Retro Gaming Australia

Howard Phillips, largely known for his role as the face of Nintendo of America in the 1980s, put together a rather unique Nintendo World Championships package for sale over the last week. The pack included the 126th Nintendo World Championships cart, Philips’ personal copy, his original all access badge, a press kit for the event and a signed certificate of authenticity.

The package was listed on eBay for $US7,500.00 and wound up selling for $17,367.00.

Phillips stated in the auction that he hoped the package would go to an enthusiast, rather than a reseller. We’ll just have to wait and see if that is the case.

The Gold Nintendo World Championships 1990 cartridge is considered by many to be the holy grail of video game collecting – like our equivalent to Action Comics #1 (the first Superman comic, now worth a cool million). Just 26 of them exist, which were given away as prizes in a Nintendo Power contest. The last verified sale was to the tone of $US18,000.

Today one of these rare beauties appeared on eBay with a starting price of $US27,000. The difference? It was graded by the Video Game Authority, a group of self-proclaimed experts who will appraise the quality of your games and assign them a score out of 100 for a nominal fee. The grading, regardless of your stance, is not the issue here. It’s something else entirely.

This cartridge was disassembled for display.

Is it not the purpose of having these sorts of things graded to keep them in pristine condition? The seller elected to have the cartridge displayed in this fashion, which is, honestly, complete lunacy.