
Update [Tue 9th Apr, 2024 11:10 BST]: A flurry of sealed NES titles have sold for high prices online recently, and the person who purchased a mint Castlevania has revealed the purchase was motivated by nostalgic reasons (thanks, GamesRadar).
In a post on Instagram, buyer Tom Curtin (minus_worlds) explains why he (and another childhood friend) stumped up $90,100 for the game – which is the most any video game has sold for on eBay:
The search is over after 23 years. I resigned to never being able to add this grail after years of searching. But, everything just came together for a childhood friend and I this week as we were able to obtain this absolute beauty. This was the first game my mom ever bought me. I still remember the phone call we made to buy it. It’s a core memory, as is this past week. Couple more plane rides to go but this beautiful first print hangtab Castlevania is almost home. Thanks to all for their support, especially @the1uppedcollection for her support throughout the week and for @grailmonster for his graciousness in defeat in our battle over this amazing, historical, piece.
Curtin mentions Grailmonster, the other high bidder in the action. Grailmonster posted their own message on Instagram, saying that Curtin "deserved it wayyy more than me" and claiming that the game could easily be sold for $250,000 if it was put up for sale again.
Original Story [Sun 7th Apr, 2024 20:05 BST]: A selection of sealed NES games has just sold for incredible prices on eBay, with one example – Castlevania – fetching more than $90,000.
The auctions were spotted by Digital Eclipse staffer Chris Kohler, who noted that the origin of the games appeared to be an estate sale in Dallas, Texas.
"So there was a minor happening in the collecting world over the last couple of weeks," Kohler says. "Seems like a couple people hit the jackpot at an estate sale in the Dallas area and came away with some unbelievable sealed games that sold for massive prices."
Castlevania sold for a staggering $90,100 – "literally the highest-priced game ever sold on eBay," says Kohler – while Kid Icarus went for an almost-as-high total of $81,988.36.
BurgerTime – which, according to Kohler, "is one of the hardest NES games to find sealed in its original hangtab printing" – sold for $11,377.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 17
Imagine spending nearly a million on games you can play on modern systems for 20 dollars MAX.
I’m not really sure that the buyers “hit the jackpot” at those ridiculous prices. The estate likely did, but certainly not the buyers.
@GravyThief My read of it is that they likely got a really good deal at the estate sale and then turned around and sold them as reported here. In that case, the original buyers did hit a jackpot. The final buyers, not so much, but they're probably happy all the same.
Insane. I can only assume the person(s) buying these figure their money is going to start evaporating the way they tossed that much cash at a game.
@sdelfin Correct, the article states that the folks who bought the games at the estate sale, turned around and resold them on eBay, as shown in the pictures in the story here.
I love the accusations of money laundering every time this comes up like people aren't spending millions on pokemon cards, and stuff like that all the time. Money laundering happens of course, but really our civilization has lost it's grip on reality.
Sure it's a true gem to find games that are 40-ish years old sealed. But paying such amounts for them, I wonder if the people buying them are really collectors, or just so rich they don't know what to do with their money. What a world.
Karl Jobst did an amazing investigative job documenting the scam that is high priced sealed games:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvLFEh7V18A
My guess, since these were not Wata graded yet, is they were bought by Wata staff or speculative investors, will be graded as 9.8 shortly, and then in 6 months will be auction by Heritage Auctions for 2 or 3 million.
Every time you see a silly high priced auction - think of Jobst's documentary.
The whole scene is a lie. I started investigating this myself, getting speculative investors to admit to it, and then I was like: screw this, just now I end up on someone's hit list.
Just trust in Jobst. Guy is putting his life on the line challenging this mafia.
@PinballBuzzbro My thoughts. You like the game so much, get a poster or some art work of your favorite games.
@PinballBuzzbro *nearly a tenth of a million
What I don't quite understand is the sentiment behind this purchase. If the core memory is of the copy their mum bought for them, then surely that original copy from years ago is worth infinitely more to them than this unrelated sealed version ever would be?
You could have bought a loose or even boxed copy of Castlevania for so much less. That would be fine for me and countless others.
@Sketcz Yes, but those sealed WATA investors/speculators just want people to see video games as art and not toys. It's not about the value. I'm being sarcastic of course.
Yes yes the only way to remember your mother buying you Castlevania is to spend 90,000 on a collector's item which by definition will never ever get played. It's surely the only copy of Castlevania available anywhere; without this you might as well forget she ever existed.
Honestly I don't care too much about these speculators but dressing it up with such an obviously fake story for "scene cred" is just distasteful.
I guess to be fair, perhaps when he was 9 years old his mother took him down to Heritage Auctions and bought him a $90000 copy sealed in plastic and it's me who is being distasteful.
@Sketcz Thanks for the link! Was unaware of this guy until now.
Interesting to me is the ‘Fedco’ price sticker. I had never heard of before. Turns out was membership department store chain only located in southern Calif that went defunct in 1999.
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