Jul 24, 2024 14:00:00

One of only 26 Famicom cartridges in the world to be auctioned

A rare game cartridge that was given away to readers of

Nintendo Power , a North American gaming magazine published by Nintendo of America, has been put up for auction. At the time of writing, there were 24 bids, with the highest bid being $130,000 (approximately 20 million yen).

1990 NES Nintendo Gold World Championships Gold Cartridge (USA) - Missing Label - CGC 4.0 on Goldin Auctions
https://goldin.co/item/1990-nes-nintendo-gold-world-championships-missing-cartridge-usa-cartrwlodh

One of 26 rare NES gold cartridges goes up for auction today - The Verge

https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/22/24203796/nintendo-nes-gaming-auction-rare-gold-cartridge-world-championships

In 1990, the Nintendo World Championship tour was held to determine the best gamer in the United States, and hundreds of NES cartridges were produced for the tour. Each cartridge had a special physical switch that allowed players to change the time limit of the game, and players competed for the highest score on time-limited versions of 'Super Mario Bros.', 'Tetris' and 'Highway Star.'

While most of these cartridges were the standard gray color, 26 of them were decorated in shiny gold and given away to winners of a Player Vote Contest in Nintendo Power magazine that same year. The cartridge up for auction is one of these 26.

According to the auction house Goldin, the cartridge was given to Patrick King of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and King's name can be seen in

Volume 18 of Nintendo Power . The donor was King himself.

These cartridges were not distributed in packaging and appear to be worn and missing labels, which is why they have only been graded 4.0 out of a possible 10 by the well-known CGC.

One of the 26 pieces was sold on eBay in 2014 for about $100,000 (about 10.15 million yen at the time).