in! Not joking.” We followed up for the full story from the buyer and Pink Gorilla Games Owner, Cody Spencer:

“The guy came in not knowing at all what the cartridge was worth. He was pretty blown away with the offer. I made sure to explain to him what the item typically sells for and what we would offer him and why… The seller had no idea what it was nor where he got it. It sounds like he collected NES games a little bit when collecting NES games had yet to grow in popularity.”

The Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridges were given to winners of the Nintendo World Championships in (you guessed it) 1990, a touring event that had players compete in popular games. The cartridge itself was used in competition and features a sort of remix of Rad Racer, Super Mario Bros., and Tetris for a single high score. More copies were given away to winners of a Nintendo Power magazine contest.

While the Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge is often reported to have had a limited run of 90 grey cartridges and 26 of those in gold, Pink Gorilla Games Owner and Co-Director of The Video Game History Foundation, Kelsey Lewin, clarifies, “It was originally believed that only 90 copies of the grey cart were made, but as more and more have popped up over the years (somewhere around 75 copies), it’s now believed that several hundred were made with serial numbers as high as 348.”

The Pink Gorilla Games copy was #302 — I say “was,” because as of the publish time of this article, Pink Gorilla confirmed on Twitter it had already sold the cartridge. Spencer adds, “It has sold! Unfortunately, the seller wanted to keep the total private. But it sold for what you’d expect. Not way more, not way less.”

So how much is what we’d expect? Well, Lewin qualifies the Nintendo World Championship 1990 (NWC) cartridge’s ultra-rarity, explaining “NWC is probably the most classic ‘holy grail’ in the game collecting community. The NES had such a ridiculously important impact on the game industry and on pop culture. A lot of people collect for the system for those reasons (and personal reasons) — and NWC is the most expensive ‘attainable’ game.”

Nintendo World Championship 1990 Cartridge #302

Above: Pictures of the NWC cart traded in to Pink Gorilla Games, including the guts, which confirm its authenticity. Photo Credit: Pink Gorilla Games.

It’s hard to pin down an exact value, but previous grey cartridges have sold in the $15,000 to $20,000 range, according to this (unconfirmed) chart of previous auctions. Steve Lin from the Video Game History Foundation pushes this estimate a little bit higher, “I’d say a minimum of [$25,000] nowadays but that’s probably low given the influx of buyers from the comic/card/coin world.”

For the full story on how these cartridges came to exist, check out Frank Cifaldi’s awesome history of the first Nintendo World Championships.

So was this the rarest thing ever to come through Pink Gorilla Games’ doors? Lewin says:

“This is certainly the most expensive! We’ve had some other cool stuff throughout the years, like a complete set of Famicom Mini Game Boy Advance games with promotional collection boxes, a Sharp NES TV, or a complete 64DD Randnet starter kit. We’ve seen other expensive NES games like Little Samson and Bubble Bath Babes a handful of times, too. I never in 100 years expected an NWC cartridge to come through the stores, though.”

We’ll be hearing more about this cartridge along with you this evening, should you tune into Cody Spencer’s live retelling of the story, planned for 9:30 PM on Twitch.tv/Dskoopa.

Check out this video of Steve Lin showing off both his grey and gold cartridges — and other rare Nintendo treasures. It’s pretty incredible.

video loading...

Samuel Claiborn is IGN’s Managing Editor and both fixes and breaks pinball machines in his garage. TCELES B HSUP to follow him @Samuel_IGN on Twitter.



Source link

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here