Eat

Here's another sealed copy of Super Mario Bros that sold for way too much

By Eric Abent/

In the past month, we've seen a string of classic video games sell for ridiculous prices. First was a sealed copy of The Legend of Zelda that sold for $870,000 at auction. Then, a short time later, a sealed copy of Super Mario 64 broke that record to sell for $1.5 million. Now we've seen that record broken once again, with a sealed copy of the original Super Mario Bros. selling for a whopping $2 million.

Unlike the copies of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario 64 that came before it, this copy of Super Mario Bros. wasn't sold at auction. Instead, it was sold by a collectibles site called Rally, which has a more unique way of selling classic games. Rather than host it at an auction, The New York Times reports that Rally first obtained the Wata 9.8-rated sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. for $140,000 and then invited others to invest in shares of the game.

When Rally gets an offer to purchase the game, those who have invested money get to approve or deny the offer. The New York Times reports that investors in this copy of Super Mario Bros. turned down a $300,000 offer to buy it last year, and it's a good thing they did because now a private collector who is "making big bets in the video game space" has purchased it for $2 million.

Rally co-founder Rob Petrozzo told The New York Times that the deal gained the approval of 75% of the game's investors, so it seems that some were holding out for an even larger offer. Petrozzo thinks that this is just the start, too, a sentiment that suggests that we could see sealed classic games net even more money in the future.

We'd be tempted to disagree with him, but considering that these classic games keep fetching higher and higher sale prices, it probably wouldn't be very long before we ate our words. We'll see if anything can top this in the future, and we'll let you know if something manages to.

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