A “holy grail” copy of Super Mario Bros. has sold for $3m

A rare copy of Super Mario Bros. has been sold at auction for a record-breaking $3m USD.

Sold by Heritage Auctions last Friday, this particular version of Super Mario Bros. was rated 9.6 A++ by grading company PSA and beat a prior Super Mario Bros. auction record of $2m established back in 2021.

Why is it so expensive? Well, this copy of Super Mario Bros. is something of a “holy grail” for video game collectors, according to the Heritage Foundation’s description. It was discovered in a Control Deck NES Bundle, and had been untouched for around 40 years. The auction winner also takes home the Control Deck NES bundle it was found in – a nice little bonus for the wealthy anonymous collector.

Additionally, this copy of Super Mario Bros. is itself a special variant of the retro classic. It was manufactured as part of the game’s second production run, which means a very specific gloss sticker is present on the box.

“This specific variant has never appeared in a public auction in sealed condition, underscoring just how elusive it is,” Heritage Foundation explained in its auction description. “The closest parallel is the widely publicized 2019 private sale of the WATA 9.4 A++ second-production copy, a landmark transaction that became the first six-figure video game sale and permanently shifted perceptions of what historically important games could command.

“That moment didn’t create the scarcity – it revealed it, bringing mainstream attention to how few early sealed copies truly exist, and how extraordinarily seldom a certified gloss sticker second-production example surfaces at all. With just three confirmed, chances to acquire one are extremely rare.”

PSA, the rating company that assigned this copy of Super Mario Bros its 9.6 A++, took over video game ratings from subsidiary WATA last year. WATA’s founder was accused of breaking company rules by selling graded stock in 2022, and the company has been criticised over the years as Wata-rated games have sold via its auction partner, Heritage Auctions, for increasingly large amounts.

The two companies’ histories are intertwined. Heritage Auctions co-founder James Halperin – who was fined $1.2m for fraud back in 2004 – was a previous WATA investor and advisory board member, and Haspel has known Halperin for a number of years.

A string of increasingly expensive auctioned games have been sold by Heritage Auctions over the years. A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. rated 9.4 by WATA sold for $114k in 2020, then in 2022 a sealed 9.6 WATA-rated copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for an eyebrow-raising $660k.