Score one for eBay, and another for Nintendo fans worldwide. One of the rarest and most valuable Nintendo games ever made was put on the user-controlled auction site recently, Next Web reported. With one day and nine hours left of bidding, the winning amount is currently at $5,500.99. A minimum of $4,999.99 was set on Jan. 18, but for the next five days or so, the item, a cartridge with abridged versions of Super Mario, Tetris, and Rad Racer, went largely unnoticed. As the press has sniffed out its existence, four bids have been placed in the last 24 hours.
Called simply the Nintendo World Championships, it was given out to 90 semifinalists of the 1990 Nintendo competitions in which contestants were tasked with scoring the most points in six minutes of all three games present on the cartridge. (Based on the Wikipedia description, it's unclear if contestants had six mintues to play each game or six minutes combined for all three games.)
Nintendo was probably a little more fan-friendly in those days. The three winners from three age categories (11 and under; 12 through 17; 18 and over) received a $10,000 savings bond, a new Geo Metro convertible, a 40" projection TV, and a gold-painted Mario trophy.
The only Nintendo video game more valuable (several Atari titles sell in the tens of thousands of dollars) is the Nintendo World Championship cartridges given out to the finalists, distinguished by a gold-painted finish rather than the gray of the one currently up for auction.
In the seller's description, he insinuates that the original owner (from whom he presumably acquired the game) didn't know what he had, for the label was torn off and covered with the handwritten description, "Mario."
"Obviously, you'll immediately notice the ripped label," muresan (100 percent positive feedback score), the eBay seller wrote in his product description. "This is quite unfortunate but happened many decades ago by this point in time. No one knows the exact number of this cart (as each NWC cart was individually labeled upon production) as it appears in the upper left-hand corner of the cart label. This is known as the infamous "Mario" NWC cart that someone probably wrote on there long ago not having a clue what they actually had. Still, case in point, this is an authentic, original NWC cart from the championship back in the early 90s. The cart plays just fine and may some day be worth much more if someone decides to investigate a forensics lab's involvement to see if they can determine the official number by running tests on the cart."
According to The Next Web, the last Nintendo World Championships gray cartridge sold for $11,000 at auction, but that one was in better condition. Given that fact, this one will probably top off around its current bid.
The Geo Metro Convertible was a sexy car in 1990. Maybe it still is:
