Up for auction: a legendary gold NES cartridge from 1990
A very rare gold game cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System is up for sale. It is an official cartridge from the 1990 Nintendo World Championships, of which only 26 were produced.
Imagine winning second place in a competition run by the gaming magazine * «* *Nintendo Power*» in 1990. Like the 24 other runners-up and the overall winner, you receive a gold-coloured cartridge for your Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) containing the three games from this year’s Nintendo World Championships, or NWC for short. You might be annoyed that you didn’t win first place, which includes a four-day trip to the NWC finals in Florida in addition to the cartridge.
Even if that must have stung a little: Over time, the runners-up’s disappointment has surely eased as they realised that their prize far exceeds the value of the trip they missed out on. Only 26 of these gold cartridges were produced, making them highly sought-after collector’s items. One of them is currently being auctioned.
Source: Auktionshaus Goldin
The starting bid for the auction was 10,000 US dollars. As I write this article, the price stands at 57,000 US dollars. If the original winner, Patrick King from Wyoming, is still the current owner, he can look forward to a tidy windfall. In 2014, another cartridge from this series was sold for more than $100,000 on eBay.
The 25 gold cartridges were included in the July/August 1990 issue.
The forerunner of e-sports: the 1990 Nintendo World Championships
The NES cartridge, an exclusive NWC game cartridge according to the announcement «» , contains the three games «Super Mario Bros.», «Rad Racer» and «Tetris». These three games were part of the Nintendo World Championships, which attracted a great deal of attention in 1990. This competition took place consecutively in 29 cities across the USA. The players, some of whom were under the age of eleven, demonstrated their speed and skill on stage in front of enthusiastic audiences. The aim was to score as many points as possible in the three games within a set time limit.
The aim of this competition was to crown the best player from among the top finishers in the preliminary rounds in the final. The NWC are now regarded as one of the first e-sports events. Thanks to the NWC, Nintendo’s profile rose enormously. The Nintendo World Championships were held again in 2015 and 2017, but they failed to attract anywhere near as much attention as they did in 1990.
Just a week ago, the game ‘ «: Nintendo World Championships – NES Edition’» was released on the Switch as a tribute to the original. My colleague Domagoj is absolutely thrilled with it:
The original cartridges are rare and valuable
Around 350 cartridges containing the three NWC games were produced under the label «Nintendo World Championships 1990» and used in the competitions. These cartridges are considered the most valuable NES cartridges of all, as they represent a memento of the legendary era of the first NWC for collectors.
The 26 gold-coloured NWC cartridges for the winners of the «Nintendo Power» competition occupy the top spot among these official NWC cartridges due to their even greater scarcity and their distinctive colour. According to the auction description, only an estimated 13 of these cartridges remain; the others are said to have been lost or are defective.
Source: Debora Pape
The cartridge up for auction shows slight signs of wear and the official label is missing. The original packaging is also no longer available. The auction runs until 18 August.
Update: The game ultimately changed hands for 207,400 US dollars.
Feels just as comfortable in front of a gaming PC as she does in a hammock in the garden. Likes the Roman Empire, container ships and science fiction books. Focuses mostly on unearthing news stories about IT and smart products.
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